While Session is only just underway, having been gaveled in at noon on Wednesday, January 8th, Richmond is busier than ever. A change in majority in both the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate has brought about office moves, changes to Committees and changes to leadership. While we are still in E609 in the Pocahontas Building adjacent to the Capitol, there have been changes to my Committee assignments. I have been appointed Chairman of the Local Government Committee and will continue to serve on the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources and Education and Health Committees. I have also been appointed to serve on the Commerce and Labor Committee and the Rules Committee. In addition, I will serve as Chairman of the Health Subcommittee in Education and Health and serve on the Joint Rules Committee, which is a bipartisan subset of both the Senate and House Rules Committees.
In addition to my Committee assignments, I am carrying thirty Bills and several Budget amendments. While I’m certain this will mean a very busy 2020 Session, I am looking forward to the added responsibilities, as they enable me to better serve the needs and priorities of the Sixth Senate District and the Eastern Shore.
I am carrying several Bills of interest to the Eastern Shore, including one of my top priorities: Cost of Compete Funding for Northampton and Accomack Counties. Without this funding in coming years, it will be increasingly difficult to compete with Maryland as we work to recruit and retain teachers here on the Shore. The Department of Education and our Fiscal Office are still working on the exact cost for the full implementation of the COCA program, but I have put in a Budget amendment as well as legislation to include both of our public school systems here on the Shore in the Cost of Compete designation originally given to localities in Northern Virginia.
In addition to COCA funding, I have put forth several Budget Amendments to further serve the Shore, as this is a Budget-writing year. My office has submitted a request for $7.3 million in additional funding for the Virginia Waterway Maintenance Fund which, in working with Delegate Bloxom, we established in 2018. In 2019, both Northampton and Accomack Counties were awarded grants from this fund that did not require local matches. These grants enabled both counties to complete the pre-dredge work for King Creek and Quinby Creek, with a goal of completion in July of this year and the intent to submit applications to actually dredge both creeks from July 2020 to July 2021 timeframe. Allocating additional monies to the Virginia Waterway Maintenance Fund will increase the likelihood of more of our navigable small channels and waterways being dredged on a faster timetable. I’ve also submitted a Budget Amendment to increase the current dollar amount allocated to our Riverside Shore Memorial Obstetrics program by $600,000, further enabling our hospital to serve the needs of our community.
I am continuing to work on other major issues pertinent to the Shore through legislation and Committee work, including Broadband infrastructure, the oversight of the menhaden fishery, funding improvements to our public school infrastructure, flooding and resiliency, water quality and affordable housing, among many others. I am looking forward to what I hope is a productive Session for the Eastern Shore and the Commonwealth.
While it is certain to be a busy year, there is nothing better than having visitors from home. We are in Session until Saturday, March 7th and are looking forward to visits from folks from Cape Charles to Chincoteague, and I encourage you to make it to Richmond if you are able. If you can, make sure to call our office ahead of time and our team will do everything we can to make sure I can get a few minutes with anyone making the trek from the Shore to our state Capitol. I also encourage everyone to monitor the activities of the legislature on the General Assembly website VirginiaGeneralAssembly.gov. I can be reached at our legislative email District06@senate.virginia.gov and while in Richmond by telephone at (804) 698-7506. Please do not hesitate to contact me on issues with questions about legislation or on issues of concern.
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Just thinking you gotta go if you vote to usurp my rights for self protection
Agreed! Mr. Lewis’s comments contained NO MENTION of his Party’s Bloomberg-inspired legislation aimed at restricting the Second Amendment rights of Virginians who obey the law (perhaps not his constituency?) Mr. Lewis, you ignore the Elephant in the Room at your peril; remember, you won your first Senate election by nine votes.
To the north of you, there is a move by small towns surrounding the sanctuary city for felons and illegal immigrants that Democratic Socialist tyrant, despot, and military governor of New York Young Andy Cuomo, now that we are in a state of perpetual war, this time with carbon dioxide, an ideal enemy since it is invisible, has established by decree in his capital city of Albany, New York, to declare themselves to be Purple Heart Towns which are sanctuary towns not for Young Andy’s felons and illegal immigrants, but instead, they are towns that welcome those whose suffered wounds in combat defending this country and its Constitution, instead of trampling it in the mud as does this tyrant Cuomo.
The hope is to surround Cuomo’s sanctuary city for felons and illegal immigrants with towns that make it clear they are for veterans who stand up for the Constitution, instead.
That would include the Second Amendment, of course, but go further, over into due process and equal protection of law, which the Democratic Socialist despot Young Andy Cuomo is stripping the natural-born residents of New York of as he tips the balance of power in favor of those who prey on society, as opposed to protecting those victimized by Cuomo’s political base that has refuge in Albany, New York.
Speaking of Bloomberg-inspired anything, up here to the north, it sounds like your Democrat governor is stealing a page from the playbook of Democratic Socialist despot and tyrant Young Andy Cuomo, the self-styled military governor and dictator of New York, and is declaring some kind of martial law in Richmond, as if an army of blue-coated Yankees, we just over the horizon and intent on invading and raping and pillaging like Sherman and his hoarde marching to the sea because he heard the siren call, “SURF’S UP, DUDE!”
From what we can understand, Governor Northam is fortifying an area around Richmond as if he were Joseph Carrington Mayo ordering Bob Lee to pull all his troops back from Maryland including J.E.B. Stuart to defend the capital at all costs against gun-toting heathen mobs said to be descending on Richmond as I write these words from all quarters of the compass, and especially up from out of the Shenandoah Valley for some reason.
We’re hoping the Mirror can track down this story, which we only hear the one side of, that being Northam declaring martial law in a defiant voice, vowing to hold the capital against the infidels til the end of time,
What the heck is going on in Northam’s head down there, serious people in the North would like to know; is the man having paranoid delusions, or is there a war about to start down there?
Northam was obviously very traumatized after the blackface incident was revealed. Almost everyone in the Democratic Party, including Lynwood Lewis, called for his resignation. As we all know, however, when Democratic politicians are caught in flagrante, the usual standards often don’t apply. Most importantly, his lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, has his own allegedly flawed past and nobody in the Party wanted him to assume the Governorship. Northam just veered to the left and the pressure to resign abated. There’s an analogy here in the political career of John McCain. In the mid-’80s, he was a promising young mainstream Republican Senator. Then, something called the “Charlie Keating incident” happened. Some Democrats, bought by this crook, lost their seats. McCain almost lost his. Afterwards, he couldn’t stop proving what a “reformer” he was–campaign finance “reform”, anti-tax reduction, etc. Basically, his quirky efforts to veer left made him a detested Senator in his Party. In Northam, we’re seeing a weak, scared man with everything to prove to the leftist base of his Party. I have no doubt that Lynwood Lewis has equally leftist inclinations; given the predominantly Republican electorate in Accomack County, however, he has to blur them as much as possible. Northam is a pathetic joke and will be regarded as even more of a joke when he finally leaves office. For the first time in my life, I understand the basis for the Commonwealth’s one-term requirement.
For me, the question as to whether or not to vote for L. Lewis comes down to one of the very first lessons in life my mother ever taught me. I was probably 7 years old, and since he didn’t get this, he never should have run for public office.
3 times I have just so happened to arrive in The Chesapeake Sq. shopping center at the same time as him for lunch. I sometimes work close by and also need lunch. I headed for Chinese food and he to Subway. As a public figure I could not help but notice him. As we all know, not many men around here wear a jacket and tie into a lunch counter.
Anyway, on 2 occasions he was closely followed to the subway door by a lady. One a young girl with what appeared to be a balance problem from cerebral palsy, or maybe scoliosis, and an obviously challenged walk. The other time he was followed by an elderly woman. She must have been 75 years of age. Mr. Lewis did not get distracted by his surroundings at all and blew through that door for his sandwich of choice never looking back, or around.
Where I come from, if an able bodied man doesn’t approach every door wondering if there is a gal around that may need assistance with that door, he never learned how to take step 1.
To me, the perfect kind of guy to give lawyers a bad name.
Oftentimes in life, the little things mean everything.
He, as the local guy. got my vote once.
I will state that I recognize he has assisted in the passage of some legislation that has helped The Shore, and I thank him for that. Can’t hold the door for a lady in need ? Well then I know he could have done a much better job with legislation. Too self absorbed. Never gets my vote again.
We all only get one chance to make a good first impression.
Belated thanks for this first-hand observation of Mr. Lewis’ public inconsiderate behavior toward people who needed a small, extra-kind gesture. Though I live in Accomack County, I’ve never seen Mr. Lewis–only photos of the suit and the plastered-on smile. At least we know that our criticisms are valid, given his vote to limit our rights under the Second Amendment. Of course, this legislation affects only people who obey the law. Those who intend to commit a crime with a weapon will manage to get the weapon, regardless. Perhaps we can make Mr. Lewis’ current term his last.