In The News

PORTSMOUTH – Having escaped Washington for a few weeks, Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott decided to catch up on some homework Tuesday — of the defense-related variety. The Newport News Democrat spent part of the afternoon touring W&O Premier, a defense contractor in Portsmouth that manufactures components for Navy ships, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers built and maintained at Newport News Shipbuilding, not far from where the congressman lives.

Coastal Virginians don’t need us to educate them about sea-level rise and recurrent flooding. They see with their own eyes how often severe flooding occurs in their region and they know that the number and intensity of these floods has increased when comparing past decades to today. That’s why they are coming together in a bipartisan, locally driven effort to work on this issue as a unified Hampton Roads community. And that’s why we, as bipartisan members of Virginia’s congressional delegation, are part of that effort. Like the constituents we represent, we have different views on many national issues. But we are Virginians first, and our constituents have the right to expect us to find common ground on issues of importance to Virginia.

RICHMOND – Hampton Roads' congressional leaders no more agree on how to respond to the surge of Central American children massing at the United States' southern border than they do on broader immigration reforms. U.S. Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-Newport News, said he wants to see the details of the president's plan before offering his support, including where the $3.7 billion would come from. But like Kaine and Warner, Scott focused on the situations these children, as well as adults, are running from. He said there's "more push than pull" driving the exodus and called on Republican leaders in the House to bring the Senate's immigration reform package, which passed last year with bipartisan support, to the floor. If Republicans ignore pressure from the party's conservative Tea Party wing and work with Democrats, there are enough votes to pass the bill, Scott said.

In the United States today, we have a problem with our prisons. We incarcerate our people at nearly six times the rate of most other industrialized nations, and yet we have higher rates of crime. While our crime rate has dropped substantially over the past 20 years, crime and our high level of incarceration continue to have massive social and economic costs to our nation. According to the Pew Center on the States, state and federal spending on corrections has grown 400 percent over the past 20 years, from about $12 billion to about $60 billion. Corrections spending is currently among the fastest growing line items in state budgets, and 1 in 8 full-time state government employees works in corrections. Clearly we have a long way to go still, but there are methods we can use to make our communities safer while reducing incarceration, with its massive associated costs.