Recent Virginia governors have made strong progress in reforming laws regarding the restitution of voting rights for felons and ex-felons. But the denial of voting rights for people with felony convictions in Virginia and other states still disproportionately affects black citizens.
Felon disenfranchisement’s long history can be traced to 19th century attempts to undercut the voting strength of African Americans, according to the article by civil rights history scholar Helen A. Gibson. She received her M.A. in American history, culture and society at the University of Munich with her recent thesis on “The Role of Race in the History of Felon Disenfranchisement in Virginia.”  She received her B.A. in American studies at the University of Virginia.
Gibson writes that Virginia has had one of the most discriminatory records for denying voting rights to felons and ex-felons until recently.  But key steps by recent governors have made the path to restoration of rights smoother, she adds. The state’s current disenfranchised population numbers approximately 450,000 of its 6.4 million voting-age residents, and its felon disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect black citizens, the article shows. As of 2010, over 20 percent of the state’s voting-age African American population could not vote as a result of a felony conviction, and nearly 7 percent of the state’s total population 18 and older was disenfranchised.

By large margins, Virginians don’t like the idea of politicians creating their own legislative districts. The once-a-decade exercise known as redistricting, which next rolls around in 2021, is a powerful tool for lawmakers to keep themselves and their party in office. When a district is obviously drawn just for that purpose, the process is known as gerrymandering.
This article, written by Benjamin M. Harris, a 2014 graduate from the University of Mary Washington (UMW) with a B.A. in political science and Stephen J. Farnsworth, a UMW professor of political science, points out that efforts at reform are now under way in Virginia. A key one is a bipartisan group named “OneVirginia2021.” The group hopes to inspire a statewide dialogue about gerrymandering well in advance of the next redistricting in 2021. Another group advocating reform is the Virginia Redistricting Coalition.
The article examines in detail the efforts by Iowa, Arizona, and California to reform their redistricting processes.
Virginia’s method of redistricting is more difficult than in many states because it is codified in Article II, Section 6 of its constitution, which states that districts of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the General Assembly will be drawn by the General Assembly. “As such, any long-lasting changes to Virginia’s redistricting system must be passed through constitutional amendment,” Harris and Farnsworth write.

Dental health across the U.S. has improved steadily in recent years and most Virginians receive more frequent preventive care than the national average. But some segments of Virginia’s population have clearly been left behind in access to dental care, according to the authors, Terance Rephann and Tanya Wanchek.
Virginia has made some notable progress in improving care, and in some public policy areas such as low-income children's access and utilization, the state compares very favorably with best practices, the authors write. However, the state draws only an average "C" rating from oral health monitoring organizations.
For uninsured patients, hospital emergency room care is the only regularly available recourse for painful oral infections and trauma.
Virginia offers very limited dental services to its adults for two reasons.  First, the state Medicaid eligibility rules for adults are fairly stringent and exclude some categories of low-income individuals who would be covered in other states.  Second, Medicaid-eligible adults are generally offered only emergency services.
There is considerable evidence that improvements in oral health in underserved populations could be achieved by expanding the services offered by dental professionals other than dentists.
Rephann and Wanchek observe, "In particular, allowing hygienists to offer fluoride varnish and routine cleaning without supervision by a dentist has the potential to generate significant health improvements at low cost."  They conclude, "New models for providing dental care to needy and underserved populations should be strongly considered, as well as expanding the use of hygienists and other health professionals to make dental care more widely available to all Virginians."

The American public is ready for a passenger rail renaissance. Virginia, among the states proving that point with enthusiastic ridership, has the potential to create an outstanding intercity rail network reaching most of its citizens. That is the hopeful conclusion of a longtime rail analyst-advocate and former government official, Meredith Richards.
Virginia can create a versatile and efficient passenger rail network that brings convenient intercity rail access to at least 70 percent of its citizens, including the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia, Richards says. In her vision, high-speed rail lines could connect Virginians easily to the Southeastern states and to the already well-served northeast high-speed rail corridor. Commuter rail could be operating smoothly in all the state's major metropolitan areas.
But to do this will require strong public investment and the resolution of chronic problems of longtime neglect that threaten to prevent passenger rail from reaching its full potential, she says. Her article offers a detailed analysis of the steady decline of passenger rail over the previous half-century as a result of policy decisions favoring highways.
To lay out goals for a strong Virginia passenger rail system and build upon the achieved recommendations of the 2004 Warner Commission report, Richards advocates convening a statewide stakeholder task force representing rail advocates, environmentalists, local governments, colleges and universities, businesses and economic development groups, tourism and national security agencies.
 

Richard Salmon, an authority on public school finance and a longtime professor at Virginia Tech, provides a detailed account of the history and current status of financing Virginia's public school system.  The system, a vast and complex arrangement, is the most significant cost to local governments and one of the largest costs to state government.  Meeting K-12 education needs has become even more difficult as the state and nation continue to struggle with the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
According to Salmon, school funding is modestly stronger today than in its neglectful and often-troubled past, but the state ranks among the lowest in the country in "fiscal effort" for education based on personal income of its citizens.  Virginia is a relatively high-income state yet there are severe funding disparities among school divisions with the least affluent localities suffering the most.
In today's harsh economic climate, school divisions have looked carefully for the most efficient ways to operate and they will feel an even tighter pinch when the current infusion of federal stimulus funding is withdrawn.  "The easy budget reductions have already been made by both state and local governments."  The only solution eventually may be to consider a tax increase if public education is to be maintained even at its current most basic level.
In Salmon's opinion, "A substantial part of the current crisis is due to the fiscal decisions made by previous administrations, General Assemblies and many local governing bodies.  It is unfortunate that long-term tax policy often has been based on highly energized national, state and local economices that inevitably forces reexamination of policy during the most difficult times."

What do school children need to learn, how do they learn best, and who should decide? This is the substance of a long-running debate in Virginia, with a new movement under way led by the National Governors Association to set rigorous national standards for learning math and English. 

Virginia's struggle to set history and social studies standards over the last fifteen years offers an informative lesson in the complicated process of setting SOLs at the state level-and how teachers and students have learned to adapt to them, according to van Hover, Hicks and Stoddard.

The state moved to the forefront of the curriculum standards movement in the 1990s under Republican Governor George Allen, who initiated a standards-based program. As part of this program, Virginia revised its social studies standards in a contentious, divisive and politically charged process about what should be included and what students should learn.  The struggle to craft these standards involved ideologies, arguments, negotiations and compromises that ultimately influenced what is being taught and learned in classrooms across the state, as the authors recount the story.

"In Virginia we are now seeing a new landscape emerge, where success as a history and social science teacher is aligned with how well students do on multiple-choice tests. State accreditation of schools rests with how well students do on such tests and teachers know that the content of these tests is clearly laid out." In short, "teachers and their students have figured out how to pass these tests." Important questions and more debates about the direction of state and federal educational policies will again arise, the authors write.  

If political leaders don't move quickly and set aside partisanship and power struggles, Virginia's highways and related quality of life will face "a catastrophe," a former state transportation commissioner warns. Ray D. Pethtel, now director of the Transportation Policy Center at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, predicts increasingly severe congestion, deteriorating roadways, risk of bridge failures and possible loss of the state's AAA bond rating if lawmakers don't act soon to end a long-running funding crisis.
Highway congestion already costs the state severely in several ways, including as a factor in many accidents and fatalities, he writes. With road systems as a key part of state infrastructure, congestion in Virginia's major metropolitan areas is a drag on the economy and quality of life. Compounding the problem is that highway repair and construction costs keep rising, Pethtel adds.
Democratic and Republican leaders agree there is a need for about $1 billion a year in new money for transportation, Pethtel writes. But they can't agree on how to raise the money.
Opposing any new taxes, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed a variety of funding recommendations. Most of them would require legislative approval and considerable public debate, and in the case of tolls on federal interstate roads, Congressional authorization, Pethtel points out. Action on them is not likely to happen quickly, he predicts.
For more immediate action to ease the crisis, Pethtel suggests the General Assembly consider four proposals.  Two would require no tax vote and all could be set to receive bipartisan support, he believes. To help end the partisan impasse, Pethtel advocates that the Transportation Accountability Commission established by the General Assembly set out a strategic plan to find alternate revenue sources for the future.

While the "great recession" of 2007-09 appears to be ending in a technical sense, the worst is yet to come for Virginia's state and local governments. In the 2010-12 biennium, the state budget will experience the full force of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, writes James J. Regimbal Jr., a leading expert on government finance policy. As a result, even more painful changes and severe cuts to state-funded programs will be coming, he warns. Regimbal points out that state finances, already facing sharp reductions, have been shielded by cash balances built up from better days, the deferral of various state obligations and payments, and, most importantly, the receipt of federal stimulus funds. He notes that in the proposed 2010-12 general fund operating budget, the amount needed just to maintain current state services is still at least $3 billion higher than expected revenues.
What options are left for state officials and the next governor? First, says Regimbal, "do everything possible to encourage job creation in Virginia by prioritizing Virginia's investments in education and improvements to our infrastructure. A healthy economy is the only long-term answer to a healthy public sector." Virginia's government is going to continue to get smaller and even core programs are going to be reduced further, he warns. Finally, he says, Virginians will soon have to decide whether their current tax structure and rates "are adequate to sustain a high-quality public education, public safety, health and welfare, and transportation system that Virginians have come to expect."

When tolerance and respect for others are forgotten, Americans are at risk of losing the civic virtues that undergird their very rights, a longtime political observer warns in the current issue of the Virginia News Letter, published online by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
As the nation faces complex issues such as health care reform, a citizenry that is poorly informed about the processes of democracy is a key contributor to this risk, writes political analyst Bob Gibson, executive director of U.Va.’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.
Surveys show that Virginia, with a rapidly changing demographic make-up and many foreign-born residents, is typical of the declining awareness of how government works.  Many students can’t name the three branches of government -- executive, legislative and judicial -- or explain such concepts as separation of powers and check and balances.
Improving civic education in schools and communities is a necessary first step. Lively discussions and debates about rights can often make it a strong exercise for students, Gibson writes. With news media losing readership and viewership and cutting balanced news coverage, “a toxic recipe exists for citizens who know little about government and politics,” adds Gibson, a member of the Virginia Commission on Civics Education charged by the General Assembly to educate the public that democracy requires reasoned debate and good faith negotiation.

Simply enforcing the law doesn't always stop crime. Trying to prevent crime from ever taking place is another key part of public safety. Virginia state and local officials have increasingly used crime prevention as a tool of law enforcement strategy and have established the state as a national leader in the field, according to this analysis by John G. Schuiteman, a public safety expert and former analyst with the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.
Coinciding with that push, crime rates in Virginia have fallen in the last decade and a half. Although it is impossible to know how much of the decline has been due to crime prevention programs, a good case can be made that these have contributed to the drop.
Crime prevention programs have two major problems:  funding has been haphazard and there are no standard measures of effectiveness. Nearly all agencies that use crime prevention techniques do so because at some point they received federal start-up money. And that money waxes and wanes as Congress reacts to crime problems such as drugs, gangs or security threats. (In the current proposed federal economic stimulus package, for example, there are new competitive grants for programs for reducing violent crime.) The problem of measuring success is partly due to the relative newness of the field and lack of standardized information.
The author concludes, "This important but constantly evolving field deserves the full attention of our citizens and policymakers."