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NICK VERSAW NV REPORTER | CLIPPINGS.ME/NICKVERSAW

SKILLS EXPERIENCE

• Editing: AP Style, MLA, REPORTER • VCU CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE • JANUARY 2017-PRESENT Chicago • Covered the Virginia General Assembly’s 2017 session as well as other • Social Media: Twitter, political news around the state for a client base of more than 90 outlets Facebook, Instagram, • Published in over 40 outlets across the country, such as the Washington LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit Post, U.S. News & World Report, San Francisco Chronicle, Arizona • News gathering, research, Republic and McClatchy News Service FOIA, data analysis • Data visualization STAFF WRITER • THE COMMONWEALTH TIMES • OCTOBER 2016-PRESENT • Photography: photo • Covered basketball, baseball, soccer, field hockey and golf as a technique, SLRs, post- member of the staff for VCU’s award-winning independent student processing software newspaper, The Commonwealth Times • Adobe: InDesign, • Provided breaking news stories, game recaps and analyses, feature Photoshop, Auditions, stories and editorials for the CT’s sports section Premiere Pro, Lightroom • Microsoft Office: Word, MODERATOR • REDDIT • JANUARY 2016-PRESENT Excel, PowerPoint • One of seven moderators for /r/clevelandcavs – a discussion board made up of more than 17,000 subscribers dedicated to the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers • Responsible for the monitoring of content, creation of daily threads, HONORS & AWARDS stimulating discussion, page design and layout, and other general upkeep

• T. Edward Temple and Polly GOLF DEPARTMENT CAPTAIN • DICK’S SPORTING GOODS • JULY 2014-PRESENT D. Temple Writing Award • Responsible for sales and customer service duties in the golf • Dean’s List: Fall 2015, department, as well as all merchandising and club-related services Spring 2016, Fall 2016

EDUCATION

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE, MASS COMMUNICATIONS – PRINT/ONLINE JOURNALISM WITH GENERAL BUSINESS MINOR • VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY •EXPECTED DECEMBER 2017 • 3.7 MAJOR GPA

ASSOCIATE OF ARTS, COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIZATION • JOHN TYLER COMMUNITY COLLEGE • AUGUST 2015

[email protected] @NICKVERSAW 804-221-7932 /IN/NICK-VERSAW

Local

By Nick Versaw | AP February 13 at 6:40 PM

RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Senate narrowly approved a bill Monday that would allow home-schooled students across the commonwealth to play high school sports.

HB 1578, commonly known as the “Tebow Bill,” would eliminate a statewide ban prohibiting home-schooled students from participating in high school athletics and other interscholastic activities.

The Senate voted 22-18 in favor of the measure. Democratic Sen. Lynwood Lewis of Accomac joined the 21 Republican senators in voting for the bill, which had been approved by the House last month.

The bill, introduced by Del. Rob Bell, R-Charlottesville, will be sent to Gov. Terry McAuliffe for his signature. Sam Coleman, an aide to the Democratic governor, said McAuliffe plans to veto the legislation.

The bill is nicknamed for former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, who was allowed to play football for a high school in Florida while he was being home-schooled. Bell has introduced similar legislation each year since 2005.

In 2015 and 2016, Bell’s bills were passed by the General Assembly, only to be vetoed by McAuliffe. The legislation’s supporters were unable to override the vetoes.

Opponents of HB 1578 say home-schoolers don’t have to meet the same academic standards as public-school students, so it would not be right to let them play alongside regular students in high school sports.

McAuliffe cited that rationale when he vetoed Bell’s legislation last spring.

“Opening participation in those competitions to individuals who are not required to satisfy the same criteria upends Virginia’s extracurricular framework and codifies academic inequality in interscholastic competition,” the governor wrote in his veto message. Bell counters that this is not the case with his newest iteration of the bill.

Under the legislation, any student who wants to participate in a local high school’s athletic programs would have to pass standardized tests and demonstrate “evidence of progress” in their academic curriculum for at least two years. Bell said the students also would have to meet the same immunization standards as their public-school counterparts.

Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, argues that, in his experience, it wouldn’t be fair to students who already participate in their high school’s athletic programs.

“I played high school athletics,” Petersen said. “I know a little bit about it. I know you have to have a certain GPA to play on Friday nights. I know you had to basically comply with classroom conduct rules in order to play, and I think those are good rules. They’re good rules for kids, and that’s what this is about.”

Bell’s bill also states that each local school district would get to decide for itself whether to allow home-schoolers to participate in high school sports. Districts that consider such a policy as unfair would not be forced to allow home-schoolers to participate.

Petersen argued that this caveat would create more problems than it would help solve.

“The bottom line is, once Virginia High School League changes its policy, every school division is going to have to match up with it, because nobody is going to want to compete with half a loaf,” he said. “I’ve got some coaches in the audience that are here for state-winning championship teams, and I know what they would say, not on the merits of the bill, but simply that everyone has to play by the same set of rules.”

“You can’t have one set of rules down-state, one set of rules in Northern Virginia and one set of rules in Hampton Roads,” Petersen added. “The bottom line is, if we’re going to have this, it’s got to be a state-wide policy. It can’t be halfway.”

Bell argued his bill would simply allow home-schooled students who might not fit the typical public-school mold the same freedoms as all other students.

“If you are a parent and your kid doesn’t fit into the public-school curriculum right now, you can go private or you can go home-schooling, except many places, including a county I represent, have very limited private school options,” Bell said. “Yet we’re forcing parents to say, ‘You can have football, or you can have the education that you want.’”

washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/18/house-oks-bill-to-ease-rule-on-concealed-gun-permi/

By NICK VERSAW

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Virginia House of Delegates approved a bill Wednesday to allow members of the military to obtain concealed handgun permits at age 18.

HB 1582 , introduced by Del. Jeff Campbell, R-Marion, passed by a vote of 78-19. It will now go to the Senate for consideration.

The bill would allow active-duty military personnel and those with an honorable discharge between the ages of 18 and 20 to receive concealed handgun permits, provided they have completed basic training. The current minimum age for a concealed handgun permit is 21.

Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a handgun from a licensed firearm dealer. However, Virginians between 18 and 20 can legally buy a handgun in a private sale or receive one as a gift.

Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, cited that reason in opposing the bill.

“We don’t think it’s smart to let 18- and 19- and 20-year-olds who can’t legally purchase a firearm from carrying concealed,” he said when the bill was debated Tuesday.

Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge, disagreed.

“I see no harm at all in trusting young men and women who were ready to give their lives for our freedom” to have a concealed handgun permit, he said.

Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpepper, echoed Lingamfelter.

“We don’t seem to have any problem putting a gun in their hands when they’re going to go overseas to get shot at,” he said. “So this whole idea that we can’t trust them when they come back to exercise the very constitutional amendment they went overseas to defend seems a little bit ridiculous to me.”

Campbell said the bill also would increase concealed handgun permit reciprocity with other states.

Currently, Virginia permits are recognized throughout the Southeast except in Georgia. Campbell said his bill would change that by “removing the sole impediment to recognition of Virginia concealed carry permit holders by the state of Georgia,” thereby granting permit holders full passage throughout the southern I-95 corridor.

“As a practical matter, this is a good bill for those of us who like to travel out of state on the East Coast,” Lingamfelter said.

Campbell said the bill is another step toward his party’s goal of concealed handgun permit reciprocity across all 50 states. Currently, Virginia permits are recognized in 32 states.

Simon said he fears that in expanding reciprocity, Virginia may be headed down a slippery slope.

“We’re going to have to lower our standards in state after state after state to make sure that our laws are just as generous to concealed carry permit holders and that we have the lowest standards of any state in the country,” Simon said. “It is the first step in having us liberalize our concealed carry permits to go to the lowest common denominator.”

1/2 Permit reciprocity has been a hot-button issue among Virginia officials. In December 2015, Attorney General Mark Herring revoked Virginia’s permit reciprocity agreements with 25 states.

However, during its 2016 session, the General Assembly passed legislation reversing Herring’s decision and restoring all previous reciprocity agreements.

With Donald Trump’s election as president, the issue of permit reciprocity has risen to prominence at the federal level. This month, U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., introduced the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 in Congress.

Hudson’s proposal would force all 50 states to recognize permits from all other states. The bill is awaiting hearing in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations.

2/2 McAuliffe vetoes bill to disclose refugee records

wtvr.com/2017/02/25/mcauliffe-vetoes-bill-to-disclose-refugee-records/

By Capital News Service 2/25/2017

RICHMOND, Va. – Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed a bill Friday that would have required the state Department of Social Services to publish non-identifying information for refugees resettled across Virginia.

“Many individuals and families placed in Virginia through the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program are fleeing governmental oppression, persecution, and violence,” McAuliffe said in his veto statement.

“Many leave their countries because they are targeted by their home country’s government, often for helping to further American interests. Disclosing such information in this political climate not only sends a message of discrimination and fear, but it also poses a real danger to many of our newest Virginians.”

House Bill 2002, introduced by Del. Charles Poindexter, R-Franklin County, would have required immigrant resettlement agencies, such as the Catholic Diocese and the U.S. State Department, to report demographic information on refugees, including the total number of refugees, the localities in which they have been placed and other facts, to Virginia’s Department of Social Services. Those reports would then be forwarded to other government agencies, including the General Assembly and the governor’s office.

Supporters of the bill argue these reports would give government officials the ability to plan for benefits, health care and other related social costs, as well as lay out education-related expenses that would allow children of refugees to enroll in Virginia public schools.

McAuliffe said those requirements would instead put undue stress on the organizations in charge of resettling refugees.

“House Bill 2002 would create an unnecessary burden for already overworked nonprofit organizations and would limit these organizations’ ability to accomplish their mission of safely settling refugees in the commonwealth,” McAuliffe said.

The governor added that the regulations would also discourage those wanting to relocate from tenuous circumstances in foreign countries to the commonwealth.

“Refugees are in the United States legally,” he said. “They undergo a more rigorous screening process than anyone else allowed into the United States. Creating a publicly available list of these individuals would send a message of exclusion to people looking for the chance to rebuild their lives free of tyranny and oppression.”

“As Virginians, we know the many benefits and contributions that refugees bring to our communities and Virginia’s economy,” McAuliffe added. “House Bill 2002 sets us on the wrong path. It does not reflect Virginia’s values.”

The bill will now return to the General Assembly, where supporters will face an uphill battle in overriding the governor’s veto. In order to successfully countermand McAuliffe’s ruling, supporters would need to gather a two- thirds majority vote in both chambers.

1/2 With three Republican delegates already opposing the bill in the House and a 21-19 party-line split in the Senate, supporters would have to persuade more than a dozen legislators to flip their vote in order to enact the legislation.

By Nick Versaw with Capital News Service

Capital News Service is a flagship program of VCU’s Robertson School of Media and Culture. Students participating in the program provide state government coverage for Virginia’s community newspapers and other media outlets, under the supervision of Associate Professor Jeff South.

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