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John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. Sniper, will die tonight as scheduled for one of the 10 murders he and a young accomplice committed during a killing spree that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks in October 2002. Gov. Tim Kaine declined to intervene today, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Muhammad's lawyers that their client is severely mentally ill and suffers from brain damage caused, in part, by childhood beatings.

Kaine opposes capital punishment, but pledged when he ran for governor that should he be elected, he would uphold Virginia's death penalty law. He stood by his promise.

Kaine allowed at least five other executions besides the one scheduled for tonight. He did commute a death sentence in 2008, that of Percy Walton of Danville, to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that forbids executing inmates too mentally incompetent to understand that they are to die as punishment for crimes they committed. The governor didn't accept a similar plea on behalf of Muhammad.

Put this in the political spin machine, and some might say it comes out as a political calculation: The D.C. Sniper is widely known and just as widely despised. Commuting his sentence would be politically unpopular.

Kaine isn't running for anything, though. I think, as an honorable and very thoughtful man, he weighed each appeal on its own merit, and in each case hewed to the law.

We're writing an editorial for later in the week about the tax breaks Virginia hands out and their effect on the budget.  The Commonwealth Institute, an economic think tank, issued a report this week that tax breaks cost Virginians $2.5 billion annually.

Some of those breaks are fully appropriate.  Some are not.  The problem is that the state has no mechanism to evaluate whether the tax breaks are fulfilling their purpose or even are needed. We will recommend that a cash-strapped state government investigate its tax breaks and repeal any that aren't serving a legitimate purpose.

Unfortunately, Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell dismisses that idea out of hand. We thought he was all about government efficiency.

Bob McDonnell might be Virginia's governor-elect, but Tim Kaine is still its governor-in-office. The man who has overseen the commonwealth through dire financial times faces one last round of cuts before he leaves office. Forecasters estimate another $1 billion must be shed from the budget.

Gov. Kaine could slough the responsibility onto his successor, but instead he is taking the more honorable path and dealing with this next round of cuts himself as he crafts a recommended budget for the next biennium.

In an editorial we are writing for later in the weak, we will commend him for helping smooth the transition for McDonnell. We'll also observe that his team is uniquely qualified to deal with more cuts, having been making nothing but cuts for the last few years.  And finally, there is no doubt some political interest in so far as Kaine will be able, however minimally, to protect programs he considers a priority.

Virginia voted for gridlock on Tuesday

By Dan Radmacher

Radmacher is editorial page editor for The Roanoke Times.

The decisions made by Virginia voters Tuesday will be most acutely felt on the state's highways and roads. The election of Bob McDonnell as the commonwealth's next governor and the gain of at least five more Republican seats in the House of Delegates guarantee that nothing of substance will be done to address the groaning, creaking, deteriorating transportation infrastructure for at least four years -- unless something happens before then to thrust the crisis dramatically into public consciousness, such as a bridge collapse.

Read more.

The votes are counted and the people have spoken. Thursday, we'll congratulate Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell on a well-run, focused campaign and express the hope that the Republican who ran as a moderate candidate is the Republican who shows up in the governor's mansion.

Discuss the election results here as they come in.

A year ago, many Virginians overseas did not receive their absentee ballots in a timely manner. Those members of the military and citizens living abroad therefore were effectively denied their chance to vote.

In response, the General Assembly this year clarified language in the election code. It now requires local voter registrars to get absentee ballots out 45 days before Election Day so there is ample time for turnaround. Previously, the language had only urged registrars to do so.

This year, 16 localities missed the deadline.  Excuses abound, and some of them are pretty good, but the bottom line is that the rule is in place, and local registrars need to meet the requirement. Unfortunately, missing the deadline has no real penalties now.

We're writing an editorial for Tuesday about this problem. We will urge the General Assembly to give the law some teeth. We don't want registrars to lose state money if they miss the deadline. After all, funding shortfalls are partly to blame for the problem. Rather, the State Board of Elections should be empowered to intervene in localities that chronically violate the law.

Endorsements for 2009

Virginia voters will decide the direction of the state for the next four years. Choose wisely.

Citizens of Virginia will elect a new governor and attorney general Tuesday and decide whether the House of Delegates will continue to be controlled by Republicans who have refused to take real action on the transportation crisis facing the state.

Many national pundits want to make this campaign a referendum about President Obama a year after his historic election.

A recent poll showed that Virginia voters are smarter than that. Only about 30 percent said Obama would factor in their decision in any way. Most Virginians know Tuesday's vote is about their home state, not the nation.

The direction Virginia could take in the next four years is certainly what weighed most heavily on members of The Roanoke Times editorial board as we deliberated our endorsements.

Read more.

Project Vote Smart tries to educate Virginia voters

By Dan Radmacher

Radmacher is editorial page editor for The Roanoke Times.

The overwhelming majority of candidates on Tuesday's ballot have already failed voters. Given an opportunity to tell citizens of Virginia where they stand on the gamut of issues, most candidates declined.

Only four candidates for delegate or statewide office in area elections passed Project Vote Smart's political courage test.

Those candidates were Del. Onzlee Ware and his challenger in the race for the 11th District, Troy Bird; Carter Turner, who is running against Del. Morgan Griffith in the 8th District; and Will Smith, a Constitution Party candidate running in the 19th District.

Project Vote Smart's test of political courage is simple: It offers candidates the opportunity to fill out a very broad survey of where they stand on the issues. Those who take the test pass. Those who refuse fail.

Read more.

Ride Solutions, local political blog Star City Harbinger and the Fork restaurants owned by Roanoke City Councilman David Trinkle (Fork in the Alley and Fork in the City) are teaming up in a get-out-the-vote effort on Tuesday.

Ride Solutions will help get you to the polls if you need assistance. And if you wear your "I voted" sticker to one of the restaurants afterward, you'll get 10 percent off the price of your meal.

Members of the local chapter of Drinking Liberally will be gathering at Fork in the Alley that night - drowning their sorrows if the latest polls are any indication.