Population growth patterns are shifting within Virginia. So far during the current decade, Virginia’s two largest metropolitan areas — Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads — have been losing population due to net migration (more people moving out than moving in). The trend, evident before the Covid epidemic, became more pronounced during and after.
Meanwhile, Richmond has emerged as the state’s new in- migration growth leader. And in an encouraging turnabout, Virginia’s smaller metros (collectively) and rural localities (collectively) have been gaining population through in-migration as well, according to analysis by Hamilton Lombard at the Demographics Research Group of the University of Virginia. (more…)
From tiny acorns grow the mighty oaks of government.
By Steve Haner
The Democrats now running Virginia’s General Assembly are not just more progressive, but far more ambitious than their predecessors. To fully understand how ambitious you must compile the entire list of progressive bills advancing in the 2024 session and consider their total impact on the cost of living and cost of doing business in the commonwealth. Individual news stories miss the big picture.
The push to radically regulate Virginia’s energy future discussed earlier is being mimicked with equally aggressive legislation throughout the rest of our economy. None of the ideas below are new, and most are already in law in places like California, New York or other more liberal states. What has changed is that when proposed in the past, they usually were rejected in Virginia on a bipartisan basis. Democrats now march in lockstep.
The Assembly is still in its first phase and adjournment is set for early March. Which of the following will pass remains to be seen, and in many cases, amendments are already appearing. Most may also face gubernatorial veto or amendment, but that just underscores that Virginia is only one election of one official away from total transformation.
In the case of the bills to increase the minimum wage (here and here), Democrats are simply building upon what they did during their last period of control. But if they succeed in setting future wage increases to automatically grow with inflation, the impact just builds and builds. Classes of employees reasonably exempted from the law currently, such as farm workers, may now be covered, as well.
Likewise, the previous Democratic majority also took the first steps toward collective bargaining for limited groups of local employees, but only after elected local officials gave a green light to negotiate a contract. This year’s bill expands the right to bargain to almost all local and now most state employees, with no vote needed by a school board or city council. It was revealed that the most recent version does conveniently exempt employees of the General Assembly, however.(more…)
Day two and we have more questions than answers about what happened Saturday morning on the 14th Street pier in Virginia Beach.
Yes, we know an SUV drove through two barriers and off the end of the pier. We learned that strong ocean currents and murky water are creating problems for those trying to haul it to the surface.
But get a load of what the police will say when they know the local news media don’t know how to ask follow up questions. (This is from the local newspaper):
Police have not determined who was operating the vehicle, nor do they know if anyone else was inside, according to Virginia Beach police spokesman Jude Brenya. While authorities have identified the type of vehicle, an SUV, police are not releasing the make or model to avoid causing “a panic,” he said.
A PANIC? Seriously?
What the heck are they talking about? What kind of panic? Is this some sort of alien craft? A self-driving Tesla? A Chinese spy SUV? (more…)
Ben Cline, the Commonwealth’s Republican member of the U.S House of Representatives from the 6th District, is very upset about the level of federal spending and the state of the federal deficit.
Cline is chairman of the Republican Study Committee’s Budget and Spending Task Force. In a press release last year, he lamented the trillions in new spending authorized by the Democrats in recent years and the $31.92 trillion in national debt. (He does not mention the trillions in debt rung up during the Trump years.) The study committee has a proposal that would “balance the budget in just seven years, cut spending by $16.3 trillion over 10 years and reduce Americans’ taxes by $5.1 trillion over 10 years.”
As part of that overall plan, Cline’s task force produced an alternative budget for 2024. I have to give Cline and the task force some credit. Usually, when conservatives call for spending cuts, they refuse to say what specific items should be cut or eliminated. That is not the case with this document. It has over 120 pages listing specific programs for elimination or reduced funding. After dealing with Social Security, Medicare, and defense, the budget has about 30 pages of specific mandatory and discretionary spending programs it recommends eliminating or reducing. (more…)
Warning: I’m a tad grouchy today. You see, I’m a hyperactive gym rat who hasn’t worked out since last Tuesday and has been slowed down by surgery. That happened Wednesday, by the way, when a skilled orthopedic surgeon sawed off part of my leg.
In other words, I’ve had way too much time to brood.
So, I’m starting the week with a litany of irritants that have totally ticked me off.
Number one: I’m sick of feminists protesting that Margot Robbie was cheated out of an Oscar while her male Barbie co-star Ryan Gosling got one.
How many of these same women protested when Riley Gaines was cheated out of her place on a podium by a man, Lia Thomas?
If that’s you, just shut up. No one wants to hear from you.
Plus, I actually watched Barbie on HBO Saturday night.
That may be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The absolute worst. Worse even than Oppenheimer which was a total yawn, although many people pretend they liked it because it’s about a smart guy and lasted three hours. They think raving about this bore makes them appear intelligent.
Legislation to allow rent control ordinances has passed a committee in Virginia’s House of Delegates. On a party-line, 11-to-9 vote. The Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns passed HB 721, which defines rent gouging to include raising rent to keep up with inflation, if inflation exceeds 7 percent.
This vote reflects the leftward movement of the Democratic Party. Rent control has historically been prohibited not merely in Republican states, but even in many Democratic states. Massachusetts, for example, banned rent control in a 1994 referendum, even as it was electing Democrats to nearly fourth-fifths of the seats in its state legislature, and even as it elected Democrats to eight of its ten seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. When Georgia still had a Democratic-controlled legislature and a Democratic governor, it banned rent control in 1984.
Yet, all Democrats on the committee voted for HB 721.
The legislation states that once a local government has adopted “anti-rent gouging provisions,” it “shall prohibit any rent increase … of more than the locality’s annual anti-rent gouging allowance,” defined as the “percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index...or seven percent, whichever is less.” So if inflation is 9% — as it was from March 2021 to March 2022 — the landlord can only raise rent by 7%, at most. And the landlord might not be allowed any inflation adjustment at all, because under the legislation, a local government “may” — not must — “allow rent increases” to compensate for inflation.
So landlords will become poorer and poorer due to inflation under these “anti-rent gouging” ordinances. (more…)
Former SCC Commissioner Mark Christie communicated his enthusiasm for Kelsey Bagot’s election with this photo on X.
By Steve Haner
The General Assembly has now filled the two open seats at the State Corporation Commission (SCC), ending two years of gridlock. Unfortunately, the same legislators, on both sides of the aisle, are still working overtime to dictate and micromanage the state’s energy policy, reducing the discretion and authority of the independent, non-partisan regulators.
Samuel T. Towell, elected to the SCC last week, fits the expected mold for such positions. His legal career has been inside and outside the Virginia government, with his term as the civil litigation deputy under Attorney General Mark Herring (D) as the highlight of his resume. In that role he supervised the consumer counsel functions under Herring, participating in SCC matters. Since then, he has been working for Smithfield Foods.
Breaking the mold is Kelsey Bagot, only a decade out of Harvard Law and with no real Virginia-specific experience. She spent much of her career so far at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), working part of that time for former SCC Chairman Mark Christie. Christie’s expressed enthusiasm for her qualifications makes her about as close to a bipartisan choice as was possible.
They join current Commissioner Jehmal Hudson, also a veteran of FERC, who has been serving by himself for more than a year. Towell and Hudson, less than 20 years out of law school, and the younger Bagot form a trio that could be in office together for decades. That had to be on the minds of the legislators (all Democrats) who made these choices.
Fully qualified and engaged judges are still bound to follow the law. Virginia’s headlong rush into an economically foolish war on fossil fuels is being directed by the bills flowing from the General Assembly, not by rogue judges. If the last two sessions controlled by Democrats, 2020 and 2021, were a two-alarm EV battery fire, the 2024 session could be the equivalent of the Maui apocalypse. (more…)
Governor Glenn Youngkin has signed on to a constitutional position that Virginia and other Southern states used to justify secession from the United States over 170 years ago.
Here, in a nutshell, are the events that led to this situation:
Greg Abbott ordered razor wire placed in the Rio Grande River to deter immigrants from crossing;
U.S. Border Patrol agents tried to remove the wire but were prevented from doing so by the Texas State Patrol and the Texas National Guard;
The United States sued;
A lower court ordered the Border Patrol not to attempt to remove the razor wire;
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower court order. There were no written opinions accompanying the decision;
Despite the Supreme Court decision, Gov. Abbot still refuses to allow the Border Patrol access to certain crossing points, thereby denying that federal authority supersedes the state;
Almost all the Republican governors issued a statement saying that because the federal government “has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states,” Texas has the right to exert control over the international border in order to defend itself;
Governor Glenn Youngkin was one of the signatories.
Shades of John C. Calhoun! This compact theory and nullification were put to rest at Appomattox in 1865.
If, as Gov. Youngkin believes, a governor can defy the Supreme Court regarding immigration, what is to stop a future Democratic Virginia governor and legislature from ignoring Supreme Court rulings and enacting strict gun control measures on the grounds that the national government has broken its compact to ensure public safety?
For more analysis and commentary on this development see here and here. For a more measured analysis, see here.
Most of us have tried hard to block out Mayor Stoney’s July 4th fiasco, when his then-police chief tried hard to impress the boss and concocted a fake foiled mass shooting plot at Dogwood Dell on July 4, 2022. The Mayor denied he ever knew about it. The chief said he knew about it beforehand but claims to have never told the mayor or any of the officers working the event in a public park that annually draws thousands of people. Within days the story fell apart and it was revealed in court a few weeks later that there was no — as in zero — evidence that there ever was a planned mass shooting.
You might not also recall back in 2017 when the newly installed Mayor Stoney unofficially declared Richmond a sanctuary city and would protect people that might be in this country illegally from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He said, according to CBS6, “We need to protect our children and our families so they can learn and prosper. That means protecting all of our residents… and protecting them regardless of whether they have legal status in our country.”
The reason that these things are related is that the man falsely accused of plotting a mass shooting is wishing he had never come to Richmond or heard of Levar Stoney. If Stoney actually meant what he said that day in 2017 about protecting immigrants, then Julio Alvarado Dubon never would have been falsely accused of a mass shooting or spent the last 17 months in jail, and is now facing deportation back to Guatemala. (more…)
As a follow-up to “US Constitution Calling Jason Miyares,” published here January 15, 2024: the Virginia Legislature now is considering a bill, HR 1404, mandating “Disadvantaged Business Enterprise” affirmative action in all state government contracting. It’s before the House Committee on Rules.
H.R. 1404 presumes people are “disadvantaged” based on their origins; their group identity. Which the US Supreme Court declared unconstitutional 30 years ago in the Adarand Constructors case. And the Supreme Court confirmed its unconstitutionality last June in Students for Fair Admissions. The billmirrors the federalSmall Business Administration list of groups presumed disadvantaged, always and everywhere, that a federal district court declared unconstitutional last July(the Biden administration’s SBA is now trying to wiggle out from under that ruling).
You can do something: write a delegate on the House Rules Committee. Click on the names below:
They have a lot to read; no need to write an essay. Just say the affirmative action in H.R. 1404 is unconstitutional on its face. Kill it in committee.(more…)
The 50th annual pro-life march took place in DC January 19; it has been held every year since 1974, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, that women had a constitutional protection for abortion, and thus negated 50 state laws regulating the procedure.
It was cold and snowing, but thousands of committee pro-lifers showed up; could have been 100,000.I was not there, but the media coverage was quite limited.
You would think the pro-life movement won with the June 2022 “Dobbs” Decision, which overturned Roe and put the regulation of abortion back to each state. But alas and alack, that is not the case.
Abortion, as I wrote after “Dobbs,” still continues but is down in numbers since 1991 due to the advent of better ultrasound, home pregnancy tests and public education about unwanted pregnancies. There are no back-alley coat-hanger abortions, as the histrionic pro-abortion forces predicted, and if anything, prolife forces seeking six-week bans and the like are being flustered by the political process.
The abortion drug, Mifeprex, was approved in 2000 and now comprises a majority of all abortions in the U.S. – only for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.A pending Supreme Court case may determine if the drug stays on the market or will be subject to state review – thus negating the Constitution’s “commerce clause” and federal pre-emption, and creating more havoc in this nation.
Anti- abortion groups continue to press their cases with state legislatures for. restrictions and some want a national ban by Congress, which is counter to “Dobbs” and has no chance of passage. (more…)
Step #2: Remove the Confederate statues from the public square;
Step #3: Prevent those who want the statues from having them. Decapitate the statues, melt them down, or desecrate them in art and museum displays.
What’s left? Where else is there to go?
Step #4: Take away tax-exempt status from a prominent organization dedicated to preserving the statues.
SB517 and HB 568 would eliminate the exemption from state recordation taxes for the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) as well as the tax exemption for real and personal property owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The House Bill passed the House Finance Committee in a 12 to 10 (presumably party-line) vote. (more…)
For more than one year, a controversy has been growing in Botetourt County regarding explicit materials in or near the libraries’ children’s areas. On one side is a grassroots community organization, Botetourt Residents Against Child Exploitation (BRACE), seeking removal of some materials. On the other side one finds the Botetourt County Supervisors, administration, and library leadership opposing such removals.
When researching for this story, The Roanoke Star askedBRACE for a timeline of key events in the controversy. That Dec. 19, 2023 timeline from group leader Charles Ruhl is given below. A news story including comments from two County officials is upcoming.
–Scott Dreyer, The Roanoke Star
BRACE was founded by Christine Liana in March of 2023. She did so after seeing an adult DVD, BROS, on display near the children’s section at the Fincastle Library. She complained to staff that the cover, which showed two men grasping each other’s bottoms, was inappropriate for children to see. The response was American Library Association talking points about the library’s need to provide “information and enlightenment.” Christine Liana gave a citizen comment at the 1/24/23 Board of Supervisors meeting, demanding that the Board act to remove “perverted” materials from our libraries. There was no response. After that she began talking with parents in her church and elsewhere who were also unhappy with inappropriate, sexually graphic materials available for children in the County libraries.
Christine Liana met with Botetourt County Library Director Julie Phillips in March to review her formal request to have 60 books and DVDs reviewed to potentially be removed. (more…)
The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….
This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.
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