Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

More than a dozen Virginia legislators, including the long-serving Senate Republican Leader Tommy Norment, have recently ruled out seeking re-election this year under maps overhauled during the latest redistricting cycle.

Democratic Del. Lamont Bagby defeated two opponents in a firehouse primary Sunday to advance to a March special general election for the blue-leaning, Richmond-based 9th Senate District of Virginia against GOP nominee Stephen Imholt.

The politically divided Virginia General Assembly worked through dozens of pieces of legislation, including a major energy bill and stop-gap budget bill, on Saturday as lawmakers reached the end of their regularly scheduled session without a deal on the entire state spending plan.

As Virginia lawmakers near the end of a short legislative session marked by partisan debates over guns, abortion and other contentious issues, they are also running behind on efforts to come to an agreement on the state budget.

The family of a nuclear physicist who died by suicide in a Virginia jail is suing the U.S. government after his psychotropic medicine was discontinued and he was denied admission to a federal medical prison.

Organized retail theft is a financial problem for businesses and a crime trend that police and lawmakers want to stop. In Virginia, where a state report found that approximately $1.3 billion in merchandise is stolen this way annually, state lawmakers approved legislation Feb. 24 that will make organized retail theft a felony and make those convicted of the crime eligible for prison sentences of up to 20 years.

Dick Saslaw, the acerbic, influential, business-friendly Democratic majority leader of the Virginia Senate, announced plans to retire, saying he is proud of the legacy he will leave behind as his nearly five decades in state politics come to a close.

A special election has been set for March 28 to fill the vacancy in the Virginia Senate created by Richmond Democrat Jennifer McClellan's election to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the political parties have just days to choose their nominees.

Virginia voters elected Democrat Jennifer McClellan, a veteran state legislator from Richmond, to fill an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she will make history as the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.

Detectives in the Virginia city where a 6-year-old shot his teacher have finished their criminal investigation and turned it over to the local prosecutor's office for review, the police chief for Newport News said.