Category: Courts and law
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The Hearings Are Over, Let the Battles Begin
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The House Committees on Courts of Justice and Public Safety held three meetings/public hearings in preparation for the General Assembly’s consideration of criminal justice and police reform in the upcoming special session. The sessions were billed as public hearings, but, in actuality, most of the time was spent in hearing from invited…
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COVID Workers Comp On House Democrat Bill List
By Steve Haner The coming Special Session of the General Assembly will be narrowly focused but filled with controversy, based on the legislative wish list just released by House of Delegates Democrats. Only two bills listed fall outside of the major categories of “COVID-19 Relief” or “Criminal Justice and Police Reform.” Under the heading “COVID…
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Law School Deans Ask for Mandated Anti-Racism Training
by Hans Bader As lawyers like Barack Obama have noted, law school is already a year too long, with lots of nonessential classes. As a result, law students often graduate with over $150,000 in student-loan debt. Yet law students may soon be required to take more unnecessary classes. One hundred and fifty law school deans…
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A Constitutional Approach to Avoiding Evictions in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock There has been extensive discussion here about minimizing residential evictions in Virginia in the time of COVID. I will offer a constitutional approach to achieving that objective. A Broad Consensus The Governor and General Assembly want to avoid evictions of residential tenants who are unable to pay rent due to COVID-related…
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Fool Me Once
By James C. Sherlock I want every tenant who cannot pay his rent because of COVID to be able to stay in his home. I want every landlord who supports them to be paid for their forbearance so they can pay their own bills. This post starts with both of those goals in mind. It…
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No Equal Justice for Landlords
The Virginia State Supreme Court extended yesterday the judicial moratorium on eviction proceedings for another 28 days. The split decision prompted a blistering rebuke from D. Arthur Kelsey, which L. Steven Emmert summarized yesterday in the post below, republished here from his blog, Virginia Appellate News & Analysis. — JAB Today the court responds to…
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BE HEARD Act Could Cripple Virginia Small Businesses
by Hans Bader Small businesses in Virginia could face a very different business climate next year due to Joe Biden’s support for laws like the BE HEARD Act. It could easily become law if Democrats take control of Congress and the presidency (as most pollsters expect). Under the BE HEARD Act, even the tiniest employers…
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Systemic Racism? What’s That?
By Peter Galuszka At Bacon’s Rebellion there’s a constant, grating mantra debunking the concept that the U.S. has a serious problem with “Institutional” or “Systemic” Racism. Slavery? Jim Crow? Irrelevant! We’re treated to commentary after commentary that Blacks just need to try harder. They are lazy. They do not support family values. They get too…
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Justice at Last for Rojai Fentress
by James A. Bacon It would be entirely understandable if Rojai Fentress were angry and embittered by the miscarriage of justice that convicted him of a 1996 murder and kept him imprisoned until July of this year. But in a recent Encorepreneur Zoomcast, he expressed nothing but joy at his new-found freedom, gratitude toward those…
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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Necessity and the FERC
by James C. Sherlock Peter Galuszka’s piece earlier today in this space made two claims the greens offer endlessly trying to achieve what I call truth by repeated assertion: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) either did not review or did not review properly (he inferred both) the wisdom and necessity for natural gas pipeline…
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What Needs To Be Done After the ACP
By Peter Galuszka For six long years, Dominion Energy and its partners in the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline have waged war against Virginians as they have pushed their way forward with the 600-mile-long natural gas project. Their strong-armed methods have created untold misery and expense for land-owners, members of lower income minority communities, nature…
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Attorney General Herring’s Legislative Package
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Constitution (Article V, Section 5) assigns the Governor legislative duties. He is the only member of the Executive Department assigned such duties. The Attorney General has, well … none. Of the duties of the Attorney General (Article V, Section 15), the Virginia Constitutions says only: “He shall perform such…
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Public Employee Collective Bargaining – Questions for Attorney General Herring
by James C. Sherlock As a consequence of the successful teacher revolt in Fairfax County, there are major legal questions which must be answered concerning the initiation of public employee collective bargaining in Virginia next spring. In accordance with Virginia Code § 2.2-505, members of the General Assembly can request official opinions of the Attorney…
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GMU Race-Based Discrimination Is Unconstitutional
by Hans Bader As part of a new “anti-racism” push, George Mason University plans to discriminate based on race in favor of faculty of color. On July 23, Dr. Gregory Washington, the president of GMU, announced that “We will develop specific mechanisms in the promotion and tenure process that recognize the invisible and uncredited emotional…
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Democrats Stack the Deck
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The Virginia State Crime Commission is a legislative body established in 1966 and set out in the Code of Virginia (Sec. 30-156 et al.). Its purpose is “to study, report and make recommendations on all areas of public safety and protection.” Following is a sampling of its recent topics of study: Sex…