Virginia

Virginia Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe once again suggested Virginia expand Medicaid in his latest budget proposal, but House Republican leaders immediately rejected the plan, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The plan would have used a tax on hospital revenues to generate Virginia's share of the costs of the expansion.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe's efforts to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act was thwarted because former Senator Phillip P. Puckett quit the state Senate, The Washington Post's Laura Vozzella reports. McAuliffe had hoped to sneak budget language past the Republicans to expand Medicaid on his own: "Then McAuliffe’s camp found an obscure bit of language in the previous year’s budget that appropriated extra Medicaid funds if — and only if — a newly formed (and hopelessly deadlocked) state Medicaid commission agreed to expansion. If the language was ripped out of that context, the thinking went, McAuliffe could claim that it authorized him to spend an extra $2 billion a year in federal Medicaid funds."

Puckett was enticed to quit by Republicans who discussed jobs for himself and his daughter, Vozzella reports. The jobs nor the Medicaid expansion have come to fruition.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is cutting back on his efforts to expand Medicaid healthcare coverage for poor Virginians in the face of strong opposition from Republican legislators, the New York Times reports. The governor has called it '''unconscionable' that such a wealthy state could not provide health care for its needy." The state constitution forbids spending without legislative approval, leading the governor to issue modest orders Monday to cover 20,000 people with severe mental illness and 5,000 kids of low-income state workers.

The Fourth Circuit has become the second circuit court of appeals to uphold a state ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. The Tenth Circuit already ruled that Utah's ban and Oklahoma's bans are unconsitutional, and now the Fourth Circuit has ruled the same for Virginia's ban. The Fourth Circuit, 2-1, ruled today that "'denying same-sex couples this choice prohibits them from participating fully in our society, which is precisely the type of segregation that the (U.S. Constitution's) Fourteenth Amendment cannot countenance,'" Reuters reports.

There have been more positive developments this week in favor of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights:

One, Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down, Christian Science Monitor reports. The ruling is the first in the south to overturn a voter-backed prohibition on same-sex matrimony as unconstitutional.

Two, the Associated Press reports that a federal judge ruled this week that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The judge struck down the clause on recognizing out-of-state same-sex matrimony as imposing a traditional or faith-based limitation without a sufficient justification for it, the AP also reports.

Three, the Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama's same-sex marriage ban, the Washington Blade reports. The issue involves a same-sex couple in which one spouse was killed in a car accident and his widower is barred from receiving the majority of any settlement money in a wrongful death action. Opposite-sex spouses get that privilege in Alabama.

The Washington Post reports that a lawsuit in Virginia challenging that state's ban on same-sex marriage might get to the U.S. Supreme Court before a case over Utah's same-sex marriage ban does. Oral arguments were just heard in the Virginia case, while a district court judge struck down Utah's ban already. That ruling is on appeal.

Even though the Utah case has advanced farther, "the Virginia cases are moving quickly, and some lawyers are hopeful they emerge through the appeals process as favored vehicles for an ultimate decision by the Supreme Court," The Post further reports.

Separately, a class action to challenge Virginia's ban on same-sex matrimony just got approval to proceed.

The litigation over same-sex marriage equality continues to burgeon in the United States. Most recently, a federal judge certified a class action to challenge Virginia's eight-year-old ban on same-sex marriage. The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Michael F. Urbanski certified the class action Friday. The Virginia Attorney General already said he won't defend the ban in court. The class of couples could be around 15,000, according to the AP.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is slated to announce later today that the state government will join the two same-sex couples asking a federal court to strike down the state's ban on same-sex matrimony as unconstitutional, The Washington Post reports. The action "is a result of November elections in which Democrats swept the state's top offices," The Post reports. Herring will note that Virginia has been on the wrong side of landmark legal issues like school desegregation and interracial marriage, and this is an opportunity to be on the right side what would be a civil-rights milestone, The Post further reports.

The Roanoke Times has this profile on Timothy Bostic and Tony London, who are suing to challenge Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. They told the newspaper they decided to challenge the ban because they want to get married in the state in which they live: "When other states began changing their marriage laws, London and Bostic briefly considered getting married out of state. 'We did discuss it, but why would we go to Iowa to get married and come home and not be married?' Bostic said," The Roanoke Times further reported.

Their lawyers attorneys Theodore Olson and David Boies, who successfully litigated California’s Proposition 8 case.