Category: Courts and law
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Virginia’s Vengeful Politicians
by Kerry Dougherty Terry McAuliffe is a terrific politician. If you’ve met the former Virginia governor you know what I mean. He’s smooth. He oozes charm. Like many skilled politicians, underneath that affable exterior lurks a ruthless operator with an elephantine memory. Just ask LaBravia Jenkins, the well-respected commonwealth’s attorney for the City of Fredericksburg.…
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Yanking Drivers’ License Over Unpaid Court Costs Is Inhumane
by Kerry Daugherty Many years ago, OK, 11 to be exact, I foolishly zipped along Rt. 58 through Emporia. Yep, the speeding capital of the Old Dominion. I saw the flashing lights in my rearview, heard the screaming sirens and prayed that the cop was chasing one of the cars ahead of me. He wasn’t.…
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How Virginia Would Fare Under President Biden, Part 1
By DJ Rippert And then there were two. Today, Elizabeth Warren announced that she will withdraw from the presidential race. That leaves Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard (yes, she’s still running) as the remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination. Given that Tulsi Gabbard has exactly one delegate (from American Samoa where she was…
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Virginia’s Top Employment Cop Adds Enforcers
By Steve Haner The final state budget is still in negotiation, but it could add as many as five new enforcement staff to the Office of the Attorney General to seek out and prosecute discrimination in Virginia’s workplaces, using old and new definitions of what is prohibited. The price tag looks to be about $600,000…
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Would Legal Medical Marijuana in Virginia Reduce Opioid Addiction?
By DJ Rippert The lesser of two evils. The ongoing 2020 Virginia General Assembly session has generated a lot of debate over gun control. Proponents of stricter firearms regulation cite reduced gun violence as a goal. While gun-related deaths (including murder) are a real problem, those deaths are less frequent than fatal opioid overdoses. In…
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Racial Preferences in Energy Bill Are Unconstitutional
by Hans Bader Virginia’s new Democratic legislature is passing an energy law that contains racial preferences. But to try to get around constitutional restrictions on racial discrimination, it is primarily targeting such preferences to “predominantly-minority areas,” rather than to minority individuals. This doesn’t immunize this legislation against a constitutional challenge, but it does complicate things…
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Democrats Slow Down on Criminal Justice Reform
by Dick Hall-Sizemore As Steve Haner remarked in an earlier post, the changes being enacted by Democrats in this year’s session are on many fronts and more extensive than many observers had anticipated. It is hard to keep up. The same is true in the criminal justice area, but, perhaps to a lesser extent. A…
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Bill Broadens Definition of Sexual Harassment
by Hans Bader On January 30, a subcommittee in Virginia’s House of Delegates voted 5-to-2 to adopt a revised version of HB 1418, a bill to expand employers’ liability for sexual harassment. The bill originally applied to employers with six to 14 employees. Now it applies to all employers with more than five. Originally, while…
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Virginia Rated Worst State for Partisan Gerrymandering
By DJ Rippert They’ll be back (in office forever). The USC Schwarzennegger Institute released a report finding that Virginia had the highest degree of partisan gerrymandering among all U.S. states. The report analyzed the “statewide popular vote in 2017 or 2018 state legislative elections and the partisan composition of the state legislative chambers in 2019.”…
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Finished with the Second Amendment Virginia Dems Now Attack the First (and Sixth)
By DJ Rippert Sticks and stones? Del. Jeffrey M. Bourne, D-Richmond, has introduced HB1627. The bill is entitled, “Threats and harassment of certain officials and property; venue.” The proposed legislation strengthens a series of very questionable laws already on the books. The first few sections of the existing law make it illegal to make threats…
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Virginia Likely to Avoid “Marijuana Legalization Trap” in 2020
By DJ Rippert Reefer madness. Virginia is notably lagging most other states in marijuana reform. Across America recreational marijuana is legal for adults in 11 states and legal for medical use in 33 states. Twenty-five states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. In Virginia marijuana is illegal, criminalized and unavailable for medical…
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HB 1200: Another Small Business Shakedown
by Hans Bader Right now, if you employ five or fewer workers in Virginia, you aren’t subject to most state restrictions on who you can hire. And if you have fewer than 15 employees, you usually can’t be forced to pay a worker’s lawyer much at all if the worker sues you. That would change…
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Way Overdue: Cleanse the State Code of Racist Residue
by James A. Bacon This 1956 law, enshrined in Chapter 59 of the Acts of the General Assembly, is a dead letter, rendered irrelevant by judicial rulings, others laws, and history, but it’s still on the books: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no child shall be required to enroll in or attend any school…
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Virginia marijuana reform: Outlook for 2020
By Don Rippert Cannabis certitude. The seemingly inexorable march toward legalized marijuana in the United States continues unabated. A poll of 9,900 American adults conducted by the Pew Research Center from September 3 – 15, 2019 found that 67% of the respondents thought cannabis should be legalized. That’s five percentage points higher than Pew’s last…
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Northam Comes to the Aid of Menhaden (But is Chap Petersen Paying Attention?)
By Don Rippert Fish tale. Omega Protein, a Canadian owned company, has willfully exceeded its menhaden catch limit in the Chesapeake Bay. You can read the details here. The catch limit is controversial since menhaden is the only marine fish regulated directly by the Virginia General Assembly. All other saltwater fish in Virginia are regulated…