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divides
Virginians
as well as Americans.
A.
Barton Hinkle of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch had perhaps the most thoughtful
piece, castigating the plastic fetus antics of Del.
Richard Black, R-Loudoun, while admitting his own
mixed personal feelings: “This column's policy
view on abortion resembles that regarding gangsta
rap: It's something difficult to abide but wrong to
outlaw.”
Mark
Smith
of NARAL Virginia
had no
mixed feelings in his Roanoke Times piece, criticizing the “extremist zeal” of
anti-abortion supporters.
He accused them of wasting the General
Assembly’s precious time.
Radford professor William
Oliver, also in the Times,
denounced the paper for its biased reporting on the
issue, favoring abortion.
The Virginian-Pilot’s
Margaret
Edds wrote: “Welcome to the new
Virginia. It makes
me skittish. It's
a
Virginia
in which
the war against abortion is won by dictate rather
than persuasion.”
Meanwhile,
as the Virginia
budget was
being hammered out in a news vacuum, pundits and
legislators wrote longingly of overhauling
Virginia
’s tax
code or saving the Commonwealth by either ending or
keeping the estate tax.
R.
H. Melton of the Washington
Post looked at history and current reality:
Modernizing
the tax code -- so it helps, not hurts, local
governments that are confronting bewildering and
costly demands for services -- has long been a goal
of state leaders, but it has been much easier to
study the issue to death than to do something.
In
short, tax restructuring is a politician's
nightmare: It has no sex appeal as a campaign issue
and is loaded with many election-time land mines.
Yet,
there is a consensus to do something on taxes,
albeit a fragile one that could blow away in the
slightest partisan breeze.
Del.
Steve
Landes, R-Waynesboro, in the Roanoke
Times, hailed several budget reforms Republicans
have recommended. Continuing
the Times’ op-ed proliferation, Del. Bob
McDonnell,
R-Virginia Beach, made a case for ending the estate
tax on the same page that Del. Clifton
“Chip” Woodrum, D-Roanoke, made a case
against it.
Margaret
Edds continued her lament about the “new Virginia”:
A
Virginia
in which millionaires get a
$136 million tax break pronto, while a cut in the
sales tax on food goes on hold.
A
Virginia
in which few have the courage
to support desperately needed reforms in the state
tax code until after the next election -- if then.
Bob
Gibson
of the Daily
Progress singled out the estate tax politics of
Sen. Thomas Norment, R-Williamsburg.
Describing him as a “clubby insider, Gibson
attributes his support of ending the estate tax to
“political atonement” for supporting the Hampton
Roads transportation referendum.
It’s also because Norment is facing a
potential primary challenge from the right.
Colonial
Capital Pundit Wrap-Up
In
a Daily Press
op-ed, Williamsburg Mayor Jeanne
Zeidler defended rental inspections against a
bill in the General Assembly that would end them.
… Bill
Bryant, a civic activist also writing in the
Daily Press, laid out a plan for managing the growth
that is threatening Williamsburg’s historic
character. … College of William and Mary Men’s
Soccer Coach Al
Albert, in a passionate op-ed in the Richmond
Times-Dispatch, urged changes to Title IX that
would allow more male participation in college
sports. (Full
disclosure: Al Albert was my physical education
professor for soccer and lacrosse, two required PE
units that carried no credit at W&M).
Virginia
Sightings
Del.
Richard Black, R-Sterling, appeared
with his pro-choice license plate in a Dahlia
Lithwick legal story for Slate.
… OpinionJournal’s Best
of the Web had fun with a Virginia General
Assembly battle over a flag symbolizing Southern
Heritage—the South Vietnamese flag.
Constructive
Criticism, Friendly Advice
After
a long hiatus, Gordon
Morse is back, this time with a Washington
Post op-ed excoriating Republicans in the
General Assembly. Calling them “blinkered, provincial,
self-aggrandizing, ecclesiastic and dumb,” Morse
describes their budget proposals as a “debacle.”
Gov. Mark R. Warner is urged to
“Dispense with humility and imitate the
tiger: Unsheathe the veto pen, draw blood and let
his voice, for once, emit passion.”
Send
Money
Dan
Hanfling,
writing in the Washington
Post, called for more federal money to support
emergency preparedness at Northern
Virginia
hospitals.
These hospitals would be on the front lines
of any terrorist attack against the Nation’s
Capital. Hanfling
is the director of emergency management and disaster
medicine at Inova Health System.
The
Million Dollar Question
According
to
Kerry Dougherty of the Virginian-Pilot,
the million dollar question is, why is Hampton Roads
called Hampton Roads?
A Brooklyn
caller
told her it sounded like it was “out in the
sticks.”
--
February 17, 2003
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