The Republican Party of Virginia yesterday requested under the Freedom of Information Act records of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s out-of-state travels and state expenditures related to his work as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Lynda Tran, a spokeswoman for Kaine, said the office will respond to the FOIA request the same way it treats all FOIA requests.

Freedom of Information Is the Foundation of a Free Press Some of the most exciting writing we do here in the Richmond Times-Dispatch newsroom never gets published. It reads like this: “This is a request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act . . . .“ With those words, we recently found out that:

Open government and the First Amendment are on trial in Gloucester County, where citizens who sought redress against conniving politicians were charged a steep price for their vigilance. Forty residents who unsuccessfully petitioned to remove four Gloucester supervisors from office have been or dered to pay $80,000 of the nearly $125,000 in legal fees accrued by the board members.