Bacon's Rebellion

  • “But, It’s Not a Perfect Bill. I Can’t Support That”

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Sen. John Bell (D-Loudoun)

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Once again, the General Assembly has killed legislation that would prohibit politicians from using campaign donations to cover personal expenses. It is easy to express outrage at this almost annual occurrence, but, in doing some background research on the subject, I encountered some details that, on the one hand, provide a fuller picture of this this struggle, but, on the other hand, make the opposition even more perplexing, if not hypocritical.

    Background

    The law

    Upon the filing of a final report of campaign donations and expenses and disposing of surplus funds, the law prohibits “any person to convert any contributed moneys, securities, or like intangible personal property to his personal use or to the use of a member of the candidate’s immediate family.”  However, a “final report” needs to be filed only in any of the following circumstances: “when (i) a candidate no longer seeks election to the same office in a successive election, (ii) a candidate seeks election to a different office, or (iii) the candidate is deceased.”  Thus, as long as a member of the House or Senate continues to run for re-election for his seat, he can keep his campaign books open, filing only the required periodic reports.  There is no law that prohibits using donations for personal use during that time. Several years ago, the Associated Press reported on several instances in which legislators were clearly using campaign donations to pay for personal expenses. (more…)

  • The Legislatures Strike Back: The Pandemic and Balances of Power

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by David Toscano

    In her recent SLogLaw post “Harrisburg COVID-19 Response Is No Model,” Meryl Chertoff provides a great explanation of Pennsylvania’s response to the pandemic. Except for the use of a constitutional amendment pushed by Republicans in the Keystone state to constrain a Democratic governor, the dynamic is similar to what is occurring in most other states, even those where one party enjoys the so-called trifecta of controlling both bodies of the legislature and the governorship.

    When asked about the proper federal response to the pandemic, President Trump remarked “I would leave it to the governors.” And, apart from Operation Warp Speed, that is what happened. State constitutions explicitly confer extensive powers upon governors to act in times of emergency, and they were not shy about using them.

    Washington state Gov. Inslee was one of the first to seize the mantle of executive power by proclaiming a state of emergency on February 29, and the legislature said little. Republican governors DeWine of Ohio and Hogan of Maryland followed closely thereafter. In my state of Virginia, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, himself a physician, declared a state of emergency in March, 2020, just as the legislature was adjourning for the year, that remained in effect for 15 months. (more…)

  • University Managers Deserve Our Empathy on Mask Policy Decisions

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    JMU student newspaper The Breeze posted a story about strong differences of opinion on lifting the mask mandate across campus.

    These types of situations put university officials between a rock and a hard place. While they understand that comes with the job, it is impossible not to feel some empathy.

    Tim Miller, vice president for student affairs, spoke for many of them when he said:

    “I would say that for every message I get saying, ‘I would like to stop wearing a mask,’ I get another message saying, ‘Please don’t make masks go away.” “[Both] sides are all very convinced that their perspective is the right one — all the others are wrong. Being in the middle of that can be challenging.”

    Indeed.

    Leadership is about choices of actions from among conflicting alternatives, but that doesn’t make some choices easy or popular.

    For the students, part of growing up is learning to accept decisions that will not always go your way. Faculty are already, at least legally, adults. The JMU Faculty Senate, never disappointing expectations, voted heavily to keep on masking.

    So students, if you get the opportunity, offer Mr. Miller a drink. Perhaps a mug of purple passion.

    You know you have some.

  • How Do We Pay to Fix the Schools?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Middle School in Bristol — built in 1906.

    by James A. Bacon

    It has long been recognized that some of Virginia’s public schools are in scandalously poor condition — leaky roofs, mold, asbestos, outdated HVAC systems, clogged toilets, and so on. More than half of all school buildings in the state are greater than 50 years old. In mid-2021, school districts across Virginia had identified $9.8 billion of projects in their Capital Improvement Plans. Replacing all buildings 50 years or older would cost $24.8 billion, according to a Virginia Department of Education needs assessment.

    As Radio IQ points out in an article today, Virginia engaged in a wave of public school construction in the 1950s and 1960s, and those buildings are aging out. No one knows where such funds will come from. Some counties are affluent enough that they can raise property taxes to cover the cost of issuing and paying off bonds. Some counties aren’t. The General Assembly is debating how to help, whether by providing half a billion dollars in grants or up to $2 billion in loans, reports Radio IQ.

    Here’s what makes any discussion of state bail-outs tricky: some localities have been proactive, either raising taxes or setting aside reserves, while others have kicked the fiscal can down the road. There is a danger that a massive, statewide infusion of state funds into local school districts will subsidize the improvident and leave the prudent short-changed. (more…)

  • National Security, West Virginia Natural Gas and Hampton Roads – A Proposed Federal Law

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Senator Manchin

    by James C. Sherlock

    This is the fourth in a series of columns recommending bringing West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and from there to our allies.  

    The only way to do get that done with any assurance and speed under the energy emergency in which we find ourselves and the world is for a federal law to be passed that:

    • strips jurisdiction from federal courts over this specific pipeline because of national security requirements;
    • includes and similarly protects from lawsuits a new LNG terminal on either federal land or in the Port of Virginia or, helpfully, one or more floating LNG (FLNG) facilities offshore;
    • directs federal regulatory agencies to work in partnership with developers to ensure the work meets environmental standards; and
    • authorizes the costs as an expenditure for the Department of Energy.

    I have made that recommendation to Sen. Manchin’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Read Chairman Manchin’s opening remarks yesterday to his committee yesterday. You will consider Sen. Manchin to be a potential yes on the proposal.

    Committee attorneys can figure out the jurisdiction stripping language. They can also determine whether a federal law that strips jurisdiction from federal courts will also protect the project from state courts under the Supremacy Clause or additional language is needed. (more…)

  • Democrats Against Due Diligence

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Bill O’Keefe

    In 2020, as we all know, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) to eliminate fossil energy for electric power generation while simultaneously restricting the regulatory oversight of the State Corporation Commission (SCC). The effect of the legislation was, in effect, a license to pick the pockets of Dominion ratepayers.

    Dominion likes to portray itself as a standup corporate citizen that provides low-cost energy to its customers while also excelling at environmental stewardship. If that were true, Dominion and its lobbyists would not have worked so hard to restrict the State Corporation Commission or defeat a proposed amendment to VCEA by Delegate Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, to remove the restrictions on the SCC and allow it to exercise due diligence over Dominion’s almost $10 billion offshore wind farm.

    Dominion will use its PR machine to demonstrate that it is honorable and had no hand in defeating Delegate Ware’s amendment. That might be potentially believable were it not for Dominion’s lobbying history and its scandalous political contributions to a PAC — Accountability Virginia — to suppress Republican turnout in our recent election. When the donation became public knowledge, Dominion first attempted to defend its action and then apologize claiming that the contribution was an innocent mistake. While it was demanding a return of its $200,000, Dominion’s CEO and other top executives were making personal contributions to the vote suppressing PAC. (more…)

  • Purging Asian-Americans from Top Virginia Schools to End

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    It’s dangerous to deal in ethnic stereotypes. There’s always a risk of being called racist.

    But if we can agree that the Irish are great raconteurs and the Canadians are relentlessly polite, can we not also say that many Asian-Americans place a high value on education?

    How else to explain the large number of Asians in America’s most elite colleges, universities and in the best high school in the nation: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County?

    TJ was established in 1985 as a magnet school for students “gifted” in science, technology engineering and math.

    That’s slightly inaccurate. “Gifted” suggests these students have more natural gifts than their counterparts. They don’t. What TJ’s high-achieving students do have is the drive to make the most of their gifts through hard work and studying. (more…)

  • Still Time to Limit Governor’s Emergency Powers

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Barbara Hollingsworth

    First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

    Should the governor of Virginia have the power to unilaterally declare an open-ended state of emergency that indefinitely restricts Virginians’ civil and constitutional rights without a recorded vote by the General Assembly?

    The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns raised this serious question. But so far, nobody has answered it definitively. (more…)

  • Virginia’s Greens Need an Epiphany

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Green Party leader and German Economy and Climate Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck

    by James C. Sherlock

    Headlines from the war in Ukraine have raised exponentially the interest in natural gas and the extreme price volatility caused by supply constraints.

    It is perhaps useful to understand the uses of natural gas, the prices Virginians pay relative to West Virginians, the decline of production in Virginia, and the costs and risks of supply constraints by the actions of green energy absolutists.

    Not the enthusiasts, but the come-hell-or-high-water absolutists, who get way out in front of the thoughtful left. In Europe, greens let slip the dogs of war.

    Putin thought Europe, with its far too early and thoughtless response to green pressure, too dependent upon Russian energy to oppose him.  He proved wrong, but now both free Europeans and Russians will suffer. Ukrainians and Russians are dying for that miscalculation.

    Virginia greens need to reconsider the value of natural gas and the risks of insufficient supply. And, like the German Green Party this week, get over their opposition to gas until real renewable alternatives at the scale of the economy are, well, real.

    (more…)

  • Fairfax County Also Prepared to Move Against Gas

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Find the full report here.

    by Steve Haner

    It was a Richmond City Council resolution back in the fall, expressing a desire to shut down its municipal natural gas utility, that triggered pending (and now struggling) Virginia legislation to prevent localities from prohibiting natural gas. Less attention has been given to the “climate action” plan by Virginia’s largest local government to discourage that energy source.

    It is easy to dismiss Richmond’s action, which was vaguely-worded resolution with no timeline. Fairfax County’s 214-page climate action plan grew out of a serious stakeholder group, is relatively detailed, and on various elements the timeline says, “immediate.”

    Action 2A:  Electrify Existing Residential Buildings. Timeline: Immediate.  Action 2B:  Electrify Existing Commercial Buildings. Timeline:  Immediate.  Action 3B:  Support All-Electric Residential and Commercial Building Construction. Timeline: Immediate. All three are efforts to eliminate use of natural gas the proposed legislation could prevent.

    There are signs of realism in the document. The high cost of some ideas is acknowledged, and it falls short of calling for a ban on new natural gas connections, but the foundation is placed: (more…)

  • Hell, No, I’m Not Apologizing for Stuff that Happened 400 Years Ago

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Depiction of the Jamestown massacre. History is ugly. Get over it.

    by James A. Bacon

    I’ll make Delegate Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, a deal: I’ll apologize for the sins of my ancestors against indigenous Americans in the 17th century if indigenous Americans apologize for the sins of their ancestors against the English.

    McQuinn introduced HR 7 with support from five other Democrats, that would “acknowledge with profound regret … the dispossession of lands and the racist and assimilationist policies designed to erase the identity, culture, and sovereignty of tribal nations in the Commonwealth.” The bill goes on to list a series of transgressions of the English colonists against indigenous Americans — “conflict, trauma, dispossession and failed treaties” — most of which occurred before the English colonies became the United States.

    Ironically, it was was 400 years ago almost to the day — March 22, 1622 — that Chief Opechancanough, successor to Chief Powhatan, ordered a surprise attack on the English settlements in Virginia, massacring 347 men, women, and children. Had not an Indian servant notified his master of the impending slaughter, allowing him to alert the Jamestown settlement, the entire English colony might well have been wiped out. (The colonists got their revenge a year later by luring the Indians into a peace parley, poisoning their liquor, and slaying the survivors.)

    This genocide — and, yes, when you try to exterminate an entire people, it is literally genocide — goes unmentioned in McQuinn’s list of horribles. (more…)

  • Does Virginia Really Need a “Tribal Consultation” Ombudsman?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Washington Post takes note today of three bills affecting Virginia’s sovereign Indian tribes moving through the General Assembly. One would update state code to reflect federal recognition of the tribes. One would make tribes eligible for grants from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund. And third would give federally recognized tribes, in the WaPo’s words, “a voice” in the permitting process for development projects affecting their ancestral lands. After clearing the state Senate 40 to 0, the legislation was blocked by a subcommittee in the House of Delegates.

    Last year former Governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order requiring state agencies to notify Virginia’s seven federally recognized tribes of projects affecting their lands. State Bill 482 represents an effort to codify the order, which subsequent governors could reverse, in state law.

    The logic of Republicans in blocking the measure was less than clear. The WaPo article quotes Delegate Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, as saying “It has the potential, in my judgment, to have a very wide-ranging … effect with a variety of permitting processes with state agencies.”

    That’s not much of an explanation, but I expect there was more to Ware’s thinking than made it into the WaPo article. More important than the bureaucratic procedure it proposes to address, the bill raises the issue of what citizenship means for American Indians. (more…)

  • The Blind Leading the Blind

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    Some people believe whatever they want to believe, and no recitation of contradictory facts will sway them. That seems to be the case with the new editorial writer at the Roanoke Times. In an opinion piece published today, the author takes Governor Glenn Youngkin to task for undoing the education policies of the Northam administration.

    In pursuit of dubious education “reforms,” such as a banning of “critical race theory” that in practice tends to be about purging the history of Black Americans from the classroom, Republican politicians have defended their actions as a championing of parents’ rights and deferral to parents’ choice. (My bold face — JAB)

    In a single sentence the editorialist accomplishes two fact-defying feats.

    First, zhe (I don’t know if the writer is a he, she, or otherwise, so I’ll use the gender-neutral pronoun) states that Youngkin’s reforms are about purging the history of Black Americans from the classroom — without offering an iota of evidence and in the face of Youngkin’s repeated insistence that public schools will continue to teach the good, bad, and ugly of Virginia history. If progressives are determined to be offended because Youngkin wants not to expunge the “good” parts of our history, as opposed to recounting only a litany of crimes against the oppressed, that’s their right. But they can’t pretend he wants to repress the teaching of slavery, segregation and racism. That’s called making stuff up. In less polite quarters, it’s called telling bald-faced lies. Repeating the untruth endlessly makes it no less a lie. (more…)

  • Youngkin Largely Opts for Stability in State Government Management

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia has a tradition of continuity in state government.  Generally, incumbent agency heads are reappointed, even if the new governor is of a different party than the outgoing governor and new Cabinet members are put in place. There have been many agency heads who have served multiple governors, of both parties, over the course of their careers. There is invariably some turnover. New governors often are looking for a change in direction in some high-profile agencies; some longtime agency heads are ready to retire and do not seek reappointment. But, by and large, there is stability.

    With his appointments so far, Governor Youngkin is on track to maintain that tradition. Of the 34 agency head appointments announced, 20 were reappointments and 14 are new to their jobs. (more…)

  • Big Gas Users Protect Selves, Abandon Home Users

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Pending Termination

    by Steve Haner

    Divide and conquer is an ancient tactic. Virginia’s residential natural gas customers were just divided from industrial and commercial users, and those big users then threw homeowners under the bus. Without blinking an eye.

    House Bill 1257 had passed the House of Delegates on an almost party line vote, with two Democrats joining the 52 Republicans in support. As it passed it applied to all users of natural gas, whether supplied by municipal utilities or public service corporations, and also extended to certain propane customers.

    It created a right to use gas, restricted local government authority to prevent it, and spelled out the steps any local government that owned a gas utility would have to take to get out of the business. But almost all of that disappeared in a puff of methane as a substitute to the bill appeared Tuesday afternoon in the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee.

    All the provisions dealing with the rights to use gas were stripped out. References to propane were stripped out. All that remained were the provisions protecting customers of a municipal provider, and those protections only apply to industrial or commercial users. A reference to “any class of customers” was stripped out. (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

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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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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