Bacon's Rebellion

Compared to the four-way, Kaine-Kilgore-Fitch-Potts spat-fest in the gubernatorial race, the Attorney General campaigns have remained fairly civil affairs. Until now. The Virginia Conservative Action PAC, which puts state tax and spending reform at the top of its list of priorities, has endorsed Del. Bob McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, for Attorney General. The PAC promptly rolled out radio ads supporting him and attacking his opponent, Richmond attorney Steve Baril.

In a 60-second ad paid for by VCAP and authorized by McDonnell, a narrator states: “His opponent, Steve Baril, has no experience as a prosecutor. Baril’s own Web site says his law practice is quote ‘devoted primarily to business and commercial litigation.’ Do we really want a commercial litigator who’s never served as a prosecutor or elected official to serve as Virginia’s top cop?”

Responding promptly in a press release, Steve Baril said: “It’s unfortunate that Del. McDonnell, with a 14-year record in the General Assembly, has so little positive to say about himself that he has to attack me. I consider it a compliment that my campaign has gained so much momentum that Bob is now on the attack. I look forward to a spirited four weeks and to winning the Republican Primary on June 14th.”

In his column “Freedom and Learning” in the current edition of Bacon’s Rebellion, Doug Koelemay criticised several conservative legislators for protesting an event billed as a sex education fair at George Mason University. Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Centreville, has responded as follows:

Doug Koelemay, in his article entitled “Freedom and Learning” seems to be making the argument that George Mason University is rightly focused on the values he uses in his title, as demonstrated in the recent “Sextravaganza” event held on campus. He draws these values from the school motto, namely, “Freedom and Learning.”

There is an odd subtext that criticizes elected officials who dare to question anything the administration does, noting that legislators should only be performing “broad oversight and accountability functions”. Mr. Koelemay does not say what he means by oversight and accountability, but it is clear that his definition does not include actual oversight and accountability. Only a consultant that makes his living representing liberal Democrats could say this with a straight face.

It is interesting and revealing that Koelemay thinks it particularly egregious that the 5 legislators that opposed this event are legislators that vote against higher taxes. He does not tie this to his main point, he just sort of throws it out there unrelated to anything else in the article…. a lot like this paragraph….

Back to the main point. Now I may be wrong, but it would seem that Mr. Koelemay did not actually attend the event. I am drawing this inference because he harshly criticizes those who would “misrepresent” the event, but then he does that very thing. I am assuming this is because he is depending on third party reports and did not see the actual goings on (if he even bothered to get third party reports…). Click on “comments” in the line below to read the rest of this post.

In a highway robbery reminiscent of the Robin Hood days, the Commonwealth Transportation Board—an unelected and unaccounted body of appointed bureaucrats—has decided to saddle the users of the Dulles Toll Road with the costs of the states contribution toward extending Metro to the Dulles Airport (see: “Railroaded Again”).

The tolls, which are due to double at most exits, will increase on May 22. In anticipation of the toll increase, a local group opposing this unfair and discriminatory tax increase on a select group of Virginians (i.e., the users of the Dulles Toll Road), posted banners on some overpasses alerting the drivers of the upcoming toll increase and directing them to their website (http://www.notollincrease.com) where they can find details about the pending toll increase and the Dulles Rail boondoggle.

It’s important to note that several days earlier, the VA Dept. of Rail & Public Transportation (VDRPT) had mounted similar banners across all the overpasses directing interested parties to a pro-rail website (http://www.dullesmetro.com).

Prior to posting the signs, NoTollIncrease.com checked with Fairfax County Government officials responsible for regulating the posting of signs on public roadways; they had advised that no permit was needed to display these signs (according to these officials only political campaign signs require a permit and the posting of a bond).

Today the NoTollIncrease.com banners were torn down apparently by VDOT, while the DullesMetro.com banners were left intact. So much for free speech on the Dulles Toll Road.

The annual Urban Mobility report from the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) is out and it has very good news, at least for us.

We have just completed reading some of the media coverage, the TAMU press release, the summary report (24 pages) the full report (91 pages) and several of the special technical supplements. The good news? We do not have to rewrite our 20 September 2004 column “Spinning Wheels, Spinning Data.” The report presents the same picture with the same flaws with only a few percentage point differences.

The TTI/TAMU report is still the best measure of urban area travel congestion citizens have access to. And it is still misleading and incomplete for all the reasons we spell out in our column on last year’s report. Tim and David could not change the report even if they wanted to because of who pays for the study and the other work of TTI. You guessed it, it is just the ones who are responsible for the problem in the first place, USDOT, state DOTs and the asphalt gang.

As if it needed to be any more clear, the timing of the release highlights the political nature of the report. Even the press release notes the report was released when the “transportation” (aka, “highway pork barrel” until there is a direct tie between transport and human settlement pattern) re-authorization hearings got underway. It turns out it was released the very same day as the Senate took up the $284 Billion re-authorization dollar bill.

The press coverage (e.g. AP story carried by CNN and The Washington Post) only makes the picture more muddled. The media quote those who get paid by the auto-mobility lobby about the need for more asphalt and traffic management. The media do note the need for “land-use planing” but not Fundamental Change in the pattern of trip origins and destinations or balancing travel demand with system capacity much less Balanced Communities.

The TAMU staff notes in the study that they do not evaluate “strategies (i.e. Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns) that present opportunities for improving transportation.”

For those who thought we were a little strong with Antidote One in yesterday’s column check out point two from “The Big Picture” (we like those words :>) summary at the end of the full report: “Hours of delay, time of day and the miles of road that are congested have grown every year.” A slow economy in 2003 (the year the data was gathered by transportation agencies for this years report) cause slight decreases in some measures in some regions. But for prosperous places…

Stay tuned for coming columns on real congestion relief.

EMR

This morning’s big headline in the Washington Post is the possibility that 50,000 defense jobs could leave NVA because of Homeland Security regulations and recommendations of the Base Realignment and Closing Commission. Congressman Jim Moran, D-Alexandria, said it could be an “economic bombshell.”

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.