VA state senator Phillip Puckett resigns his seat.

[littlewolf]

how safe is this seat? can we keep the GOP from gaining control of the senate as well?

http://www.tricities.com/news/article_bf07b134-ef60-11e3-bf7b-0017a43b2370.html

RICHMOND, Va. – State Sen. Phillip P. Puckett- D-Russell has resigned his seat, leaving Democrats one vote shy of the majority they need to control the chamber.
Puckett's stunning resignation throws Democratic budget strategy into chaos and opening the way for Republicans to seize control of the chamber and reorganize its committees with GOP majorities, the Richmond Times Dispatch said in a report issued late Sunday.
“I am deeply disappointed by this news and the uncertainty it creates at a time when 400,000 Virginians are waiting for access to quality health care, especially those in Southwest Virginia,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe said in a statement.
“This situation is unacceptable, but the bipartisan majority in the Senate and I will continue to work hard to put Virginians first and find compromise on a budget that closes the coverage gap.”
With the current fiscal year set to expire June 30, the Democrat controlled Senate and Republican controlled House of Delegates have been locked in a political stalemate over a new, two-year budget.

snip

Sources familiar with Puckett's resignation, submitted this weekend, said the longtime Southwest Virginia senator cited family reasons for his sudden departure. At least two sources speculated that one of the family reasons involved Puckett's daughter, Martha P. Ketron.
Ketron, who was admitted to the bar in October 2006, was appointed last July to serve as a judge in Juvenile and Domestic relations Court in an interim capacity by judges of the 29th District Circuit Court, which covers Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell and Tazewell counties in Southwest Virginia.
But her bid for reappointment to a full, six-year term was put off earlier this year in the General Assembly, in part due to a tradition against awarding bench appointments to family members of sitting legislators.

snip

Puckett may not be unemployed for long.
Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, chairman of the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, said he is interested in Puckett taking a job with the commission and has discussed it with him.
"If he's available I think he'd be great for us," Kilgore said."He'd be a great asset because he knows the region, and he's a former banker and JLARC said we need more follow-up so he'd be a perfect fit for us."

more at the link

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. By resigning, Virginia lawmaker Phillip Puckett betrayed his own people

By resigning, Virginia lawmaker Phillip Puckett betrayed his own people

June 9

This summer, hundreds of sick, desperate people will gather daily in the pre-dawn darkness of a Southwestern Virginia parking lot, part of a late July pilgrimage as predictable as the state’s tobacco crop.

They come with festering cancers, rotting teeth, wheezing lungs and aching joints, lining up for hours to see the doctors who arrive with a mobile clinic to deliver health care to the most underserved of America’s poor.

The three-day clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds is an annual event just three miles outside of the district represented by state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell). Now, if you’re a state senator watching what looks like a refugee camp medical tent, staffed by 800 volunteers who come into your town to perform eye surgery and root canals and remove cysts for about 3,000 of your constituents, who have no health insurance and live on about $14,000 a year, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help them?

It seems that Puckett has decided that, no, he’s not going to help the people who elected him and who are in dire need of every bit of medical care they can get.