Category: Meetings

Holly P. Hilton, a Charlottesville attorney, will speak to members and guests of the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club March 19 on legal concerns specifically affecting senior citizens. Hilton’s appearance had orginally been scheduled for February, but that meeting had to be canceled because of the weather.

The meeting, which will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the LOW Community Center, is open to anyone with an interest in estate planning, wills and trusts, powers of attorney, advance medical directives and other legal matters involving the elderly.

Hilton is a principle with Hilton and Associates, PLC in Charlottesville.

She has been practicing law since 1987.

She is the vice chair of the Aging in Place Business Roundtable of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, is current on the board of the Arc of the Piedmont, and has served on the board of the Piedmont Dispute Resolution Center and the Youth Orchestras of Central Virginia. She is also a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.

Ms. Hilton received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the National Law Center of George Washington University in 1987 and her Bachelors of Business Administration in 1981, also from George Washington University.

Meetings of the LOW Democratic Club are open to all without regard to political affiliation. A meet-and-greet session will precede the meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, and light refreshments will be served. Please note that the location of club meetings has recently changed.

Donna Jenni, Orange County’s voter registrar, visited the LOW Democratic Club Sept. 18 to explain the intricacies of Virginia’s new requirement for voters to show a photo identification card in order to vote.

“We didn’t make the law, but we have to implement it,” Jenni said. “I feel that we should interpret the law as loosely as possible. We want people who are eligible to vote to vote.”

The law, which went into effect July 1, 2014, requires registered voters to produce one of the following types of identification at their polling places before they cast their ballots:

• A valid Virginia driver’s license
• A. DMV-issued photo identification card
• A valid U.S. passport
• A valid employee photo identification card
• Other government-issued photo identification card
• A valid college or university student photo identification card from a institution of higher education located in Virginia

Registered voters who do not have an acceptable form of identification can contact the Orange County Registrar’s Office for a photo I.D. free of charge, Jenni said.

Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the new restrictions, claiming it is intended to curb voter fraud. Democrats complained that the law is a thinly veiled attempt to suppress voting among minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic.

Jenni was careful to make no comment on the politics surrounding the issue, but she said in response to a question that she is not aware of a single case of voter fraud in Orange County during her tenure here.

“It’s not clear to anyone exactly what the impact of the new requirements will be,” Jenni said.

She said no registered voter will be turned away from the polls on election day. Those who cannot meet the identification requirement will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. If they can produce a valid identification at her office by noon on the Friday after the Nov. 4 election, their ballot will be counted.

Jenni said demand for the new photo I.D.s issued by her office has not been high. She said only four have been issued so far.

Jenni also explained that the ballot for the Nov. 4 election will be unusual in that candidates for the congressional seat will be listed twice on the ballot — once for a special election in which a candidate will be selected to fill the vacancy left when Rep. Eric Cantor resigned in July and once for the general election for the same seat for the term that begins in January 2015. This means that voters who support Jack Trammell for Congress must vote for him twice!

Janni said there are about 22,500 registered voters in Orange County eligible for the Nov. 4 election.

• Watch an information video on the new Photo I.D. law
• Print a flyer explaining the new Photo I.D. law
• Visit the Web site of the Orange County Office of Voter Registration

The Lake of the Woods Democratic Club will present a showing of the documentary film “Inequality for All” at 1:30 p.m. June 19 in the LOW Community Center.

The film, featuring economist, author and professor Robert Reich, secretary of Labor under the Clinton Administration, examines the widening gap in income in the United States — where the 400 richest Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined — and its implications for our democracy and our nation.

Over the last thirty years, before the latest recession, the U.S. economy doubled. But, according to this documentary, these gains went to a very few: the top 1 percent of earners now take in more than 20 percent of all income—three times what they did in 1970.  While this level of inequality poses a serious risk to all Americans, regardless of income level, much of the rhetoric on this subject has been fueled by anger and resentment from a frustrated middle class who feel their birthright – the American Dream – has been taken away from them.

The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking.

The public is invited to attend the screening, regardless of political affiliation. Popcorn and other refreshments will be served.

More information about the film and the topic of income inequeality is available at the following links:

• Official trailer of “Inequality for All”
• “Inequality for All” Web site
• Inequality.org
• “The Unequal State of America” — a Reuters series
• “It’s the Inequality, Stupid” — Mother Jones
• “For Richer, For Poorer” — The Economist
• “Amber Waves of Green” — GQ

Robert Martin, a member of the 7th Congressional District Committee and an at-large member of the LGBT Democratic Caucus of Virginia, will speak at the club’s May 15 meeting on issues facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning/queer community.

Mr. Martin, who has lived in Spotsylvania County for 25 years, is a member of the Spotsylvania County Democratic Committee and serves as the Committee secretary. He has served as outreach coordinator of the Fredericksburg Area HIV/AIDS Support Services, and is active in the local ELCA Resurrection Lutheran Church, where he serves on the church council and is the secretary of the Congregation and Council. He is also a past president of Fredericksburg Pride.

Before moving to Virginia, Robert served on a school board on Long Island, N.Y.

Mr. Martin lives with his husband in Spotsylvania, and has two sons and two grandsons.

The LGBT Democrats of Virginia presents issues and acts as an advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer persons within the Democratic Party of Virginia. The LGBT Democrats of Virginia also endorses and supports pro-equality Democrats running for public office. Since 1992, LGBT Democrats of Virginia and its predecessor organization, Virginia Partisans, have raised and contributed over $100,000 to pro-equality Democratic candidates.

The meeting, which will be at 1:30 p.m. in the lower level of the LOW Clubhouse, is open to all, regardless of political affiliation.

The links below will be useful to those wanting to learn more about LGBT issues in Virginia.

• LGBT Democrats of Virginia
• LGBT Democrats Facebook site

Gail Marshall, a former Virginia deputy attorney general who has provided pro bono legal services to the poor and disenfranchised throughout her career, told LOW Democratis April 17 that there is “a glimmer of hope” that the Commonwealth’s poor record of granting parole to deserving offenders may improve.

Ms. Marshall said Gov. Terry McAuliffe has appointed new members to four of the five positions on the State Parole Board. “There’s reason to believe that our Democratic leaders are trying to make a difference,”

Ms. Marshall said. In 1995, under the administration of a Republican governor parole was abolished in Virginia. The State Parole Board has continued to function since then because about 7,000 offenders had been convicted before that time, but very few paroles have been awarded. The Parole Board has frequently denies petitions for parole with little or no explanation, Ms. Marshall said.

From her platforms as a teacher at the University of Virginia School of Law, as a big-firm lawyer in Washington, D.C., as deputy attorney general under Mary Sue Terry, as town attorney for the Town of Orange, and as a solo practitioner in the Orange County town of Rapidan.

Through the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Ms. Marshall volunteered with a project that is challenging Virginia’s parole system as it applies to offenders who have been convicted of violent crimes, and another project that addresses treatment of inmates in Virginia prisons.

As deputy attorney general, her review of death penalty cases led her to question the guilt of Earl Washington Jr. Her flagging of the case for further investigation led to commutation nine days before his scheduled execution, and eventually led to a pardon. Washington is now a free man.

More information is available at the links below:

• The Virginia Parole Board
• The Legal Aid Justice Center