Bacon's Rebellion

  • A Critique of Paul Goldman’s “Outfoxing Judge Thomas”

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Historical document of the Virginia Constitution, detailing the framework for the state's government and legislative authority.
    AI-generated image by Grok

    by Emilio Jaksetic

    On December 5, 2025, Paul Goldman’s “Outfoxing Judge Thomas: An Alternative Redistricting Strategy for VA Democrats” was posted on Bacon’s Rebellion. Mr. Goldman presented a strategy that he claimed could avoid potential legal barriers to efforts by Virginia Democrats to amend the Virginia Constitution to return the redistricting authority to the General Assembly and allow it to change Virginia’s Congressional Districts before the 2026 elections.

    In this article, I will discuss Mr. Goldman’s proposed strategy (hereinafter “the proposed strategy”) and explain why it is legally flawed.

    The proposed strategy relies on a combination of three elements:

    (1) reliance on a single passage of Virginia Constitution, Article II, Section 6;

    (2) a claim that the broad, comprehensive nature of the General Assembly’s legislative power gives it the inherent authority to (a) hold hearings to develop testimony that shows the current Congressional Districts are “unfair,” (b) issue a declaration that the Congressional districts are
    “unfair,” and that the General Assembly has the right and duty to fix the problem; and (c) then “present a bill creating the new fair districts meeting Section 6 requirements for Governor Spanberger’s signature soon after her inauguration”; and

    (3) the claim that “[b]y precedent, a federal court is therefore obligated to adopt this GA legal position on Section 6 since a Virginia state court would do likewise.”

    I will address each element in turn, and explain why these elements fail to provide legal support for the proposed strategy.

    (more…)

  • More Blue on Blue

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    James A. Bacon

    Prediction: as Democrats consolidate power in Virginia and relegate Republicans to the sidelines, the party’s internal schisms will come to the fore. (See “Geographic Schism Among Virginia Dems?”) That’s human nature. — JAB

  • In a Toxic Culture, Defining What It Means to Be a Man

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    James A. Bacon

    My favorite living sociologist (Edward Banfield passed away in 1999), the University of Virginia’s Brad Wilcox, is perhaps the leading conservative scholar on the sociology of the U.S. family. This tweet links to his review of Scott Galloway’s book, “Notes on Being a Man” in the Wall Street Journal. — JAB

  • Virginia’s Most Conservative City Births Plan to Thwart Abortion Tourism

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    James A. Bacon

    Lynchburg is proving that the fight against abortion starts at the local level.

    A protester passionately holding a sign that reads 'Abortion Industrial Complex,' wearing a blue bandana and surrounded by other demonstrators.
    Image credit: Restoration News

    by Hayden Ludwig

    Planned Parenthood boasted earlier this year that “Virginia is the last state in the South without an extreme abortion ban.”

    That’s a campaign consultant’s way of twisting the truth: the Old Dominion has the most liberal abortion laws south of the Potomac. With Democrats soon to take charge of the state government, things will only trend further left in 2026.  

    Virginia Democrats have already announced their goal of codifying the “right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution—an amendment Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger (D) endorsed for the November 2026 ballot. Experts believe it will pave the way for California-style third-trimester abortions, transforming Virginia into a hotspot for “abortion tourism” from nearby red states.

    Yet conservatives in Lynchburg—the only major city in the commonwealth that voted Republican in 2025—are showing how pro-lifers can fight back through their local government. Their tool of choice: Zoning laws cleverly crafted to limit where and how many abortion clinics may operate inside city limits.

    (more…)

  • Bill Could Release Dangerous Murderers

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    James A. Bacon

    by Hans Bader

    Serial killer Kevin McDuff

    A bill introduced in Virginia could lead to the release of dangerous murderers who committed their crime as teenagers. If passed, SB60 would mandate that the Virginia Parole “Board shall not deny parole for a juvenile offender based on factors outside of his demonstrated ability to change, such as the nature of the offense or any effects resulting from the commission of such offense.”

    An inmate’s dangerousness is sometimes shown by “the nature of the offense,” such as when the inmate is a serial killer, who killed again and again after previously being released from incarceration. Consider Kenneth McDuff, the “broomstick killer.” At the age of 19, after being paroled, McDuff and an accomplice kidnapped three teenagers. He shot and killed two boys, then killed a girl after raping her and torturing her with burns and a broomstick. Later, after being paroled yet again, he murdered additional women — as many as 15 women in several different states.

    To keep such killings from happening, a parole board needs to take into account “the nature of the offense” as one of many factors, in order to avoid releasing such dangerous inmates. But SB60 would keep parole boards from considering that as a factor in their decision in deciding not to release an inmate.

    (more…)

  • UVA’s President Was Right to Resign

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    James A. Bacon

    Close-up profile of a man in a suit, looking thoughtful or contemplative, with a blurred background.
    Jim Ryan

    “Former university head Jim Ryan presided over a potential pattern of civil-rights violations, writes John D. Sailer at the Manhattan Institute — highlighting a fact that has largely been ignored by state Senate leaders intent upon asserting control over the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors.

    From his article in the City Journal:

    Rather than take responsibility for the fact that his institution had drawn a federal investigation, he conjures a shadowy cabal plotting his ouster. But the only cabal at work was the DEI apparatus that Ryan failed to dismantle.

    Ryan appears unable to concede that the DOJ’s concerns were likely justified. Near the end of his public letter, he writes: “Too often, people within the DOJ and on our own Board have implied that if we were following policies that they did not favor, we were somehow doing something illegal. . . . We were committed to following the actual law.”

    This assertion is suspect, given his administration’s embrace of racialist practices. Under his watch in 2020, the UVA’s Racial Equity Task Force implemented a nearly $1 billion plan that would, among other things, dramatically strengthen racial preferences in admissions and faculty hiring. According to a 2023 study by the Heritage Foundation’s Jay Greene, UVA had a uniquely massive DEI bureaucracy, with 6.5 DEI personnel for every 100 faculty. It had the second-largest DEI apparatus, proportional to its faculty, of any public university in America.

    Ryan’s record makes it unsurprising that the DOJ would doubt his commitment to correcting problems stemming from DEI at the university.

    Read the whole article.

  • $62 Billion For Grid Batteries is Not a Path to Affordability

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    A 550 megawatt hour battery storage facility in California. The pending legislation would mandate over 150 such plants in Virginia.

    By Steve Haner

    The 2026 General Assembly is likely to amend the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) to greatly expand the construction of utility-scale batteries for our electric grid. Based on the current prices for Virginia battery installations, this may saddle ratepayers with $54 billion in new capital expenses over 20 years.    

    The Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) has endorsed a revised version of a bill that passed in the 2025 General Assembly but was vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R). The senators and delegates on the panel discussed the bill briefly at two meetings last week without anybody even asking what this might cost.   

    The lack of attention to costs on this battery bonanza bill is legislative and media malpractice when the political meme of the day is affordability. But the same thing happened last year as a similar bill rode a railroad track to fast approval.   

    The Virginia Clean Economy Act as passed in 2020 included a demand for battery installations and deemed them “in the public interest.” Appalachian Power was directed to develop 400 megawatts of battery storge by 2045, and Dominion Energy a larger 2,700 megawatts. The assumed technology to be used was batteries of up to four-hour duration, so that was a total for both utilities of up to12,400 megawatt-hours of backup.   

    How many hours the batteries can discharge is the key metric, so the faceplate megawatt value must be multiplied by their claimed duration. What the VCEA is demanding now is about 12.4 gigawatt hours (GWH) of storage. From here on, this discussion will use GWH. A gigawatt hour is a great deal of electricity, the output of a nuclear plant or that natural gas plant Dominion just got approved.  

    (more…)

  • Geographic Schism Among Virginia Dems?

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    James A. Bacon

    Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, the president pro tempore of the state Senate, goes on to tweet:

    Recently Fairfax commissioned a study with the Weldon Cooper Center at UVA claiming they only get 50 cents back on each tax dollar raised by the Commonwealth. This is false- and is a number derived by only counting money we send the county directly- not services used by all.

    For example they don’t count money spent supporting the Fairfax County Sheriff, Clerk of Court or Commonwealths Attorney. They don’t count the billions spent in support of our colleges and universities that have more students from Fairfax County than anywhere else in Virginia.

    (more…)

  • Do Students Benefit from College Athletics?

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    James A. Bacon

    James V. Koch, a former university president, prolific writer about college governance, and huge college sports fan, chats with Jim Bacon about the seismic changes in the college sports landscape. In his new book, “The Economic Impact of Intercollegiate Athletics on Former Students,” Koch explores the pros and cons of college athletics for students and concludes that they are a net negative for graduates as measured by a variety of economic outcomes.

    Lightly edited transcript

    Jim Bacon: Hello, everyone. I’m Jim Bacon, and this is the Oinkonomics Podcast.

    No doubt, some of you have surmised that oinkonomics is a wordplay on my name — Bacon, pigs, oink — and oiko, the Greek word for economics. Although I’m a historian by academic training and a journalist by profession, I’m a great admirer of the economist’s way of thinking. Such economic concepts as alternate opportunity cost, return on investment, and net present value are indispensable for the rational analysis of public policy issues. Today, for the first time on this podcast, I’m actually interviewing a real live economist — Dr. James V. Koch.

    Virginia listeners may recall Jim Koch from his 11-year tenure as president of Old Dominion University. Since retiring from that post in 2001, he has spent the past 24 years as president emeritus doing pretty much what he pleases, which has meant focusing on the economics and governance of higher education in the United States. From his time at ODU, and previously as president of the University of Montana, he has a deep well of hands-on experience to draw from.

    In his latest endeavor, Koch is co-author with Richard J. Cebula and Robert N. Finili of “The Economic Impact of Intercollegiate Athletics on Former Students.” The book touches upon many issues of interest to anyone concerned about higher education in America today, and we’ll get into some of those questions in the interview. The central question of the book is what impact does athletics have on students’ financial well-being after they graduate?

    As Virginia universities grapple with new rules governing college athletics, effectively turning football and basketball programs into professional farm teams for major league franchises, governing boards at some institutions will have to cough up tens of millions of dollars to pay their athletes. Where will that money come from? And how much of the cost will be passed on to students as athletic fees, And what is the payoff, if any, for the students?

    Jim, welcome to the Oinkonomics podcast. Bring us up to speed on how big-time college athletics is changing, and the kind of choices boards of visitors here in Virginia and elsewhere are faced with.

    (more…)

  • Governance Breakdown in Virginia Higher Ed

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A group of individuals in formal attire and hard hats are demolishing a crumbling building, with one person in a suit seemingly caught in the chaos amid falling debris.
    Artificial image credit: Grok

    by Gordon C. Morse

    Here’s the thing to sort out about Virginia’s colleges and universities: These schools achieved widespread acclaim on the basis of a rather specific, long-standing governing arrangement. Today most everyone looks upon Virginia higher education with pride and satisfaction. It works for us; it has for a long time.

    So why have so many people, serving in state government, in both political parties, labored so hard to undermine it? That’s what we need to understand and, if possible, avoid further damage to a justly celebrated collection of state schools.

    Let’s start with the good news: Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s leadership potential is impossible to miss. She’s easy on her feet, laughs quickly and seems naturally adept at the political arts and sciences. She will enter the Virginia governor’s office on a wave of good will and with a clear opportunity to get things done.

    Just last week, for instance, she gave confidence-inspiring public reassurances that she will not support legislation to force people to join unions. Good. The business community has enough on its hands with Democrats controlling all of state government and the next surge – starting just next month — of fix-the-world progressive legislation.

    Spanberger says she will be a moderate, pragmatically-minded governor and that will be no snap to achieve. Her leadership will be challenged by members of her own party. Do this, do that, do it all, they will say.

    One thing not to do: A quick and furious overhaul of higher education governance in Virginia.

    (more…)

  • Demographic Change and Virginia Republicans

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    A diverse crowd of people gathered outdoors in Virginia, with some participants wearing casual clothing and expressions of engagement, amidst trees and a building labeled 'Virginia' in the background.
    Artificial image credit: Grok

    The author attended a Virginia Republican convention a decade or so ago. He found it strange. He had the same unfortunate experience with too many members of both parties in the General Assembly. Since then, he has avoided advising the Virginia Republican Party leadership.  

    But here goes.

    Republicans will have to face the facts of demographic change and target their policies to maintain relevance. It would prove instructive if they began by studying the Weldon-Cooper Center’s population projections. Weldon-Cooper authors rightly suggest the numbers be taken with a grain of salt. Especially farther out in time. But they can be assumed to be directionally correct.

    They would agree that their local demographic projections in Virginia depend on macro-level affordability across the state. Affordability can be roughly defined as a combination of well-paying jobs, the availability and cost of housing, and the cost of other goods and services.

    But Weldon-Cooper projects that growth will expand existing trends. They forecast that it will be concentrated in metropolitan areas and that the population of the Southwest will continue its ongoing decline. Immigrant families will drive population growth.

    The Republican Party must adjust.

    (more…)

  • The Disturbing Politicization of UVA’s Faculty Senate

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    James A. Bacon

    A conference room scene featuring a group of people at a long table, some sitting and others standing. Participants are holding signs that read 'EQUITY NOW' and 'END CUTS,' while a serious discussion takes place.
    AI-generated image credit: Grok

    — written by a correspondent in Virginia

    Inside Higher Ed, an online publisher of news and opinion in the higher education sphere, recently published an article entitled, “The Angry 8: On Faculty Senates.” The thrust of the story is that the faculty senates at many colleges and universities have been hijacked by a relatively small number of activists who have turned the amorphous concept of “shared governance” into a license to criticize and intrude into decisions far beyond academics and their areas of expertise. One can now add the UVA Faculty Senate, under the leadership of Jeri Seidman, to the list of such faculty senates. The leadership of UVA’s Faculty Senate have in essence become avatars of politicized, partisan advocacy rather than a voice for academic excellence.

    The UVA Faculty Senate has undeniably entered a new era. It is taking more positions on contentious topics, passing resolutions involving broader UVA issues, and engaging in discussions that extend well beyond academic policy. This marks a significant shift from its historical norms in which few, if any, formal resolutions were issued each year and activist behavior was relatively non-existent.

    (more…)

  • One Man’s RPV Advance is Another Man’s Valley Forge

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Republicans have a lot to consider as they select their new RPV Chairman.

    A historical painting depicting a man in traditional attire kneeling in the snow with his hands clasped, while a white horse stands beside him in a forest setting.

    by Shaun Kenney

    First things first — if you haven’t watched Ken Burns’ American Revolution on PBS, I hope you have a few history books at your side to confirm whether or not the good guys actually won the war, because if you are new to the thing, you might be excused for wondering whether or not the Americans were actually the good guys.

    By the third episode, the postmodern historians begin to drive their knives into General George Washington — effectively stating that he was not a great man, that he was deeply flawed, and that we have no “marble men” in our pantheon of American heroes.

    Oddly enough, we get very little of the religious temperament of any of the Founding Fathers. Wedged between two Great Awakenings, the American experiment was most certainly borne out of the Scottish Enlightenment and a revival of classical era thought. Yet significant to the entire project was that the Founding Fathers were indeed deeply religious and Protestant men — and they gave us a republic and not a theocracy.

    (more…)

  • GMU Law School Dean Tenders Resignation

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    James A. Bacon

    Ken Randall, dean of the Scalia Law School at George Mason University, has tendered his resignation effective the end of the academic year, according to Virginia Business magazine, citing remarks by GMU Provost James Antony to GMU’s academic affairs committee.

    Professional portrait of a middle-aged man in a suit, smiling at the camera.
    Scalia Law School Dean Ken Randall.

    A university spokesman denied that Randall’s departure is related to last month’s House Judiciary Committee report, based on evidence in Randall’s testimony, that accused GMU President Gregory Washington of lying to Congress.

    Reports Virginia Business: Randall … said that Washington retaliated against the law school for the dean’s decision not to appoint an equity adviser for hiring decisions, and Randall also accused Washington of apparently sabotaging an American Bar Association accreditation audit of Scalia Law School.

    (more…)

  • Feel-Good Story of the Day

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    James A. Bacon

    No, the drunken raccoon of Ashland hasn’t started his own YouTube channel. This is a horse story…

    Aerial view of lush green farmland known as The Cove, bordered by a river and surrounded by trees, showcasing the historic agricultural land now protected by a conservation easement.

    From the Capital Region Land Conservancy:

    Doswell, VA – Nearly 350 acres of farmland where the legendary Triple Crown champion Secretariat frolicked as a colt are now protected forever by a conservation easement held by the Capital Region Land Conservancy. 

    Known as “The Cove,” the low-lying pasture bordered by the North Anna River was the “nursery” for the broodmares and foals of Christopher Chenery’s renowned Meadow Stable, founded in 1936. The Cove’s rich grasses nurtured many other celebrated Thoroughbreds such as Riva Ridge, who won the 1972 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, and the eminent broodmare, Somethingroyal, dam of Secretariat. In fact, The Cove was instrumental in establishing The Meadow as “an empire built on broodmares.”

    Today, thanks to the generosity of Kevin Engel of Engel Family Farms, who purchased The Cove in 2023, the historic land will remain dedicated to agricultural use.  

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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