When Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, introduced legislation to give Virginia’s Indian tribes recognition by the federal government in 1999, he knew it would be an uphill fight. But he had no idea that nine years later, the measure would still be up for debate.

While the debate over the future of large state institutions continues across the nation, a microcosm of that discussion has developed at the Central Virginia Training Center in Madison Heights.

Several weeks ago, we took Democrat Mark Warner to the proverbial woodshed when he tried to avoid a debate with Republican Jim Gilmore, his opponent in the U.S. Senate race.

Wednesday night in Washington, the adults finally took control of things. In the U.S. Senate, a bipartisan majority of 74 senators voted overwhelmingly to approve the $700 billion financial sector stabilization bill, putting a great deal of pressure on the House of Representatives to reverse Monday’s ill-advised rejection of the plan.

When City Council members sit down again to review the federal Community Development Block Grant program, no one could blame them for wondering if the program is worth the grant money provided by Washington.

What the nation and the world watched unveil Monday afternoon on the floor of the House of Representatives was a failure of leadership with unforeseeable consequences for all 340 million Americans.

Every state agency will have to share the pain of cuts throughout the revenue-starved state budget. One agency, however, is considering cuts in the wake of a study that says it needs more personnel.

During the past couple of weeks, it’s been both funny and sad, simultaneously enlightening and infuriating as Republicans, Democrats and their various lackeys in talking-head land on cable news networks have tried to place blame for the Wall Street crisis gripping Washington and New York.

The old adage “If it’s not raining, it’s pouring” fits perfectly for the budget crisis Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and leaders of the General Assembly face.

Sometimes, when confronted with adversity and challenges, all the options available are bad ones. You just have to choose which poison you prefer.

Granted, there’s enough politics in the House-approved offshore drilling legislation to make even the most blatant ward politician blush. But after all the debate — some of which was acrimonious — the measure is a step in the right direction as it relates to America’s future energy needs.

While efforts in recent years to prohibit smoking in restaurants have failed in the General Assembly, the legislative debates have called attention to the subject. And that has led more restaurants to ban smoking without an edict from the state.

When the city closed the D Street Bridge on the lower end of Rivermont earlier this year because it was deteriorating, it also cut off public transportation to one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

We’ll state this right off the bat, so no one misunderstands what’s to follow: There is no better economic system than America’s version of democratic, free-enterprise capitalism. 

The most serious duty of an American citizen is to vote, to take part in our participatory republican system of government. It’s through voting that citizens — individually and collectively — make their opinions heard in the nation’s halls of power, from Washington, D.C., to Richmond and county and city courthouses.

TGIF. That’s the sigh of relief you’ll hear this afternoon from every nook and cranny on Wall Street, as those who still have jobs after this historic week, will be exclaiming, “Thank God it’s Friday!”

The ears of Virginia legislators should have been burning last week when a nonpartisan, pro-business group revealed its annual assessment of their labors during the 2008 General Assembly session.

A lesson that students in area high schools are being taught these days is not one that comes from a textbook. Like many lessons that do come from textbooks, however, it is a valuable one they can take into life after their school days.

One of the measures of success for an institution of higher learning is what it is doing for the neighborhood beyond its campus boundaries. Is it paying attention to that neighborhood and trying to improve it? Has it taken into consideration the wants and needs of the neighborhood?

Saturday morning, common sense must have prevailed in the headquarters of Mark Warner’s campaign for U.S. Senate.

Should the national drinking age be lowered from 21 to 18? It’s a debate that emerges every generation or so across America. The most recent debate was brought on by an increase in binge drinking on college campuses.

Lyndon Johnson was the last Democrat to put Virginia in his column in the presidential election of 1964. Since then, the Old Dominion has been a consistent supporter of whoever ran for the White House under the Republican banner.

Shark attacks. The soap-opera mystery tale of missing congressional intern Chandra Levy. Those were the “news” stories in the news gripping the nation in the summer of 2001, right up to Monday, Sept. 10.

When it was first proposed in the General Assembly in the early 1980s, many Virginians took a dim view of the state lottery. They didn’t like the idea of state-sponsored gambling and suggested that if the state needed additional revenues, it should raise them the old-fashioned way — by increasing taxes.

For a Moneta couple with Nashville connections, the idea was to provide a music scene that would bloom for tourists and residents at Smith Mountain Lake. At the same time, the venue would give local musicians an opportunity for a start in the entertainment business.

If the members of the board of directors of Oakwood Country Club aren’t careful, they could well have Lynchburg’s version of World War III on their hands with their property at ground zero.

The 2008 presidential election season has been historic. Never before has a black American candidate and a woman sparred so intensely over the Democratic nomination with the black American winning and being nominated to head the Democratic ticket.