Not Larry Sabato

Tom Gear Resigns

Bearing Drift has the news here.

There's got to be something else going on here- why would a Delegate resign right before the General Assembly session started?

Good luck to Delegate Gear with whatever is going on.

UPDATE:  WaPo has more.

Rob Krupicka's Election Eve Disaster

People are expecting an open Senate seat this year in the 30th District currently held by Patsy Ticer.  The candidates already positioning themselves for a run are Delegate Adam Ebbin, Alexandria Councilman Rob Krupicka and Arlington School Board Chairman Libby Garvey.

But on the eve of the biggest race of his political career, Krupicka's service on the State Board of Education is coming under national attention. 

Virginia's textbook scandal began last year when a parent in Williamsburg picked up a number of errors in her child's textbook.  Now the report on our textbooks is out- and it's much worse than expected.  Ouch.

But unfortunately for Krupicka it gets a lot worse than poor oversight from the State Board of Education he serves on.  The factual errors are actually in official state documents approved by the Board of Education while Krupicka served on this board. 

As Daily Kos first pointed out yesterday: "The official position of the commonwealth's Department of Education is that while slavery was one of the four issues that divided the nation before the Civil War, the war itself was primarily a matter of states' rights".

So does Rob Krupicka deserve a promotion to the State Senate after this massive scandal involving the oversight of the State Board of Education?  Or do Democrats need a Senator from Alexandria who thinks the Civil War was a "states rights" issue?

UPDATE:  Krupicka just told me on Facebook that "I think its clear that slavery was the primary driver of the civil war. You just have to read the statements by the states that broke off from the union to know that."  So why is that not the position of the State Board of Education- and has anyone paid enough attention to attempt to change that?  Talk is cheap, and it is absolutely unacceptable that this is the official state policy in Virginia.  It shouldn't take a national scandal to get our facts right- isn't that why we have the State Board of Education?

Randy Forbes Gripes About The Smithsonian

Missed this one last week.  Nice to see Virginia Republicans are focusing on the important issues to their constituents like jobs.  Not.

Huh?

Why would Joe Morrissey introduce a bill to confirm a right already given to the National Guard by President Obama and the Congress last week?  Where was his bill when this could have actually mattered last year?

Media Whore.

Redistricting Coming Soon

Thanks to everyone for not complaining when I took the last week off for a vacation!

Virginia is getting ready for a redistricting this year, and the political class is already buzzing about who will have seats, where there will be new seats, and all the other chatter that comes with this process.  What I've noticed though is many of the legislators on both sides of the aisle view redistricting through the prism of their current seats (i.e. what precincts will change in their own district and neighboring districts) and not though the statewide process.  This has led to a number of misconceptions about what is possible in the process and I'm going to try to clear some of them up here.

There's essentially going to be three different redistricting processes for the House of Delegates, State Senate and Congressional lines. 

The first process will focus on the areas around Richmond and Hampton Roads where there is a large African American population.  The redistricting in these districts is guided around the Voting Rights Act (VRA) which was written to protect the political interests of African Americans in southern states.  But there is a big twist this year with the VRA.  The VRA requires the United States Justice Department to provide "pre-clearance" on redistricting plans- and in each redistricting since the VRA was passed (1971/Nixon, 1981/Reagan, 1991/Bush, 2001/Bush) Republicans have controlled the White House and Justice Department.  Now with Democrats in control of this process, it is likely that the Justice Department will be looking much more carefully at parts of the VRA that benefit the Democratic Party in these redistrictings.  In addition, many states saw their entire legislatures/Governorships flip to Republican control in this last election, so the Justice Department will be the only thing standing between those Republican controlled states and the final lines.  Why does this matter for Virginia?  As the first state to redistrict in time for the 2011 elections the Justice Department will be making its first rulings right here- and every state that is entirely Republican controlled will be comparing their lines to what happened in Virginia if the Justice Department approves ours and tries to reject theirs when they litigate.  This means the DOJ will be giving everything in the Virginia package an extra careful look before it is pre-approved. 

The second process will be redistricting western Virginia and other rural pockets in the state.  This is the easiest process to do as the VRA won't really apply to how the legislature chooses to draw these districts- and there are very few areas outside of Charlottesville and the City of Roanoke where strong Democratic districts could be drawn even if the legislature wanted to do so.  With population growing in many of these communities at a slower pace than the rest of the state a couple districts will need to be eliminated in the House of Delegates and probably at least one in the State Senate. 

Finally, the third process will involve redistricting Northern Virginia.  Northern Virginia is the hardest area of the state to gerrymander because of the similarity between neighboring precincts.  While other areas of Virginia have 80% Democratic precincts that sit near 80% Republican precincts, that generally is not the case in NoVA (with the exception of Rt. 1).  The lines already are drawn favorably to the GOP in NoVA and it really didn't do much for them in the last 10 years when they lost nine House seats, four Senate seats and one Congressional seat at some point this decade that they controlled in the last redistricting.

One of the keys to NoVA redistricting is the direction that districts go.  Democrats generally want long districts going east/west in the eastern part of NoVA, while they want north/south districts in the outer suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William.  Republicans want the opposite of east/west districts in the western part of NoVA, while looking for north/south districts on the eastern side.

Now that everyone understands these basic redistricting rules above we will dive in a little deeper tomorrow and start discussing some various scenarios that the computers may suggest to legislative leaders that might surprise them!

NBC News Special Report Featuring Brian Moran

Thanks to Paul Goldman for catching this. Heckuva job central committee!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Increase The Size Of The House of Delegates?

I love this idea from Kenton.

Webb And Warner Vote For DREAM Act and DADT Repeal

Cue the right wing meltdown in Virginia.

For the next 3 days only, our special platinum constellation casket is priced at only $4,999.95...

Channel 7 in New York City Covers Virginia Gun Laws

Why can't the Virginia media ever do work like this?  Toughest questions to pin down Bob McDonnell have to come from New York?