Republican Eugene Delgaudio, the Loudoun County supervisor who represents Sterling Park, made some heated remarks about illegal immigration and its impact on his district during an appearance on the Kojo Nnamdi show's Politics Hour on WAMU 88.1 FM Friday.

When asked if some of the deteriorating living conditions in the area were a result of urbanization, Delgaudio had this to say.

"This is not urbanization. This is a cesspool. People are coming from outside of this culture and they are dumping their crap on the streets of our town. And our town is outraged that they don't get with the program."

Listen to the full discussion here. Delgaudio's interview takes place during the final 10 minutes of the show.

House Speaker William J. Howell made it clear yesterday that he is looking to Loudoun County to help Republicans keep control of the House of Delegates in the 2009 elections.

"I know this sounds self-serving, the presidential stuff is important, but next year we've got House of Delegates seats, and there's a couple that are representing Loudoun and parts of Loudoun County that I know we can win back," Howell told a meeting of the Loudoun County Republican Committee.

A coalition of Democratic leaders from across Virginia are urging the state's superdelegates to endorse Barack Obama for president.

Obama overwhelmingly won the Virginia primary Feb. 12, taking 64 percent of the Democratic vote. But several of the state's superdelegates have endorsed Hillary Clinton and others, including U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and Democratic Party of Virginia Chairman Richard Cranwell, have not endorsed either.

Judy Feder, one of the Democratic challengers to U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) this year, has made CQ Politics' top 10 list of best-funded, opposite party challengers. She's ranked ninth in the cash-on-hand department.

Feder is known for her fund-raising abilities. In 2006, she amassed more than $1.5 million in her first match-up against the popular 14-term incumbent, who raised just over $1.7 million.

Last week, bills that would have closed the so-called gun show "loophole" died in committee, in part with the help of Sen. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke), who on Wednesday voted against advancing the bill to the floor of the Senate.

But today, Edwards -- whose district includes Virginia Tech -- tried to reopen the debate.

Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) is set to become the first woman from the State Senate to become a budget conferee.

The conferees are the handful of lawmakers who duke it out at the end of each session to finish the budget. On Wednesday, Sen. Charles J. Colgan (D-Prince William), chairman of the finance committee, and Del. William J. Howell (R-Stafford), speaker of the House of Delegates, took the unusual step of announcing the conferees, whose names typically are unveiled toward the end of the session.

The House, too, has a woman conferee, Beverly J. Sherwood (R-Frederick). But she won't be the first from that chamber. That was Dorothy McDiarmid (D-Arlington), who served in 1984.

Chaos reigned at today's meeting of the Senate Courts of Justice committee, which took the state legislature's first crack at killing the unpopular abusive-driver fees.

The panel struggled to combine 10 bills that essentially did the same thing-- repeal the fees. Senators argued along party lines over two issues: should the thousands of motorists who have already been assessed the fees get their money back, and should the committee attach an "emergency clause" to the bill so it takes effect as soon as the governor signs it?

Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) unveiled his legislative priorities Tuesday, a day before the state's lawmakers get to work for this year's 60-day session in Richmond.

It came the same day former governor and U.S. senator George Allen announced he will not run for governor in 2009. Allen's announcement clears the field a bit for McDonnell, who could face Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling for the Republican nomination.

A former aide to Loudoun County Chairman Scott K. York said that York must be the happiest man in the country today.

That's because tomorrow York could become a powerful player in the region. At the first official meeting of the new Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the board is likely to return to York a host of powers that were stripped from him from the previous board.

Judy Feder, the Democrat who ran unsuccessfully in 2006 against Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), is quitting her job to focus on her effort to challenge Wolf again next year.

Feder announced yesterday she was stepping down as dean of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute after nine years.

A former reporter who went from news-breaker to news-maker earlier this year when he revealed the details of his purported off-the-record conversations with Loudoun's top prosecutor is still on the local political scene.

After quitting his job with the Loudoun County weekly Leesburg Today, Charlie Jackson volunteered for several Loudoun Democrats' campaigns, he said in an interview today. He also helped set up a press event in which the Democratic candidates for the Loudoun Board of Supervisors signed an oversized ethics pledge for the benefit of clicking cameras.

A common gripe around Loudoun County these days has been the way Richmond divvies up the tax money generated by Northern Virginia, the state's "economic engine."

Only a fraction of every tax dollar generated in Northern Virginia comes back in the form of road improvements, school funding and similar benefits. Candidates keep demanding "our fair share" to pay for the county's badly needed schools and roads.

But two state delegates this week broke from the chorus.

Judy Feder, a Democrat who raised more than $1.5 million in her race to unseat U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) last year, has already raised a whopping $335,000 for her rematch in November 2008, her campaign has announced.

It's an impressive sum for so early in the game, but it's obviously no guarantee. Feder, dean of Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute, lost solidly to Wolf last year.

Jill Holtzman Vogel, the Republican candidate hoping to replace retiring Virginia Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. in the 27th District, is getting heat over her husband's lobbying activity in Washington.

According to the Northern Virginia Daily, Alex Vogel's firm has lobbied on behalf of the American Immigrant Lawyers Association, which last week announced it supports a bill that would allow provide a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.

Today, her Democratic opponent Karen Schultz called for her husband's firm to return the $63,000 it apparently got from the group to lobby for the bill.

A new political action committee has launched in Loudoun, and it has a familiar target.

The Loudoun Coalition, which formed in August, "stands in opposition to five incumbent supervisors who are standing for reelection," according to a Thursday press release announcing the group's formation.

If you live in Loudoun, you can probably guess which five they are talking about -- Stephen J. Snow (Dulles), Mick Staton Jr. (Sugarland Run), Jim E. Clem (Leesburg), Eugene A. Delgaudio (Sterling) and Bruce E. Tulloch (Potomac), the board's pro-growth Republicans.

"Sounds like one more guy having fun attacking the Republicans," Staton said Friday.

The chairman's race in Loudoun County is heating up -- but not in the way you might think.

Three-term incumbent Scott K. York (I), who has been chairman for the past two terms, started off his campaign for reelection this fall not by attacking his opponent but by going after five of his fellow supervisors, all Republicans, whom he has dubbed "the gang of five."

Movie director Ron Maxwell has been in Loudoun County stumping for at least two Republican candidates in this fall's elections: Greg Ahlemann, who aims to be the next sheriff of Loudoun County, and Jill Holtzman Vogel, who hopes to succeed retiring Virginia Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester).

Maxwell made the Civil War epics "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals," the latter of which Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter called "something of a Confederate Honor Restoration Project."

What the two candidates have in common is a very early commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration, a position that has become all the rage since Prince William County passed its much-publicized resolution this summer.

Sandhya Somashekhar (pronounced Sahn-di-ya So-ma-shaker) has been working in the Loudoun County bureau of the Washington Post for the past year, where she has written on a variety of subjects including a high-voltage power line planned for rural Northern Virginia. She has a master's degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. Last year, she was part of a team of former Berkeley students who won the George Polk award for radio reporting. Prior to graduate school, she spent three years covering education for a daily newspaper in suburban San Francisco. Despite her six-year stint in California, she is a local girl who grew up in Bel Air, Md.