Bacon's Rebellion

The University of Virginia will allow same-sex partners of students and employees to join the university’s gyms. Gay and lesbian staff members had pushed the university for years to add the benefit, according to the Daily Progress.

Earlier this month, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell informed the university it could provide gym memberships to adults who live with an employee or student but are not their spouse. UVa had been reluctant to grant the benefit, citing a 2004 opinion by then-Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore that said the school should not grant benefits involving relationships not recognized by Virginia law.

Effective July 1, the DP reports, the Plus One program will allow a person living with a faculty or staff member to purchase a gym membership for $270 a year.

McDonnell’s ruling applies to “significant others” of the opposite sex, does it not? I can sympathise to some degree with the plight of gays, who do not possess the right to marry in Virginia. As long as they’re in a committed, long-term relationship, why shouldn’t they enjoy the same civil rights as heteros? But I have no particular sympathy for unmarried heteros. Why should the prerogatives and benefits of marriage be extended to a couple in a transient relationship just because they happen to be shacking up?

It looks like we’re stepping onto a very slippery slope here. What grounds are there to discriminate against anyone for any type of domestic arrangement? How long until others apply the gym-benefit precedent to health insurance and other benefits?

You knew it had to happen sooner or later. Preventing another Virginia Tech massacre would come down to money — mo’ money. Joe Samaha, whose daughter Reema was killed by Seung Hui Cho, pleaded with the House Welfare and Institutions Committee to pass legislation that will “fund mental-health care, with the coordination of education, policies and administration of the laws.”

Committee Chairman Philip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, agreed, according to the Washington Post’s reporting of the hearing. “We can make all the policy changes we want, but if we don’t allocate adequate resources to address the policy changes, then we’ve actually done nothing.”

While agreeing that funding should be a priority in the 2008 legislative session, Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria, contended that it is important how the money is spent. Said Moran: “We need to make sure that training is a component so there’s no misunderstanding about what mental-health professionals are supposed to do.”

Moran has the right instincts: We can’t just throw money at the problem. We need to target dollars spent to ensure that mental health systems are operating properly. Training may be a component of what’s needed. But there’s an important piece of the story that the press, and presumably the lawmakers too, have overlooked.

Here’s how the WaPo summarized the institutional breakdown:

Cho encountered the state’s mental-health system when he was referred to the New River Valley Community Services Board in 2005, 16 months before the shootings. Virginia Tech police said that he had harassed two female students and that he was suicidal. The board, the government mental-health agency that serves Blacksburg, found that Cho was “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization,” according to court papers.

The next day, a special justice assigned to Cho decided that he was “an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness” and ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment. But three law enforcement sources familiar with Cho’s medical records have said that Cho never received treatment. There was no follow-up from the community services board or the courts.

Why was there no follow up? Mental health administrators blame insufficient funding to fully participate in judicial mental health hearings and follow up on court-ordered treatment. Is that the end of the story? Read today’s column in Bacon’s Rebellion, “Isolated Case or System Failure?”, by Sam Mela, a former member of the Central Virginia Community Services Board. He argues that the lack of follow-up represented a breakdown in quality assurance.

Writes Mela: “A key tenet of QA is to elevate the priority of critical issues until they are resolved. Who was the person in charge of Quality Assurance at the New River Valley Community Services Board?”

Other questions he asks: “Is every community services board in the state of Virginia so under-funded that it is out of compliance with Virginia mental health law? Or are only some boards out of compliance? Or, is the problem limited to the New River Valley Community Services Board?”

Darn good questions. Let’s get answers before we start spreading around the greenbacks.

It wasn’t easy coming home — I’ll add Jackson Hole, Wyo., to Ocracoke, N.C., and Round Hill, Jamaica, as one of my favorite places outside Virginia — but I’m back and I’m rarin’ to go.

You can find the June 19, 2006, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine here. Don’t miss a single issue — click here for a free subscription.

For your reading pleasure, here’s this week’s line-up of columns and features:

Fire Trucks and Bike Lanes
Wilton on the James has solved the intractable “design by fire truck” issue without sacrificing its commitment to a pedestrian-oriented community. The result: an impressive network of bike paths.
by James A. Bacon

Megapolitan
Consider one great statistical region named “Chesapeake.”
by Doug Koelemay

The Conservation Imperative
No fantastical technology, green or otherwise, can keep the world on its increasingly energy-intensive development path. We need to get serious about conservation.
by EM Risse

Unconstitutional Power Grab
Two congressmen want to stop the states from utilizing public-private partnerships to finance new road construction. A little thing called the Tenth Amendment stands in the way.
by Geoff Segal

It’s All Our Fault!
Don’t blame the politicians, blame the voters. According to Bryan Caplan, they can exercise their irrational biases — against foreigners, oil companies, the market, whomever — with no fear of retribution.
By Norman Leahy

Isolated Case or System Failure?
The most critical questions of the Virginia Tech shootings are going unasked. Why did Virginia’s mental health agencies let Seung-Hui Cho fall between the cracks? Is anyone else at risk?
by Sam Mela

Nice & Curious Questions
Virginia’s Counties: A Day’s Journey to the Courthouse
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

In Feudal Europe the peasants would rise up, occasionally, against particularly oppressive lords. After a bit of looting, killing and drunken revelry the ‘Jacquerie’ would be suppressed by all the neighboring lords with a fair measure of atrocities to send the proper message. Keep your place, Peasants. Your pitchforks are no match for our armed, heavy horsemen.

In our fertile, but as yet, futile Virginia the peasants are rising here and there. It’s not clear if their efforts will be as ephemeral as a Jacquerie or more like the 1775 rising for the Rights of Englishmen in America.

The difference between the losing and the winning among Hanger, Stosch, Bell and Williams is very local and idiosyncratic.

I was intimately involved in the Stall win (Full Disclosure). I was in contact with fellow peasants in other races.

Working the polls in Poquoson (our town went 59:41 for Stall with 12% voting in a party primary), I heard five people say variations of this:

The politicians, both Republican and Democrat, think we are stupid. We aren’t. We will show them here at the polls.

Other comments were about how many times we have to vote ‘No’ for an elected official to get the message – and not cram unelected, unaccountable Regional Government down our throats.

What is wrong when a politician will spend over a half million dollars to keep his job? Who is getting paid off? Etc.

Since Tuesday afternoon, I’ve heard the same sentiments from voters in Newport News, York, and Hampton. The Democrats on the Hampton City Council may have gotten the message. Last night they voted unanimously against the Transportation Tax Panic – Regional Government.

There is a palatable sense of betrayal held by many common folk for elected officials, former elected officials and party officials who support incumbents who betray campaign promises and party creeds to raise taxes and expand government. There is genuine disgust with reflexive Republicans – those Republicans who would support – name your villain – no matter what they do in office as long as they were once elected as Republicans.

The resentment caused by poor management of the Iraq War and, way more, with the Illegal Alien Shamnesty Bill is great and growing.

Lest I give the wrong connotation – this isn’t a vote of angry people whose ire will blow over after a relaxing summer.

It is a thoughtful vote of people who are grateful for a choice in a candidate who reflects their opinions. It is a fatigue with big government, tax and spend, tin ear politicians who won’t enforce the laws on the books – the Rule of Law – let alone their campaign promises. It is an energy from people who are Patriots in every sense of the word – so many have military experience or serving family members now. It is a growing determination to do what is necessary – walk away from a major political party that once held their hopes and aspirations or any candidate – who won’t do what is fundamentally necessary to protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia – in absolute service to The People – not the special interests, the money donors, the circular flow of privilege and wealth that is Virginia’s way to do political corruption.

Pundits can dismiss this little primary as they like. They didn’t look the voters in the eyes. They didn’t hear their voices. They didn’t feel the grip of their handshake and hugs.

We beat a 12 year incumbent who outspent Tricia Stall over 10:1. Isn’t money supposed to define who wins or loses? Besides, this is Tidewater where politicians are elected for life – from either party.

I don’t think this is just a Jacquerie in Virginia. If Illegal Alien Shamnesty passes in Washington – we may sense, emotionally, of what it was like after the Boston Massacre and the Tea Party and the wooden bridge at Concord all built upon one another – to where the government has broken its trust with The People. The difference is all of the political fighting will be with ballots, not bayonets.

And, perhaps, as we did on The Peninsula – The People will speak clearly.

Yesterday, and elsewhere I speculated on a few threads that seemed to have emerged from the primary elections.

After chewing things over with some more folks last night, a few things seem to be coming together. And one of them is that George Allen may have stepped in a steaming pile of trouble.

My sources, and the sources they’ve spoken with, are almost incandescent with rage over Allen’s endorsements and active work on behalf of incumbents like Walter Stosch. Between the direct mail and the radio ads that provided a bit of right-wing cover for Stosch, the sense is that Allen has jilted them (a feeling that’s shared by Benny Lambert — “Lambert said his support of Allen probably cost him his job. ‘I thought the Allen folks would have helped me more, but it didn’t work out that way.’” Welcome to the club, Mr. Lambert).

Whether these hard feelings will remain in place long enough to do Allen any serious, long-term harm is debatable. But they are real enough right now that Allen might have a hard time beating “Other” in a two-way race for dog catcher.

Another very interesting picture emerging is the role and future of VCAP. The organization played no role in the Bell/Smith or Williams/Stall races. Where they did play, the record was, to be charitable, mixed. Some have called VCAP a paper tiger and others wonder if it’s involvement is a liability or a help. Given its resources, the organization is no paper tiger. But its role in future races will be a subject of debate in conservative circles for some time.

There were a few humorous pictures that came out of Tuesday’s results, as well, including the victory of Joe Morrissey in the 74th district. Morrissey is…colorful. Disbarred from the practice of law, noted for his fightin’ manner (literally) and so much more, he managed to win over the former incumbent, Floyd Miles, and one-time Richmond city council member Jackie Jackson. Morrissey had former Doug Wilder advisor Paul Goldman in his corner, which makes it logical to wonder whether Joe isn’t Wilder’s (unspoken) choice for the seat. When you add that Wilder (quietly) helped Reva Trammell oust Jackson in their in their council race in 2006, it makes for even more entertaining speculation.

But on a happy note, my Sorensen classmate Margie Vanderhye won the 34th district Democratic primary. I may disagree with her policy ideas, but there’s far more to life than politics. She’s just good people, and the HOD could use more folks like her.

“Moderates Defeated in VA Primary: GOP Ideological Struggle at Heart of VA Races” shouts WaPo‘s front page.

Do not hyperventilate about the Primary results regardless of clan identity.

The following is based on the expertise that comes from being an Independent who supported some candidates that won and chatted up the political insiders who gathered at last night’s victory parties.

There were half a dozen prime RINOs in the hunt.

Two retired. The RINO-in-chief’s hand picked candidate won in a pre-Primary political process.

While Donkey clan members might rather run in November against the anti-RINO candidate that was indicted on 11 counts of election fraud during the primary campaign (See our post “I Am Not Making This Up”), they should settle for someone from Hunt Country when most of the votes are in the Valley where Potts was popular.

Of the other four, two won and two were defeated. All the margins were narrow, in light turnouts.

It is hard to believe there were not 758 Donkey Clan members in the First Senate District who like to get out on election day and who would rather see a new someone WaPo says signed a petition to end “government involvement in education” rather than an entrenched incumbent.

RINO hunters did not do that well — plus there is an ideological vs personality / incompetence spin that can be put on every race — in the contests which we know the participants.

It may sell papers but seems just plain silly to feature a quote from a RINO hunter such as “The people have spoken, and it is time for a change. It is time to stop raising taxes in Virginia.”

True conservatives would do better to urge their supporters to start saving more and consuming less and buying a lot of insurance.

Governance of contemporary society is expensive. Effective government that addresses pressing issues of Mobility and Access, Affordable and Accessible Housing, Food Security Air Quality, Water Supply and Adequate Health Care will be spending a lot more money.

What this election said to many we spoke to was that the political process is broken, badly broken.

It is to easy, however, to see the glass half full when your candidate won.

EMR