This past week, for the first time, I took my seat as a Virginia State Senator. I want to take this opportunity to thank you, the citizens, for your faith and confidence in me. I am humbled by your support and I promise to do whatever I can to live up to your high expectations.

I am extremely fortunate to begin my term as a Senator in a brand new Senate, one with a Democratic majority and a leadership team that looks much more like Virginia. It seems very appropriate this week as we celebrate the life and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King that we take note that, of – committees in the Senate, seven are chaired by women and four by African Americans. As a matter of fact, three committee chairs are African-American women. The experiences these new chairs bring to leadership will benefit not only those of us serving in the Senate, but all Virginians. These chairs understand and appreciate the importance of diversity, of opportunity, of fairness and of social justice. They have experienced the closed doors of discrimination, sexism and even ageism and are sensitized to make sure we banish those from our Commonwealth.

This week I want to take the opportunity to do something a little different and tell you about the Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson dinner that was held this past weekend in Richmond. Over 3000 Democrats gathered to hear former Governor Mark Warner, Governor Tim Kaine, Mayor Doug Wilder, Senator Jim Webb and Illinois Senator and new presidential candidate Barack Obama. For all of my constituents who did not have the opportunity to be there, let me try to describe what was a very exciting day and evening.

Saturday morning, Chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, Dick Cranwell, honored me by appointing me Vice-Chair of Outreach. I am humbled by his confidence in me and will strive to do whatever I can to grow our Democratic Party and promote our ideals and values throughout the Commonwealth.

As responsible Virginians, we are all concerned about the crime rate and certainly about violent crime. We fear being victims ourselves or that someone we know, or even someone we don’t know, some innocent individual, will be the victim of a violent crime. However, what many of us don’t spend time considering is the increased likelihood that we will be innocent victims in a drunk driving accident. In Virginia in 2005, almost 40% of traffic accident fatalities were alcohol related.

Unfortunately, those individuals who choose to drink and drive not only endanger themselves, but risk every motorist they encounter while on the roadways. As our highways become even more crowded, this danger will only increase. Between 9 pm and midnight, almost two thirds of deaths from accidents are because of alcohol. After midnight, the total increases to over three quarters.

Virginia has a transportation crisis, a serious problem acknowledged by both Democrats and Republicans. Last year, thanks to the political posturing of the Republican leadership in the House of Delegates, no progress was made in resolving this situation.

This year, with the leadership and repeated admonitions of Governor Kaine, the Republican General Assembly has taken the first small steps towards addressing this problem. However, the Republicans in the House of Delegates proposed solution is to steal over $250 million from the General Fund to pay for transportation projects. We may build roads with this money, but it will be at the expense of public safety, public education and health care. These funds support our teachers, our police and firefighters and provide resources for services that Virginians use and need every day. Without these monies in the General Fund, cuts will have to be made, programs eliminated and Virginians will suffer. Moreover, the Republicans claim there are no tax increases in their plan, but with the amount of additional debt they are taking on for Virginians, our children and grandchildren will have to pay. We are simply passing the debt on to our children, like purchasing with our credit cards and asking our kids to write the checks.

Serving in the General Assembly gives Members an opportunity to make a difference in the day to day lives of Virginians. Rarely, however, do we get to make a difference in the lives of people in other states, let alone other countries. This Session we have that chance on a situation so grave that it demands our attention.

In the Darfur area of the Sudan, during the last three years, over 400,000 people have been killed, another 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes and 4 million rely on humanitarian aid for their survival. Over 90% of the villages in that area have been destroyed. The government has aided and abetted this catastrophe, with government soldiers raping citizens and preventing them from gaining access to aid. Recently, aid workers themselves have been under attack, with sexual assault as the weapon of choice. The situation in Darfur is so horrific that it is the only circumstance where the United States has accused a foreign government of genocide against its own citizens while the atrocities are occurring.

This Session, I have introduced a resolution, with State Senator Henry Marsh (D-Richmond), asking the Commonwealth to atone for its institutional role in slavery and for the state sponsored racism that accompanied and outlived it. Some delegates have been supportive and some have disagreed. Delegate Hargrove (R-Henrico) stated in an interview that “Blacks should just get over it.” He went on to ask whether the “Jews should be forced to apologize for killing Christ?”

This resolution does not imply that any individual in the General Assembly or in Virginia today is responsible or even participated in slavery. However, as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown, we are taking this opportunity to review and celebrate our history. While we should be extremely proud as Americans of our traditions, we must also acknowledge the stain on our history of slavery and state sponsored racism. The laws of Virginia aided and abetted slavery and racism with fugitive slave laws, laws outlawing literacy among African-Americans and later, when slavery was outlawed by the Constitution, the Commonwealth codified racism in the Jim Crow laws.

Over the past three decades, Virginians have made it an important value to move people from welfare to work. As Democrats, we all recognize that work is empowering and ennobling. When people do an honest day’s work, they can feel pride in themselves and they carry that pride over into other parts of their lives. We believe work should also be enabling, allowing people to be self-sufficient, to support their families, raise their children, and help in caring for their elders.     

Unfortunately, because of a minimum wage that has been stuck at the same rate for over a decade, this is not the case. Contrary to the popular myth, most minimum wage workers are not teenagers, 75% are twenty or older and nearly 50% are over twenty-five. Two-thirds are women and one in four minimum wage workers has dependent children at home. More frightening, half of those with dependent children are the sole breadwinner in their household.

This week, the General Assembly convened in Jamestown, to commemorate the 400^th anniversary of the landing there. As I stood on this ground sacred to our collective memory, I hoped that the General Assembly would see this as an opportunity to remember the historical traditions from which we originate and act in the best of them.

Ours is a long and rich historic tradition, replete with strong and shining examples to emulate and from which to learn. Our British heritage has given us belief in participatory government, rights of citizens, an exploratory spirit and a can-do attitude. Unfortunately, it also gave us a tradition of slavery, suppression of women, and intolerance for those perceived as “heathen”. It is our responsibility and privilege to learn from those mistakes while, at the same time, living up to the highest ideals of our traditions.