NORFOLK Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Wednesday he opposes shutting down a state ethics investigation of former legislator Phil Hamilton's financial ties to Old Dominion University. Kaine said halting the investigation after Hamilton resigned Sunday would prevent Virginians from understanding what happened.

The abrupt cancellation of a state investigation into Del. Phil Hamilton's job at Old Dominion University raises anew questions of whether Virginia ethics laws should be revamped.

RICHMOND
Rejected by voters in his bid for another term and under scrutiny from a state ethics panel, Del. Phil Hamilton has decided to quit the Virginia House of Delegates.
His resignation, effective Sunday, ends a long and productive legislative career on an ignominious note but appears to have at least one benefit for him: It may also end the state ethics investigation.

RICHMOND Before state Sen. Tommy Norment took a $160,000-a-year job with the College of William and Mary last year, the state attorney general warned him against giving legal guidance to the university and said Norment would need to disqualify himself from General Assembly actions involving the school.

RICHMOND Attorney General Bill Mims and the College of William and Mary seem to be on a collision course over the legality of state Sen. Tommy Norment's role as a legal adviser to the college. Since July 2008, William and Mary has been paying Norment $160,000 a year for a dual role as part-time teacher and legal counselor. The story was reported Sunday in The Virginian-Pilot.

By Anita Kumar and Rosalind S. Helderman
The Washington Post
RICHMOND
A scathing legislative audit released Tuesday shows Virginia's outsourcing of a massive $2 billion computer upgrade has been so troubled that core government services have been disrupted but that canceling the contract could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

NORFOLK The Old Dominion University teacher training center that hired state Del. Phil Hamilton had no true employees of its own, and its Peninsula office sat unused for much of the past two years, an internal audit has found.

RICHMOND
A corrective plan filed by the private company hired to overhaul Virginia's computer systems indicates that most of the work is now expected to be completed by April.
Earlier this summer, after Northrop Grumman Corp. failed to meet a June 30 deadline for finishing the work, state technology officials instructed the company to submit an updated work plan.

RICHMOND

Just about every top state official has offered an opinion, but only five people have a say in the ethics investigation of Del. Phil Hamilton’s efforts to land a job with Old Dominion University.

That quintet – members of the House of Delegates’ Ethics Advisory Panel – is charged with evaluating complaints made against legislators.

Ranking GOP leaders formally requested an ethics investigation into the actions of Newport News Republican Del. Phillip Hamilton on Monday in the face of growing outcry about the influential legislator's $40,000-a-year job at Old Dominion University.