Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury

While the final counts in the high-stakes battle for the statehouse weren’t fully clear at midnight, with multiple races still too close to call, Democrats appeared to have secured control of both chambers.

Even before outlets including the Associated Press called the House races around midnight, Democrats were already hailing the night as a victory, one that will further erode Youngkin’s ability to enact his conservative agenda as he begins the second half of his four-year term.

At a watch party in downtown Richmond, caucus leaders pulled out a pair of blue bricks to symbolize that the so-called “brick wall” against Youngkin’s agenda had endured. ...

Just days before Richmonders head to the polls to vote a second time on a proposed casino partly owned by Urban One, the media company Hughes founded, casino opponents published a series of audio clips revealing racially inflammatory remarks made by Hughes and other Black casino proponents on local radio programs geared toward Black audiences.

The clips include numerous examples of Hughes implying that opposition to the casino is driven by racism. At one point, she says, “Do not forget that they do not see you as a human being.”

“Even though you may have a house like theirs, a car like theirs, your children may go to the same schools — they see you as a n*****, alright?” Hughes said. “Wake up!” ...

Stewart, who had served as Nottoway’s registrar for 28 years before being removed from her position in the fall of 2021, argued the move by the Nottoway Electoral Board violated her constitutional rights by being based on false allegations of malfeasance. She also claimed the board didn’t give her an adequate chance to defend her actions in office to try to keep her job.

Though the Nottoway case is largely a local dispute, the court ruling is an indicator that federal courts may not be a strong option for other ousted registrars looking to file legal challenges against the boards that oversee them. Those three-member boards are supposed to be nonpartisan, but decisions to fire registrars are often hotly disputed and frequently involve allegations of political motives. A similar federal lawsuit was filed last month by a recently dismissed registrar in Lynchburg.

In a ruling issued last week, Richmond-based U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, pointing to 11th Amendment immunity restricting the ability of private individuals to sue states in federal courts. ...

The Virginia Court of Appeals overruled a man’s misdemeanor conviction for fleeing from police after ruling the Lynchburg police officer who attempted to make the arrest didn’t get close enough to the suspect to have a realistic chance of grabbing him.

In an opinion revealing what the court described as a legal quirk unique to Virginia, the court found that an officer telling someone to stop from 20 yards away doesn’t satisfy a rule requiring officers to have the “immediate physical ability to place the person under arrest.”

The opinion applies mainly to foot chases, not a separate eluding law that criminalizes fleeing police in a motor vehicle....

The “Secure Your Vote” program pushed by Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC and the Republican Party of Virginia encourages voters to sign up for the state’s permanent absentee voting list, which allows ballots to be automatically mailed to participants every election cycle. That list and absentee voting itself have come under sharp criticism from some GOP lawmakers who argue ballots going out via mail are more susceptible to fraud.

“Republicans gotta stop sitting on the sidelines and allowing the Democrats to do a better job of voting early,” Youngkin said in an appearance Tuesday morning on Fox News, where he said his party puts itself at a disadvantage by ceding Virginia’s 45-day early voting window to its opponents.

Republican legislators have recently tried to roll back or repeal the lengthy early voting period, but those efforts have been blocked by the Democratic-controlled state Senate. ...