Virginia
Should legislators tweak Virginia’s 2006 voter roll law for more clarity? • Virginia Mercury
Virginia officials have asked the United States Supreme Court to block a lower court’s ruling that roughly 1,600 people purged from voter rolls by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order must be reinstated. Two lawsuits allege that Youngkin’s order violated federal law by removing voters from rolls too close to Election Day, a claim the governor refutes by pointing to a 2006 state law as the basis of his action.
Virginia asks Supreme Court to block order to reinstate 1600 people stripped from voter rolls
The situation has raised questions on whether state lawmakers should consider amending that law for additional clarity and to avoid future legal disputes over how Virginia confirms voter registration shortly before elections.
The 2006 law
Youngkin has said repeatedly that his executive order was built on a 2006 state law for voter roll cleanups, which directs the Department of Motor Vehicles to send data to the State Board of Elections of people who failed to indicate U.S. citizenship in paperwork. There’s a process of notification and then purging of voters who fail to prove their citizenship, and in previous years, the process was done on a monthly basis. Youngkin’s order directed DMV and Elections Department officials to perform it daily.
The lawsuits the state and Youngkin face say Youngkin’s order ran afoul of the National Voter Registration Act, which institutes a “quiet period” on such actions 90 days before an election. Several state lawmakers have signaled they agree with that allegation, including House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, who previously told The Mercury “The reason that we have this 90-day rule is that we don’t want citizens to be accidentally removed.”
Privileges and Elections Committee chair Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, called Youngkin’s order “reckless” and alleged that it’s being used to “fire up the (Republican) base.”
“When you actually look at the issue of the matter, it’s the 90-day quiet period,” Rouse said.
The courts will decide the matter concerning the legal challenges, John Aughenbaugh, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said.
But he added that the Youngkin administration “brought this on themselves” by issuing the order so close to the 90-day federal threshold.
However, Aughenbaugh said, “I can understand why the Youngkin admin told Fox News ‘we didn’t think we were doing anything wrong,’” in citing the 2006 law.
That measure was carried by former republican state Sen. Ken Cucinelli and signed by former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine. At that time, Republican President George Bush’s Department of Justice had issued a memo that it didn’t object to the law.
In the time since, no one has challenged it, until the two suits against Youngkin.
An argument in Attorney General Jason Miyares’ Supreme Court filing notes confusion on when the federal 90-day law should overpower the 2006 state law.
“The current confusion surrounding the NVRA makes the rules anything but clear,” Miyares’ petition reads. “States are unaware of when, or whether, they can remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. They need to know with certainty whether they can remove noncitizens at any point, only outside of the Quiet Period, or never.”
On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Virginia also filed a brief in support of the state’s SCOTUS request.
Virginia GOP calls on U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Youngkin’s voter purge order
Rouse said there hasn’t yet been talk between himself and other members of the Privileges and Elections Committee about tweaking the 2006 law to spell out the 90-day threshold of the NVRA.
“We haven’t had those conversations,” he said.
As to resolving any confusion, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, said that the state legislature broadly is always looking at ways past laws might need to be amended.
“This might be one of those times,” he said. “The question then becomes ‘is there a bipartisan solution?”
It might also come down to the question of how to prevent governors from overstepping or skirting federal law, as well as how to prevent presidential administrations from wading into state law, Aughenbaugh suspects.
The debacle playing out on the national stage might prompt Virginia legislators to ask, “Did the Youngkin administration too broadly interpret the law? Do we want to rein-in gubernatorial administrations in the future?” Aughenbaugh posited. “Meanwhile, how do you revise the law so that future presidential administrations don’t single out a state for lawsuits two weeks before Election Day?”
Rouse said there’s valid reasons for those types of deliberations.
“It’s more of a bigger picture with Governor Youngkin in terms of inciting fear and undermining our elections,” Rouse said of conversations he’s having with his fellow lawmakers. “We understand that this administration has been known to make mistakes.”
Rouse pointed to how the administration pulled out of ERIC, a multi-state data-sharing coalition meant to maintain voter roll accuracy — and how he vetoed legislation prompting Virginia’s return to it this year, along with other voting-related bills. The administration also mistakenly canceled over 3,000 people’s registrations last year, Rouse said.
Can same-day voter registration and provisional ballots fix it?
Regardless of whether eligible voters were caught up in the recent purge or runs into other election-access issues, registrars have said that use of same-day registration and provisional ballots are an option that would allow them to vote on Election Day. Provisional ballots require follow-up after voting to verify a person’s address, citizenship status or other factors.
It’s an argument Republican national and state leadership is making as a reason Youngkin’s order and the subsequent voter purges should stand.
“Even if a person entitled to vote were erroneously removed from the voter rolls and unable to respond to the Commonwealth’s outreach, they may still take advantage of same-day registration and cast a ballot,” the state’s request to the Supreme Court stated. “No legal voters could or would be disenfranchised.”
Aughenbaugh doubts the nation’s highest court will grant Virginia’s request so close to the elections and suspects people who have been purged may not have to resort to provisional ballots this year.
“I don’t think there are enough (Supreme Court) justices that have the appetite to wade into that dispute less than a week before elections,” he said.
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Virginia
Feds want graduate nursing programs to reduce costs. This Virginia nurse worries changes will increase debt.
RICHMOND, Va. — University of Virginia graduate nursing student Nelly Sekyere worries that proposed federal loan cuts could prevent future students like herself from pursuing advanced nursing degrees that are helpful in filling shortages in underserved communities.
Sekyere’s parents moved to the United States from Ghana to pursue the American Dream. They worked hourly wage jobs to support their two kids and ultimately became licensed practical nurses, but they never had much money.
Nelly Sekyere
“My dad’s credit score was to the point where it was just awful. He had to file for bankruptcy. He was in so much debt,” Sekyere said.
Still, their children had big dreams and understood the value of hard work. Sekyere, who currently works as a nurse for a local health department, is now a student at UVA pursuing her doctorate to become a family nurse practitioner and to teach others who want to be nurses.
“I do plan to work in underserved communities and rural regions because that is something I am used to, and I feel that is where my expertise are needed the most,” Sekyere said.
She is able to pursue the doctorate because she qualifies for $200,000 in federal graduate degree loans. She said that without the loans, she couldn’t afford the degree.
“I would not. I physically could not afford it,” Sekyere said.
But future nursing graduate students like her may not be able to access as much federal loan money under graduate loan program changes within the One Big Beautiful Bill. Those changes would mean students enrolling in post-baccalaureate nursing programs would be eligible for half the amount of money in federal graduate loans they are currently allowed to take out.
Currently, they can take out $200,000 in federal graduate loans. That number would drop to $100,000 if the changes take effect.
“This impacts those that are pursuing a master’s in nursing, a doctorate of nursing practice or a PhD in nursing,” said Cindy Rubenstein, Director of Nursing and a professor at Randolph Macon College. “Those graduate programs actually prepare nurses to be advanced practice nurses whether that is a Nurse Practioner in primary care, midwives specialists, and also as educators and nurse scientists.”
On its website, the U.S. Department of Education states “95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and are therefore not affected by the new caps. Further, placing a cap on loans will push the remaining graduate nursing programs to reduce costs, ensuring that nurses will not be saddled with unmanageable student loan debt.”
Rubenstein said she understands the administration’s desire to control tuition costs and limit borrowing amounts. But she says the reality is that the proposal does not take into account the cost of key professional programs that we have shortages in.
“Health care training at the graduate level is more expensive than other training programs and other graduate degrees and that is because of the requirements for clinical practice,” Rubenstein said.
Both Rubenstein and Sekyere worry that reducing the amount of federal loan money a person can take out to pursue those higher nursing degrees will stop people from entering the programs because they either don’t qualify for a private loan or the interest rate is too high.
“I likely foresee in the future that graduate students are going to get themselves into private loan debt and with these programs there is no student loan forgiveness, there is no leniency, there is no income driven plans for you to be able to pay that back,” Sekyere said.
The federal loan changes are slated to take effect July 1 of next year. The Education Department is still working to define exactly which professional programs will no longer be eligible for the higher loan amounts and may make changes based on public comments.
CBS 6 asked Congressman Rob Wittman (R-1st District), who voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, about the changes to the graduate nursing loans, and he sent us the following statement:
“Our healthcare professionals, especially our nurses, work tirelessly to serve our communities and ensuring pathways to training and education is essential. This proposed rule from the Department of Education has not yet been finalized, and there will be another opportunity for public comment. I will continue to monitor this situation as it develops and I remain committed to addressing the affordability of higher education.”
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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Virginia
Veteran environmental legislator David Bulova selected as Virginia’s next resources secretary
RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – The Virginia Lottery and the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling are urging adults to gift responsibly this holiday season, warning that giving lottery tickets to anyone under 18 can normalize gambling and increase the risk of addiction.
The Virginia Lottery and the council have partnered for years to raise awareness about the risks of youth gambling and are encouraging adults to choose age-appropriate gifts this holiday season.
The groups released a public service announcement this week called “Scratchers for Kids?—Scratch That Idea” as part of a seasonal campaign on social media and other outlets.
The PSA’s message is direct: Don’t give children scratch-off tickets or other lottery products as gifts.
“Just as you wouldn’t give a child alcohol at Christmas, don’t give them a lottery ticket,” said Dr. Carolyn Hawley, president of the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling.
Officials said well-meaning adults sometimes slip lottery tickets into stockings or hand them out as small gifts, but this practice is dangerous and inappropriate.
They warned it may raise the likelihood that a child will develop gambling problems later in life.
“We want to discourage participating in gambling for as long as possible. We want to keep it safe, we want to keep it fun and to do so, let’s delay early onset for children,” Hawley said.
Hawley said the younger someone starts gambling — whether with a scratch-off ticket or on sports-betting websites — the greater the chances of developing a problem.
She and other officials noted a recent uptick in younger people seeking help and calling hotlines for gambling-related issues.
“We know they didn’t start gambling between 18 to 24; they started much earlier,” Hawley said.
Officials also noted that giving lottery tickets to minors is illegal.
They said their hope is that parents and guardians will set positive examples and model healthy behavior.
“They’re watching and they’re seeing, even if you’re not aware that that’s happening. So pay attention, recognize and understand the risks that can happen and model good behavior for your children,” Hawley said.
The Virginia Lottery and the council have partnered for years to raise awareness about the risks of youth gambling and are encouraging adults to choose age-appropriate gifts this holiday season.
Copyright 2025 WWBT. All rights reserved.
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