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Virginia
Pundit Watch
won’t stoop so low, however, except to note a few
representative samples:
·
Kate
O’Beirne made the bill her “Outrage
of the Week” on CNN’s Capital
Gang.
·
Kerry
Dougherty of the Virginian-Pilot
covered international
and Tidewater reaction.
·
Marc
Fisher of the Washington
Post hosted a free-for-all
of snarky comments and jokes.
Hugh
Lessig and John Bull of the Daily
Press missed the boat. Without “droopy
drawers,” the bikini wax
and wine bill they covered might have garnered
more attention.
More
serious issues began to emerge after the “droopy
drawers” were pulled. In the Washington
Post, David
Brunori, a contributing editor to State
Tax Notes magazine and a research professor of
public policy at
George
Washington
University
,
argued in
favor of the personal property tax. This is
either a brave or foolhardy man. In the same
section, A.
J. Shutello wrote of the difficulties she and
her husband faced in trying to find a larger house
in
Northern Virginia
(where they could pay inflated property taxes).
Over
in the Daily
Press, there were two provocative columns on
transportation. Gordon
Morse dared to look into how transportation is
funded in the Old Dominion, finding a surprising
number of separate funds with more on the way. He
promised more transportation analysis to come.
Margaret
Edds of the Virginian-Pilot
addressed the “lockbox” idea (she calls it a
“cookie jar” idea) of shielding
transportation funds from “raids” by the General
Fund. She
doesn’t think the House and the Senate will agree:
Will
the 2005 Assembly approve a lockbox resolution? The
current betting is, no. That’s because
Chichester
and his Senate allies insist on a two-way lockbox,
which won’t pass the House.
Long
term, the only way House leaders can fix the
state’s mounting transportation woes without
raising taxes is to draw on the general fund.
That,
Chichester
can’t abide. “Each one ought to stay out of the
others knickers,” he admonished during a committee
meeting last week.
Hopefully,
none of those knickers are “drooping.”
Mid-Terms
Two
columnists attempted mid-term reports on the General
Assembly, either broadly or narrowly. A.
Barton Hinkle of the Times-Dispatch
went wide, looking at economic development
incentives, smoking in public places, and the death
penalty.
Ed
Lynch of the Roanoke
Times looked only at “pro-family”
legislation at the halfway point of the General
Assembly: “The House of Delegates is doing an
excellent job of looking out for Virginia’s
families -- and for the most vulnerable Virginians.
I suspect most Senators would do the same, if only
the Senate’s most liberal committee would get out
of the way.”
Roiled
Racial Waters
Will
LaViest of the Daily
Press talked honestly and openly about race in
the Hampton
area, using an extended metaphor: “Hamptonians
swim in denial above the undercurrent.” The firing
of a black City Manager in Hampton has stoked racial tensions.
What
Pundits Live For
Jeff
Schapiro, indulging in Times-Dispatch
pundit fantasizing, laid out scenarios for
“political mischief” in the upcoming
gubernatorial primary and post-primary season.
Challenges to Jerry Kilgore by Warrenton
Mayor George Fitch and Sen. Russ Potts make the
scenarios and all the juicy stories that would
follow tantalizingly possible.
Let’s
Get Regional
Reginald
Shareef of the Roanoke
Times has sharp
words for the larger Roanoke area:
The
problem is egocentrism -- or the belief that
economic development revolves solely around either
the Roanoke or New River
Valley. Planners develop
marketing brands, initiate projects and strategize
as if they don’t need the other region to be
economically successful – even though stakeholders
in both regions know this is not a winning formula.
Girls
Just Wanna Do Science
In
the wake of Harvard President Larry Summer’s
comments on possible impediments to women
in science, Hollins University President Nancy
Gray used the Daily Press to advertise the nurturing environment of a women’s
college … like Hollins.
Pundits,
Armed and Provocative
Guns
in Virginia
public places spawned two different takes on the
issue.
Former
Democratic Delegate Chip Woodrum, writing in the Roanoke Times, satirized
bills prohibiting localities from banning guns in
libraries:
"We
believe that an armed librarian at the reference
desk would tend to reduce or even eliminate annoying
and repetitive requests for information," said
Annie Duckworth, a spokesperson for the LPA. "A
Glock, properly exhibited, tends to curtail
superfluous inquiry."
Melanie
Scarborough, in a Washington Post piece decrying
losses of freedom in Virginia,
offered this:
In
the post-Sept. 11 hysteria, metal detectors were
installed at the entrances to Virginia's
Capitol and General Assembly building. Yet
individuals in the commonwealth have the right to
carry guns. So when people packing heat approached
the metal detectors, they handed their guns to the
attendants, walked through the detectors, retrieved
their weapons and proceeded inside. What were the
metal detectors supposed to protect against -- car
keys and loose change?
Hey,
to this General Assembly, car keys and loose change
could be as dangerous as “droopy drawers.”
--January
31, 2005
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