The Governor has set April 11th as the date for the General Assembly to reconvene and hammer out a compromise between the House of Delegates and the Senate on the budget. From the Washington Post,
“Virginians sent us to Richmond to work together to make life better for every family, no matter who they are or where they live,” said Northam, who won office last year on a promise to expand the program. “We can live up to that responsibility by passing a budget that expands health care to hundreds of thousands of Virginians who need it.”
The Governor seems unaware that no one in Virginia is denied health care. The only question is who pays for it.
Setting the date a month out tells me the Governor and Speaker Cox don’t yet have the votes to expand Medicaid. They only need one Republican in the Senate to vote with the Democrats. Speculation is Emmett Hanger may be the one to flip and vote with the Democrats, the Governor and Speaker Kirk Cox. No surprise.
More here.
10 comments
Just say no to expansion! Shut the state down if you need to because this will be a huge financial drain and a lurch to the left. A lose-lose.
And yet we have so many in the HOD supporting it, including the Speaker. It’s infuriating.
Noted, tracked, remembered.
Has our General Assembly placed a budget in front of our Governor to sign or veto?
To bad we can’t hold campaign and PAC donations in escrow until they (the General Assembly) do their job.
Assuming that Jeanine is correct, let’s hope someone primaries Hanger in 2019
Or better yet, a convention of only Republicans meeting to select our nominees. But, if we decline to file a candidate at all… that’ll show them! Worked in the HOD contests right?
R’s might be shooting shooting themselves in the face with a convention.
It tells me that you don’t want me to choose, so if my current opputunity to choose is taken then why bother in the General ?
I really don’t want to be voting for the Ed Gillespies and Mitt Romneys or Rick Boyers, I won’t.
I *only* cast in Republican Primaries that is where my heart and values are but as example;
This past November I loyally colored in for *Vogel* and ***Adams*** but not
Gillespie ¡ or my local yocal Campbell County BOS Rousseau.
Won’t Republicans be missing my Conservative Independent Vote?
I am not the only one either and when looking for small percentages to win R’s might possibly never win in Virginia again.
Don’t Republicans want and need votes outside of their bubble?
I Pledge Allegiance to America not a party.
Shouldn’t every Republican Rep and those on this site have a pledge of loyalty to *my* President Trump?
Open primaries simply make no political sense beyond preserving power and position for our dueling swamps.
Our Conventions make no political sense when they are glorified fundraising mass meetings that water down debate, influence, and preserve the party’s ruling elite.
Our Canvas’ make no political sense because ‘they’re too hard, involve maths, and we’d actually have to do work.’ Besides, they happen every blood harvest super moon and then Comstock wins with more than all the other candidates put together.
It is the job of the party to figure out the best qualified nominee for the electorate and then support them.
It is not the job of Joe Voter to vote twice, once to select the nominee and then again to elect. We are not giving the electorate a qualified choice, we are saying “We don’t know what the hell we are doing, you pick from these guys who were vetted by stroking a check or gathering a bunch of John Hancocks (“not to support, just to put him on the ballot”)
If the party is not going to do everything possible to come up with the BEST qualified candidate, what the heck are we doing at these sparsely packed and boring meetings?
You want to pick our nominee? Get into and get involved with the Republican Party, otherwise you may have your (single) choice in November.
If the results of our best and brightest political minds and operations is the last 10 races demonstrating our astronomical levels of suck, then we don’t deserve to win… surprise, the electorate is always right.
However, if we didn’t have a candidate superior to the democrat, well then we just wouldn’t run them and then you’d have 27 unchallenged races and then…. oh, wait a minute… never mind.
I like Joe the average voter.
I would like to stay in the tall grass with Joe always involved and participating with an overseeing eye.
We can’t have the average politician making policy that effects Joe the Plumber if so we always be stuck with the Obamaesque politician with income redistribution from the average man , like myself.
Slick tounges are used just to grease my pocket while lifting my wallet.
That’s the ultimate goal, but by having two elections, it reduces the contrast between the candidates and allows the swampies to play both ends of the party process.
The choice for Joe voter should be crystal clear, and their vote should be unambiguous.
The parties should fully vet the nominees in a party process, by party people, who share party objectives.
Open primaries are simply a roundabout way to water down our Republic into a ‘eurostyle’ plurality.
Open primaries allow the powers that be to maintain and consolidate power while preventing viable alternatives (cf Tea Party, Libetarians, OFA, Consultants, Lobbyists, corporate and global interests — RACO’s — Republicans As COnvenient)
Ever notice how our ‘statesmen’ are forced to become political whores by our very system? Our RPV is led by a powerless Chair, supported by a multiscore do-nothing board, propped up by empty units and a Potemkin GOP elite — the democrat party are even farther down this rathole.
Witness the ‘field’ staff of the RNC, RPV, AFP, ETC all parachuting in to ‘help’ us.
Watch your local parties go the way of your local charities, organizations, and service clubs — Red Cross, Local papers, Chamber of Commerce, Boy and Girl Scouts —“ don’t worry Indy, it’s being nationally taken care of by ‘Top Men.”
That’s OK, we’re told that we can help online — social media that can be and is being curated, censored, shilled, trolled, and monitored.
President Trump, like President Reagan, has thrown some ice into the pot, what will us frogs do as the water is still getting hot?