Bacon's Rebellion

In a little-noticed piece of legislative sleight-of-hand today, members of the House and Senate amended General Assembly rules in a manner that gives them until midnight Wednesday, Feb. 16 to agree on state spending (the budget bill), but two additional days, until midnight Friday, Feb. 18 to identify where the money comes from! What’s the signal? The spending side is seen by the players as relatively easy, a scuffle could be shaping up on the revenue side. At least it’s going to take longer to hug and kiss. Whose ox gets gored? Stay tuned! If Friday deadline holds, conferees likely will begin cutting and pasting minor differences Saturday. A programming note: they changed the rules today. Can do same thing tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. Read all about it: see HJR 944 (patron is Griffith). You read it here first.

Unfortunately our conservative Virginia is becoming the ultimate nanny state.

We covered the droopy drawers bill ad infinitum—enough said on that. Today The Washington Times reported on the following caretaker bills:

• A bill to fine drivers $250 for showing X-rated videos in their vehicles if passersby or other motorists are exposed to them
• A bill to require libraries that receive state funding to install Internet filter systems on their computers that will prevent children from being exposed to porn websites
• A bill making it a misdemeanor to fondle oneself in public
• A bill that bans “up-skirt” photography

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor and support all these initiatives. But do we need to create laws for just about everything? What comes next, codifying common sense and good manners?

Becky Dale, a Virginia FOIA savant who wears the Bacon’s colors and writes out of this stable, rounded up–as an independent study project–a collection of E. B. White’s New Yorker pieces while completing her MA in English at VCU. The collection was published by HarperCollins in 1990 as ‘E. B. White: Writings from the New Yorker 1925-76.’ So yesterday, I get home to find this week’s New Yorker, the 90th anniversay issue, and therein a splendid profile on White by his step-son Roger Angell–a long-time New Yorker scribe himself. White wrote mostly short stuff and children’s books–notably ‘Charlotte’s Web’–but is probably best known as the re-write genius of William Strunk’s ‘The Elements of Style,’ famously referred to now by devotees as simply ‘Strunk and White.’ It is to simple, declarative, active-voice writing what the Old Testament is to the Bible. A slender volume–I’d guess less than a hundred pages–it has been a whiskey-drinking-frame-of-mind companion to me for 35 years.

The apparent darling of this blog, Warrenton Mayor and Republican gubernatorial candidate George Fitch, looks to be making the rounds of Virginia papers.

Allison Brophy Champion (What a great name! What great initials!) has an interview with Fitch in the Culpeper Star-Exponent.

He’s singing my song:

For the most part, said Fitch, Gov. Mark Warner has done a good job in bringing a business-like approach to Richmond. “But I don’t think he’s taken it far enough,” Fitch added.

During the last biannual budget process, there was too little attention given to cutting the expense side, said Fitch, and too much haste to raise taxes.

I was going to do a post on this subject as a spin-off from Becky Dale’s Quorum article, but I’ll let Fitch do the heavy lifting: “Fitch said each and every one of Virginia’s state boards and commissions could be done away with since ‘they serve no pressing need.’”

Speaking of heavy lifting, where are the real wonk posters today?

Let us pause from our relentless bashing of the House of Delegates for this kind characterization from Warren Fiske of the Virginian-Pilot:

Some lawmakers describe the disagreements between the two Republican-controlled chambers as a biorhythm of the legislative process; after all, the legislative bodies were created as a check on each other.
The House, up for election every two years, is a boiling pot of ideas. The Senate, which faces voters every four years, traditionally takes a more deliberative and long-term view.

This should quiet those who say many House measures are half-baked. They’re boiled!

What was the point of this stunt? And how did a variation make it to the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page?

In my current Virginia Pundit Watch column, I noted a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post by David Brunori, a contributing editor to State Tax Notes magazine and a research professor of public policy at George Washington University. He strongly defended the local property tax.

Brunori was on-line today, taking reader questions and sticking to his guns on the overall fairness of the local property tax system. If you think your locality is taking in too much money, throw the supervisors out was his prescription.

At least two NVA readers complained about subsizing other parts of the state, including this gem:

I advocate secession from the rest of state.

Subsidizing the rest of Virginia is not my goal with my tax dollars. Last year Fairfax County residents got back less a quarter for every tax dollar we sent to Richmond. 50 cents of each of my tax dollars should come home to Fairfax County.

Given the unrelenting assault on family budgets in NOVA, with higher property taxes, last year’s tax increase (the largest tax increase in the history of our State), the proposed toll increase on the Dulles Toll Road, just to list a few, I find it preposterous that any elected official from NOVA would vote for even higher taxes against NOVA residents.

I’m not surprised that Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple would propose greater tax burden on her own constituents (SB 1099 – Motor Fuels Tax; Additional Imposition in the NOVA Transportation District), while Richmond is diverting NOVA’s taxes to other parts of the State. She’s after all a Democrat and that’s what they believe in.

But I’m shocked, shocked that any Republican Senator representing NOVA would vote for this abomination. Unfortunately, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Vienna) and Sen. Bill Mims (R-Leesburg) voted in favor of this bill.

The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors has voted 5-2 in opposition to adding a reactor to the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant. They cited conerns about the water level in Lake Anna and the fact that they are one of the fastest growing regions in Virginia.

Wonder where they expect the electric power new residents will require to come from? Wonder if they’re ok with the coal-fired plants outside their jurisdiction that Barnie says are killing 1000 of us annually?

by Becky Dale

The monitoring of public meetings throws open the question of how to count a quorum.

It’s normally easy to know if a quorum exists at a public meeting. You count who’s there. A quorum is usually a majority of members. When a council has seven members, four is a quorum. If four are present, there is a quorum and the council can then transact business. More

by John Goolrick

A hardy perennial in Virginia politics is the ritualistic denunciation of gerrymandering. Sure, redistricting is unfair. But none of the alternatives looks any better.

My hometown paper, despite its philosophical permutations over the years, has constantly railed editorially about changing Virginia’s system of redistricting. And in response I have always called their proposals half-baked. More

by James Atticus Bowden

The Higher Ed lobby defines the “charter” university issue as all about money. But Virginia citizens must guard against educrats imposing an unwelcome brand of political correctness.

If “war is too important to be left to the generals”, then certainly “higher education is too important to be left to the educrats”. Generals need civilian authority to set the political goals for wars. Likewise, the goals for Virginia’s colleges and universities need legislative authority. Education, not indoctrination, requires accountability to elected representatives of the people.
More >>

by Phillip Rodokanakis

Jerry Kilgore hasn’t come out in favor of higher taxes, but he refuses to sign an anti-tax pledge. A circumstantial case can be made that he’s cut a deal with the pro-tax wing of the GOP.

State Sen. John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is on the warpath for higher taxes. Without wasting any time or taking a breather from the massive tax increase he imposed on Virginia taxpayers last year, Chichester already is talking about increasing taxes again in 2006. More

by Steven Sisson

Choir boy Tim Kaine is a political moderate informed by his Catholic beliefs. But look for the Kilgore team to paint him as a liberal for his record on tax hikes and the death penalty.

The Blue Dog personally views Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine as a moderate-to-conservative politician. Kaine has never been an Amway Christian, nor does he hold a lifetime membership to the C-E Club (i.e., only attending church service on Christmas and Easter holidays). More

by Chris Braunlich

The House of Delegates has passed a bill that could provide school choice for up to 5,000 poor kids. Foes are desperate to stop it in the state Senate.

Stung by House passage of a bill providing new educational opportunities for poor kids, the Virginia Education Association (VEA), People for the American Way (PFAW) and other opponents are gearing up to block the bill in the Virginia state Senate. More