Bacon's Rebellion

As promised, I am reporting the response of Tom Kopko, the communications director for Steve Chapman, the feisty young guy who’s taking on entrenched incumbent Harry Parrish for the GOP nomination in the 50th district House of Delegates race. Chapman has accused his political opponents of concocting charges that he lied about his residence when he registered to vote last fall. In a prepared statement, Chapman said he’d paid rent in the 50th (Manassas and vicinity), changed his driver’s licence and car insurance to the new address, and changed his mailing address as well.

Ah, but did he actually live in the 50th? …As in, eat, sleep, change clothes, take showers, etc. in the 50th? I wondered: Was Chapman providing a weasel-word defense?

No, insists, Kopko. “Steve ‘lived in’ the leased Manassas Park house in question. Gil Davis probably said it best, “He stayed there not every night, but quite a few nights,” at our press conference. Can’t say much more due to the case. Skeptics assuming, or even accusing of, a charade should consider that it is obvious he intended to live there because that’s a requirement to hold office. Doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

There you have it. Chapman stayed in his Manassas Park house “quite a few nights”. Does that meet the standard of legal residence? Chapman is not the only candidate for office to change residences in order to run in a different district. As other bloggers have pointed out, if elected, he wouldn’t be the only politician to maintain a part-time residence in the district he served. Why is he being singled out for prosecution? Is this just another example of the Political Establishment protecting its own?

The advantages of incumbency are so powerful, there’s precious little competition in Virginia’s jerrymandered House and Senate districts as it is. Parrish was a prime mover behind the 2004 tax hikes. Chapman wants to hold him accountable. The charges against Chapman should be resolved as speedily as possible so the election can focus on the issues.

The current edition of Forbes magazine runs a special report on the “Best Places” to jump-start a business or career. The Old Dominion comes out on top. Sayeth Forbes: “Texas and Virginia, with highly educated labor forces and relatively low business costs, score well on our annual ranking of the 150 biggest metros (population over 345,000), with seven areas in the top 20. No other state placed more than one locale in the upper echelon.”

It comes as no surprise that the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area ranks 4th in the country in a composite index that encompasses business costs, living costs, crime rate, engineers, unemployment and five-year annualized growth rate in jobs. Forbes notes that Northern Virginia is doing the heavy lifting for the metro area. “The unemployment rate for the nation’s capital is a staggering 7.1%, but a tight labor market in northern Virginia brings the rate for the metro area as a whole down to 3.1%, the fourth lowest in the country.”

The unexpected news is the strong performance of Hampton Roads and Richmond. So accustomed are we down-staters to marvelling at the economic performance of NoVa that we sometimes forget that RoVa (the Rest of Virginia) has something going for it as well.

Forbes rates “Norfolk”–I guess them Yankees still haven’t figured out that we locals refer to it as Hampton Roads–as No. 8 in the country. Although the high-tech employment rate is low and incomes lag the national average, the magazine writes, incomes have been growing at the eight-fastest rate in the country. (Forbes soon may need to update its perspective on high-tech employment in Hampton Roads. See my latest column, “SimCity” about the emergence of a world-class Modeling & Simulation” industry in the region.)

Richmond doesn’t get its own profile, but Forbes does rank it 14th out of the 150 metro areas.

One could argue that Virginia warrants the uncontested top spot among states. All three of our major metro areas fall within the Top 20. While Texas has four in the Top 20 — Austin, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth — it has four that are not, including three — San Antonio, Corpus Christi, McAllen and Brownsville — in the bottom half.

I apologize, fellow bloggers, but I cannot leave this story alone. As you may recall, Steve Chapman, Republican candidate for the House of Delegates 50th district, has been charged with lying about where he lived when he registered to vote last fall, and then voting illegally in November. In a press release issued Saturday, the Chapman campaign made the following statement:

Steve Chapman is 100% innocent of these outrageous, absurd charges against him. Did he move in to Manassas Park? After paying rent, he changed his driver’s license, he changed his car insurance, he changed his car registration, he changed his mailing address, and he got verification of rental from his landlord, Michael Wilbourn, in order to get a mortgage. But it wasn’t just paper, Steve got to work immediately in his community…

I got to thinking. That’s an interesting list of specifics. There can be little question that Chapman made an effort to change his legal residence to the 50th district. But did he maintain his actual residence there? I posited the following question to Tom Kopko, Chapman’s communications director: “Did Steve actually live in a 50th district residence? As in… sleep there, make meals there, change his clothes there, shower, shave and brush his teeth there? You haven’t said that he did. You haven’t presented witnesses who can confirm that he did. Unless you do so, skeptics will assume that all the actions listed above were nothing more than a charade. Can you please clarify?”

I sent that message Saturday. I’m still waiting for an answer. If Chapman is willing to verify that he did all the normal things that people do at home, that’s good enough for me. I’m willing to drop the subject. Until he does, however, I suspect we’re being weasel-worded.

Got my 2005 General Assembly Update from my State Senator, Marty Williams (1st SD) It’s a nice, slick glossy fold out with buzz word-length explanations of his big three bills and five areas of focus. It appears Marty wants to take credit for Protecting Your Family, Advocating for the Environment, Helping the Community, Reducing Crime and Improving Public Safety, and Cutting Taxes.

The “Cutting Taxes’ section is written as third person passive voice claiming, “During Senator Williams’ time in office, over one billion dollars in tax cuts have been passed by the General Assembly. Some of the significant tax cuts that affect you every day include: The elimination of the state sales tax on groceries (2005), a reduction of the “Car Tax” (2000), eliminate the “Marriage Penalty” on state taxes (2004).

What did this Republican politician not say? Marty didn’t say he voted for over $1.5b in tax increases in 2004 – the largest tax increase in Virginia history. It doesn’t say he sponsored the bill for the Transportation Referendum (2002 – tax scam) that was defeated over 2:1 in Hampton Roads. Taxes were cut and taxes were raised since Marty was elected in 1995. Sort of like there was a Recession, 9-11 and the Red Sox won the Series during the same time, and VA Sen. Williams was present during, but not a player in those events either. Yet, Republican Williams is responsible for the tax raises that affect ‘you’ every day. But, he doesn’t remind the voters. Odd isn’t it?

The May 9, 2005, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion newsletter has just been posted online. Fifteen columns and features plus a shameless plug for Barnie Day’s new book, “Notes from the Sausage Factory”.

Click here to view it.

Becky Dale alerts us to an excellent editorial in The Free Lance Star on the witch invocation kerfluffle in Chesterfield County. A Wiccan wanted a turn at delivering a prayer at a Board of Supervisors meeting, but the County refused to allow her. A lower court affirmed her right; the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the County.

Just the title of the editorial is priceless: “Witchshaft.” There are some other great images, too. Here’s the description of the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning: “Since the only kinds of prayers Chesterfield tolerates are generic ones, there’s no requirement that every single cult, creed, or coven have a place on the county’s devotional roster. If all flavors are vanilla, surely 100 vanilla producers suffice. No need for 101.”

This is the description of that reasoning’s impact: “The ACLU of Virginia, representing Ms. Simpson, is rightly steamed about the 4th Circuit ruling, which pays scrupulous attention to valve stems while ignoring the whole big Mac truck that’s flattened the First Amendment in Chesterfield County.”

The final graf is commonsense:

A public body may elect to omit all prayer. But, if not, surely the true civil-libertarian position is: More speech! No editing! No discrimination! Whatever words Ms. Simpson or Mr. Turner utters aren’t going to help establish any faith except the all-American one of free expression. That’s more than can be said for Chesterfield, the 4th Circuit, the ACLU of Virginia, and others lost in little laws.

In the Jim Bacon blogging “you ain’t seen nothing yet” category are two posts showing enterprising reporting that you won’t find in mainstream media outlets.

Over at Commonwealth Watch, Russ Potts has apparently been caught in a huge lie over his claim that he opposed the 2001 transporation referendums. Reporters besotted with Potts probably won’t run with this information as it conflicts with their carefully constructed storyline.

Richard at Northerncrown attended a Manassas Battlefield By-pass public hearing and comprehensively categorized the comments, instead of highlighting a few as most print reporters are forced to do.

Bloggers can do original reporting and these are two great examples.

Charlottesville Daily Progress columnist Bob Gibson has given the best MSM treatment yet to Virginia’s political blogging phenomenon in “Politics and opinion: a blog delight.” Yes, I confess, I relished the kind words he wrote about Bacon’s Rebellion, but what I found most significant was the way Gibson treated blogging as more than a curiosity. He was willing to credit Bacon’s Rebellion and a growing cohort of other fine Virginia blogs with helping to shape and define a number of ongoing political stories.

Virginia’s blogosphere is still young, still maturing, and it is far from tapping the full potential of digital technology. You’ll see dramatic developments in the Virginia blogging community within just a few months. Blogging will change the face of Virginia politics and public policy. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

To all the mothers who read us, and to the mothers of all our readers, we wish you a beautiful Mother’s Day. By reading to us as children, keeping after us about our homework, and encouraging us to talk and think, Mothers are the true founders of blogging.

That seems to be the message of Sen. Marty Williams, R-Newport News. He has an op-ed in today’s Daily Press built around statistics like these:

Driving on roads in need of repair costs Virginia motorists $1.2 billion a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs – $248 per motorist.

Twenty-six percent of Virginia’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally
obsolete.

There are 74 state-determined deficient dams in Virginia.

Virginia has 126 high-hazard dams whose failure would cause a loss of life and
significant property damage.

Sixty percent of Virginia’s schools have at least one inadequate building feature.

Fifty-eight percent of Virginia’s schools have at least one unsatisfactory environmental condition.

I wonder who has an estimate on what fixing all those current and potential infrastructure problems will cost.

The Wife attended a meeting yesterday of the Richmond chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management where Jerry Kilgore gave a speech. She’s a Democrat and rarely has anything good to say about Republicans, so take this with a grain of salt. Kilgore opened his speech with extended, light-hearted remarks about his accent, the Wife reports. Some of them were amusing, but they went on too long, and the tenor of his comments seemed almost apologetic.

Bacon to Kilgore: Get over it! You’re psyching yourself out, man. So what if you’ve got a SW Virginia, girlie-man accent? That’s who you are. You don’t need to apologize for it. You don’t need to bring attention to it. Even the Wife said that she got accustomed to your manner of speaking after a while.

I’m serious. Every politician has some kind of baggage. Some are fat. Some are ugly. Some are jerks. But they don’t bring attention to those things. You’re slender, pleasant looking and come across as a nice guy. You just don’t happen to be blessed with the politician’s speaking voice. People do notice the voice, but then they get over it. At least they would get over it, if you got over it.

If the Kaine people make cruel fun of you, it’ll boomerang on them. Ultimately the gubernatorial campaign is about values, character and ideas. In the final analysis, that’s what people care about.

I promised to follow the budget cutting efforts of Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder.

After steep cuts across a variety of functions were proposed, public hearings were held for the aggrieved parties to protest the cuts. City Council has now made 70 changes to Mayor Wilder’s budget, restoring much of what was cut. The council’s changes leave the city’s budget, which must be balanced, some $7 million in the red.

I found this to be too ironic for words:

“It’s not a problem that things are added. We are trying to provide services to our constituents,” said Assistant Vice Mayor J.M. “Jackie” Jackson.

She said Wilder “cut things we have a contractual obligation to provide and left it up to us to figure it out.”

Echoing other council members, Jackson said it is up to the mayor and his top officials to figure out how to bring the budget back into balance.

Council did make one balanced concession on economic development. They set up a $1.5 “pool” to fund a variety of organizations that now receive $2.2 million.

The Virginia Foundation for Economic Education has released its 2005 legislator ratings. We have posted the details on the Bacon’s Rebellion website.

At the top of the list in the state Senate:

Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico (with a score of 88)
John Watkins, R-Chesterfield (88)
John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland (85)
(View complete list, with scores on voting, stewardship and effectiveness.)

At the top of the list in the House of Delegates:

Chris S. Jones, R-Suffolk (92)
Samuel A. Nixon, R-Chesterfield (89)
William H. Fralin, Jr., R-Roanoke (88)
(View complete list.)

Read the commentary of Virginia FREE President Clayton Roberts here.

Eco-tourism is often touted as an answer to Southwest Virginia’s economic woes, but NVA istaking advantage of it, too. Today’s Washington Post reports on the opening of the Virginia Wildlife and Birding Trail in Fauquier County. Tourism officials think it will be a hit with “exhausted, traffic-weary Washingtonians.”

It’s run by the embattled Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, whose officials were recently observing wildlife and birds in Zimbabwe.

There’s a definite economic development reason to create trails like this: “In Virginia, people spent $788 million on wildlife-watching activities in 2001, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. Most of them, 1.8 million, were looking at birds.”

Perhaps Middleburg residents will use the trail to escape Salamander Hospitality’s evil resort and spa.

The Washington Post reports on the latest twist in the Parrish-Chapman campaign in the 50th House of Delegates district (in Manassas and environs): Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Paul Ebert, has filed unspecified charges of election fraud against Chapman, who is running a spirited campaign against the senior Republican delegate. Chapman has been contending with questions regarding the legitimacy of his residence in the 50th district.

Chapman fired back, accusing Parrish of hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on him–a charge that the Parrish campaign promptly denied. He also alleged that Parrish is close friends with Ebert, the commonwealth’s attorney who filed the charges.

Chapman is one of only a handful of insurgents this year mounting a credible campaign against delegates who broke ranks with the mainstream of the GOP to vote in favor of tax hikes in 2004. He has raised $37,000 so far, compared with Parrish’s $126,000. In a prepared statement yesterday he said, “Delegate Parrish and his Democrat friends will not deter my fight against their billion-dollar tax increases, their billion dollar surpluses, their homosexual agenda, their do-nothing transportation plans, their assault on the families of Manassas and Manassas Park, and their assault on our conservative values that we hold so dear.”