Monthly Archives: October 2016

Don’t Forget the Bond Referenda

Posted on October 13, 2016 by | 3 comments

bond_referendum3by James A. Bacon

While the U.S. presidential election degenerates into a parody of a banana republic (I hope I’m not insulting banana republics by saying that), Virginia voters may be tempted to avoid the polls. Neither one of Virginia’s two U.S. Senate seats are up for bids, after all, and congressional districts are so gerrymandered that throwing out incumbent congressmen is next to impossible, so why bother? One reason to show up is make your voice heard in local bond referenda to finance local school projects, transportation initiatives and other public amenities.

The most significant votes this year will determine whether Virginia citizens want to continue pouring money into the dysfunctional yet mission-critical Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which has a $6 billion, six-year capital improvement campaign to upgrade creaky, unsafe infrastructure on Metro rail. Fairfax County’s designated share is $120 million; Arlington County’s is $30 million.

Pontificating from afar, I would expect Arlington citizens to approve the bond issue with little fanfare. The Metro is so central to the county’s transportation infrastructure that allowing the system to fail is inconceivable.

The story in Fairfax County is  different. Fairfax residents are far less dependent upon Metro than Arlingtonians. While a significant number do use rail to get to work, even more use the Dulles Toll Road. Many commuters resent how the state has jacked up fares on the toll road to fund construction of the Metro’s rail-to-Dulles extension — even while WMATA refuses to raise rail fares. While the political establishment has backed the Silver Line, many commuters are resentful that they are being singled out to pay for a commuter rail service they don’t use. It will be interesting to see if a populist backlash against the Silver Line manifests itself in votes against the WMATA-subsidy bonds.

Here in Henrico County, voters will be asked to vote on a $420 million package to support schools, parks, firehouses, libraries and roads. More than a third of the sum, $168 million, will be dedicated to modernizing and updating eight schools, the average age of which is nearly 57 years old. Another $100 million will go to relieve school overcrowding and increase program capacity.

Local media coverage on the bond issues has been negligible, and no one is asking questions like, why does the county need to spend $12.5 million to rehabilitate high school athletic fields with synthetic turf? Henrico County is rolling in the dough right now with more money than expected coming in from the meals tax enacted in 2013, so the county can support the bonds without raising the real estate tax rate. There’s nothing like a slew of new schools, libraries and fire stations sprinkled around the county to ingratiate county supervisors with voters.

In theory, the county could have used greater-than-expected meals tax revenue to fund the modernization of government processes that would save money, or, god forbid, reduce the BPOL tax as a spur to business and job growth. But there is no organized opposition to articulate alternative approaches, and Henrico government is generally perceived as well run, so the bonds probably will pass. Who knows, I might even vote for them myself.

3 Comments

Posted in Government Finance

Tagged

Muir Apologizes, Will Resume Teaching

Posted on October 12, 2016 by | 1 comment

Douglas Muir has issued an apology for making a controversial Facebook statement about the Black Lives Matter movement and will resume teaching his classes at the University of Virginia next week. An excerpt from his statement, as reported by the Cavalier Daily:

On October 4, I responded to a Facebook post about Black Lives Matter by comparing the organization to the Ku Klux Klan. I was wrong in my comparison and want to offer my profound apologies for my words. …

As I have come to learn the long, violent history of the Klan, it makes my comparison misguided and shows a misunderstanding of the past. I am ashamed to admit that I knew little about Black Lives Matter when I wrote that post. This lack of awareness is unacceptable for our civil discourse and most especially for an educator like myself. My post was an unfortunate example of what I tell my students never to do because it was criticism without investigation.”

Yeah, his original post was unfortunate. The Black Lives Matter movement is guilty of inflammatory rhetoric, but a comparison with the KKK with its lynchings and cross burnings was ludicrous.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose, although his statement does sound like a document one might sign when emerging from a re-education camp. One interesting line did slip into the statement:  “I never imagined that my words would lead to threats against my family and my employees.”

I wonder what the story behind that statement was and how it might have shaped his apology.

— JAB

1 Comment

Posted in Education (higher ed)

Tagged ,

More Questions about Muir’s “Leave” from UVa

Posted on October 12, 2016 by | Leave a comment

Doug Muir

by James A. Bacon

In light of the departure of adjunct faculty member Doug Muir from his University of Virginia teaching positions after making controversial statements about the Black Lives Matter movement on Facebook, the question has arisen: Does UVa have the right to fire employees for objectionable speech? (For background, see “Safe Spaces: Not Just for Classrooms Any More.”)

First, let me clear that the exact circumstances of Muir’s departure from UVa are murky. All we know from the public record is a statement by Craig E. Benson, dean of the engineering school where Muir taught, that “Mr. Muir has agreed to take leave.” One can deduce from that comment that the university wanted him to leave but sought a voluntary departure. That minuet, however it transpired, may not meet the legal definition of a firing. But judging from the context of the controversy, it looks like UVa exercised some arm-twisting to effect Muir’s departure.

Virginia is an employment-at-will state, which gives employers wide latitude in terminating employees for whatever reason the boss man desires. However, employment-at-will is not an absolute doctrine. If employers and employees signed an employment contract, for instance, the contract has primacy. Furthermore, the rules for public employees — and the University of Virginia is a public entity governed in many ways by state law — can differ from the rules for the employees of private companies.

I searched the Internet for any documents or guidelines that UVa might have published explicitly laying out the university’s policies toward the use of social media. If the university had explicitly warned employees that they could be held accountable for private comments (made as private individuals, not as representatives of the university) on outside (non-university) social media, then Muir doesn’t deserve much sympathy. Conversely, if the university had no formal policy, then one can ask whether the university was being arbitrary and capricious in seeking Muir’s departure.

A number of documents set guidelines for the use of university-owned or -sponsored social media, and some address the use of outside resources like Facebook to advance university goals and objectives. None of those, however, touch upon an employee’s rights to express political opinions in a non-university forum. Indeed, I could find no university-specific documents outlining expectations for employee behavior. I have submitted email and voicemail requests to UVa’s media relations department to provide any such documents, if they exist, but have not yet heard back.

The best discussion I found on the general subject is the “Handbook of Free Speech Issues,” published by the California State University’s office of the general counsel in 2009. It is worth quoting:

Because CSU employees are “public employees” they have greater rights than private sector employees to voice themselves in the work place. There are four relevant types of protected speech: labor-related speech, political speech, religious speech and matters that are of concern to the public at large.

Imposing discipline or taking an adverse work-related action against an employee for engaging in any protected form of speech is clearly prohibited, as is threatening or intimidating an employee in order to prevent them from engaging in protected speech. …

Campuses may not prohibit or take any adverse action based on an employee’s personal political affiliation, activity or beliefs.

Muir’s departure from the university, which left administrators scrambling to find someone to pick up his classes, came after his comments stoked a public furor. Charlottesville Mayor Wes Bellamy encouraged people to boycott a restaurant owned by Muir’s wife and wrote, “I implore the Darden School of Business … to address this issue immediately.” NAACP representative Rick Turner told WVIR-TV, “Not only should they drop his class, the university should get rid of him, if they can, They should not allow him to stand in front of students again.”

According to the UVa “Terms and Conditions of University Staff Employment,” employees can be terminated for just cause. “Causes for suspension or termination shall include but are not limited to: unethical or unlawful conduct, misappropriation of funds, misconduct that interferes with the capacity of the employee to perform effectively, falsification of credentials or experience, and failure or refusal to comply with applicable University policies, rules and regulations.”

It would be interesting to know which of these causes UVa might consider to be grounds for nudging Muir into unemployment. Because the Muir matter is a personnel issue, UVa is within its rights to withhold comment. But if the administration doesn’t explain itself better, this sure looks like a case of buckling under pressure to suppress unpopular views.

Update: Muir has publicly apologized for his Facebook post and will resume teaching next week. The circumstances behind his “leave” still remain murky, but it was not a firing, and my deduction above that the university nudged him into leaving is not supported by the evidence. University spokesman Anthony P. DeBruyn tells me that “the University did not take disciplinary action against Mr. Muir” and that “he volunteered to go on leave for a short period.”

Still, the bigger question of this post remains: What right does a public university have to fire an employee who expressed an unpopular but personal opinion in social media? Sooner or later, that issue will arise, if not at UVa, then at another Virginia university.

Leave a comment

Posted in Education (higher ed)

Tagged ,

Amidst Abundant Rain, Eastern Virginia Still Faces Water Shortages

Posted on October 12, 2016 by | 5 comments
Virginia's coastal plain aquifer system

Virginia’s coastal plain aquifer system

by James A. Bacon

After getting soaked with rain over the past two weeks, most Virginians would find it difficult to imagine that the Old Dominion could ever face a water shortage. But the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) has been thinking beyond next week’s weather forecast, and while there are no immediate threats to the viability of Virginia’s water supply, the commission say that the long-term outlook in eastern Virginia is problematic.

The eastern, most populated portion of Virginia is heavily dependent upon a coastal plain aquifer system. Due to flat terrain and the omnipresence of wetlands, eastern Virginia is not topographically well suited to building water reservoirs. As a consequence, many water consumers rely upon well water.

At present small users (withdrawing less than 300,000 gallons per month) suck about 40 million gallons per day out of the aquifer system. Big users requiring permits are expected to withdraw between 43 and 58 million gallons per day. States JLARC in a new report, “Effectiveness of Virginia’s Water Resource Planning and Management“:

Assuming [the Department of Environmental Quality] achieves the proposed permit reductions it is currently negotiating and current reported withdrawals continue unchanged over the next few years, water levels are predicted to show only small declines and fall below regulatory minimum levels in only a few parts of the aquifer over 50 years. … Beyond the next few years, though, sustainability is tenuous and can be easily tipped out of balance. Potential growth in  both unpermitted and permitted withdrawals can easily push demand in excess of supply, leading again to unsustainable use.

While water shortages are unlikely in the next generation, the necessity to curtail major new water users is hampering economic development now. Difficulty in acquiring new permits will make it challenging for water-intensive industries to locate in eastern Virginia, states the report.

“About 85 percent of local economic developers responding to a JLARC survey reported that availability and affordability of water were important factors for at least one new project during the past three years,” the report says. Survey respondents told JLARC of three incidents in which projects did not materialize due to water permitting issues.

So, what’s to be done? Broadly speaking, JLARC identifies three strategies relevant to eastern Virginia: (1) conservation, (2) repair of leaky infrastructure, and (3) trading water.

Conservation. Conservation by existing users can postpone the need to spend billions of dollars developing new water supplies. Conservation measures can include installation of water-efficient appliances and fixtures, water-efficient landscaping and limits on landscape irrigation, rain harvesting, and tiered pricing structures that escalate charges for big users. Two paper mills — WestRock in West Point and International Paper in Franklin — account for nearly half of all coastal plain aquifer withdrawals. If the mills could find ways to cut water consumption, they could prolong the sustainability of the aquifer by many years.

Fixing water leaks. Local water supply plans report system losses ranging from 4% to 50%, depending upon the age of the infrastructure. JLARC cites two major public water suppliers in eastern Virginia which lost 15% and 17% of their water supply to leaks in 2011. Thanks to new technologies for monitoring water pipes, it is easier to identify leaks than ever. Water authorities across Virginia should be able to prioritize their maintenance spending to patch or replace the pipes with the worst leaks, deferring the need to spend billions of dollars on new capacity.

Groundwater trading. Groundwater trading is a market-based approach in which users buy and sell rights to groundwater consumption. Trading water rights would promote more efficient allocation of the scarce resource and would accommodate economic growth by allowing new users to access groundwater. However, there are prickly legal and philosophical issues associated with what amounts to converting a public resource into private property.

Unless Virginia can cobble together some combination of these solutions, we can expect water rates to rise in eastern Virginia as municipal and regional water authorities seek to ensure their long-term supplies. The Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), for instance, has begun studying an “aquifer injection” project that would inject about 120 million gallons per day of treated wastewater in the coastal aquifer, more than offsetting all current withdrawals. Among the benefits: reducing land subsidence that contributes to local flooding and reversing saltwater intrusion into the aquifer. However, the estimated price tag is hefty: about $1.2 billion in up-front capital and between $21 million to $43 milllion in annual operating costs.

JLARC urges legislators to tighten up standards for withdrawing water from the coastal aquifer, and capping the withdrawals that any single entity can make. Whatever the solution relied upon, Virginia needs to implement it soon. While water shortages may be decades away, the looming scarcity is affecting Virginia’s economic competitiveness today.

5 Comments

Posted in Infrastructure, Water-waste water

Tagged

Where Are the Free Speech Advocates?

Posted on October 11, 2016 by | 6 comments

When Douglas Muir lost his job teaching entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia after making a Facebook comment highly critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, WCVE reporter Hawes Spencer wondered if his treatment raised free speech issues. He couldn’t get any first amendment advocates to return his call. Recalling the column I wrote  a couple of days ago (see “Safe Spaces: Not Just for Classrooms Any More“), he contacted me.

Listen to the podcast here. It’s only 58 seconds long.

UVa’s over-reaction was bad enough. It’s an even sadder commentary that Spencer could find no other than a blogger willing to question UVa for that over-reaction.

Update: I’m getting Facebook feedback that Muir may have had problems other than his Facebook post. My comments were based only on Daily Progress news articles and the university’s official announcements on the subject.

— JAB

6 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed)

Tagged ,

A Crimped View of Poverty

Posted on October 11, 2016 by | 3 comments

handsby James A. Bacon

Life is hard on poor people, the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy tells us in a new special report, “The High Cost of Being Poor in Virginia.” While the number of poor Virginians declined to 11.2% in 2015, considerably below the national average, poor people still get a raw deal. They pay more for food. They pay a higher percentage of their incomes for housing. They pay late fees for unpaid rent and many get evicted. Those who work benefit from fewer vacation and sick day — when they can afford child care, which often they can’t — and are victimized by wage theft. They pay onerous interest rates on payday loans and other debt, which traps them in a cycle of of indebtedness.

On the other hand, the Virginia Interfaith Center acknowledges, the poor do receive substantial welfare benefits — low-income refundable tax credits, food stamps, rent subsidies, child care subsidies, child care assistance, and Medicaid, among the most important federal entitlements. (The poor also benefit from other programs such as free cell phones, energy relief, food kitchens, and charitable initiatives too numerous to mention, none of which the Center acknowledges.)

So, what’s the answer? More entitlements and regulations, of course. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. Increase food stamp benefits. Expand Medicaid. And enact more regulations: Crack down on payday lenders, raise the minimum wage and compel employers to pay for more vacation and sick days.

“As Election Day draws nearer, we should be thinking hard about our priorities as a nation,” states the report. “Reducing poverty and the high costs of being poor clearly should be a top priority.”

In other words, the Virginia Interfaith Center offers the same bromides used to justify Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty some 50 years ago, impervious to the many unintended consequences and the utter failure, after the expenditure of trillions of dollars, to eradicate poverty. The logic is brain-dead simple: Poverty is a condition of material deprivation. If people are poor, give them more money.

As Robert Rector with the American Enterprise Institute points out, however, the material living conditions of America’s poor are enviable by the standards of most other countries. Forty-three percent of poor people own their own homes. Eighty percent enjoy air conditioning. Nearly three-quarters own a car. Ninety-seven percent own a color television; more than half own two. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens. Only two percent respond to the American Community survey that they “often” do not have enough to eat.

The American welfare state has ameliorated material poverty, but the worst part about being “poor” in America today is not material want. It is social dysfunction, or what some might call “spiritual” poverty. The poor are more likely to suffer from domestic violence and child neglect. They are more likely to engage in substance abuse. The poor learn less at school, and are more likely to drop out. Poor women are more likely to bear children out of wedlock and at an earlier age. The poor are less likely to get married, and more likely to suffer mental illness. They are more likely to engage in criminal activity — and more likely to be victims of it. And poor men are less likely to participate in the workforce and more likely to seek disability, even though work is far less demanding physically than a half century ago.

Social dysfunction does not arise from material deprivation. How do we know this? Because many measures of social breakdown are much worse than they were, say, 80 years ago during the Great Depression when material conditions and insecurity were far worse. We also know that social dysfunction comes from causes other than material deprivation because we see dysfunction creeping up the socioeconomic ladder to America’s working class and middle class.

The authors of the Virginia Interfaith Center have a very pinched view of poverty. While there are undoubtedly things that Virginia can do to ameliorate the pain of material poverty — I share the Center’s concerns about courts that trap people in poverty by taking away their drivers’ licenses, and would join in denouncing businesses that engage in wage theft — the problems that cause the greatest distress stem from spiritual poverty. One would think, given the spiritual nature of churches and other places of worship, that the authors might have shown a keener sense of the difference between material and spiritual poverty. Rather than advocating the expansion of the welfare state, perhaps the authors could accomplish more good by addressing the spiritual dimension of poverty.

3 Comments

Posted in Poverty & income gap

Tagged

How Solar Subsidies Might Backfire in Accomack

Posted on October 11, 2016 by | 7 comments
Does mixing sheep with solar panels make a solar "farm" an agricultural use?

Does mixing sheep with solar panels make a solar “farm” an agricultural use?

by James A. Bacon

Back in April, John VanKesteren told the Accomack County Board of Supervisors that he and his family wanted to build an 80-megawatt solar facility on their family farm. The 200-acre site they had selected was an ideal location: less than 1,000 yards from a power station. The family, organizing under the name of SunTec Solar Solutions, had aspirations of landing a $100 million solar energy project.

One might think that the community would embrace a project that would create wealth for local landowners, generate a slew of construction jobs, and increase the tax base of the economically depressed Eastern Shore county. But local planners and supervisors weren’t entirely pleased. They saw a solar facility conflicting with the agriculturally zoned use of the land.

“There’s a contradiction between agriculture and solar,” said Rich Morrison, the county’s planning director, in a report to the Board of Supervisors in September, according to Delmarva Now. “It’s basically pick one. You’re either picking solar or you’re picking ag. … They haven’t found a place to coexist.”

Last month the Board approved a planning commission request to start preparing an ordinance amendment that would remove utility-scale solar and wind farms from the county’s Agricultural Zoning District, severely limiting the potential to develop renewable power sources in the county.

One of the reasons cited for the amendment was a 2016 state law that provides tax exemptions on real and personal property, including equipment, for solar farms up to 20 megawatts in size. While the measure improves the economics of solar from the developer’s perspective, it undermines the economics of taxation from a county government perspective.

“It’s a different game with the ruling of the state and not being able to tax that property,” said Board Chairman Ron S. Wolff in the September board meeting. “That would’ve made a big difference in how I would’ve looked at it.”

Land-use conflicts may become more frequent in Virginia as the state energy mix shifts increasingly toward utility-scale solar, the most economically efficient way of producing solar electricity. Solar panels will consume thousands of acres of land just to provide the modest amount of electricity contemplated under the state’s current energy plan — and far more if Virginia were to meet the ambitious goals of environmentalists who want to clamp a lid on gas- and nuclear-fueled energy. While it may be theoretically possible to retrofit solar panels on building roofs, ease of construction favors utility-scale construction of long banks of solar panels on inexpensive farmland .

The problem is that in rural counties like Accomack with abundant farmland, that land is zoned agricultural, and local governments are the ones who define whether “agricultural” uses include solar. If solar facilities are mostly tax-exempt, local governments could perceive solar farms a revenue loser, not a winner.

The bill (HB1305) signed by the governor “provides a sales and use tax exemption for machinery, tools, and equipment of a public service corporation used to generate energy derived from sunlight or wind. The bill also … exempts from such [real and personal] property taxes 80% of the assessed value of such equipment used in projects equaling more than one megawatt.”

Dennis Nordstrom, a SunTec shareholder, argued that the two uses can coexist. Only 174 acres of the 200-acre site actually would be developed, and solar planels would occupy only 30% to 40% of available space. SunTec proposes partnering with Shooting Point Oyster Company to bring a flock of Hog Island sheep to graze among the panels, similar to what solar farms are doing in North Carolina. That way, the solar farm doubles as a sheep farm and preserves the agricultural use.

Nordstrom also says that the solar farm would yield higher tax revenue, even taking the tax exemption into account. Writes Delvmarva Now:

Based on recent real property tax bills for SunTec’s proposed site, the county received about $5,500 from the land annually, [Nordstrom] said. Switching to a mixed-use solar farm would bump that number to around $26,000 per year, based on the same value per acre the county assessor’s office gave to Accomack’s other solar project, in Oak Hall Nordstrom said.

“The county was a little bit upset, and I can understand this, because they (the state) basically took over their power of taxation,” he said.

However, as Nordstrom sees it, Accomack could garner an additional $15,000 annually from a mixed-use solar and sheep farm, versus a traditional agricultural site — around $375,000 over the solar farm’s 25-year lifespan.

Bacon’s bottom line: Clearly, tax subsidies had consequences that solar advocates did not anticipate. If Accomack’s Board of Supervisors ends up removing solar from the list of agricultural uses, solar energy in Virginia will be dealt a significant blow. If other counties adopt Accomack’s logic, the result could be disastrous. Assuming Accomack moves ahead as planned, the General Assembly should consider amending the legislation again. Gaining access to agriculturally zoned lands is more important to advancing the cause of solar in Virginia than the exemptions on sales and property taxes.

7 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment

Tagged ,

Needed in Virginia: A Fiscal Early Warning System

Posted on October 10, 2016 by | 9 comments

fiscal_distressby James A. Bacon

In the wake of the City of Petersburg’s fiscal meltdown, the General Assembly has appointed Del. R. Steven Landes, R-Augusta, to head a subcommittee to study how other states deal with fiscally stressed localities. In surveying best practices in other states, it’s a good bet that Landes will familiarize himself with a new report, “State Strategies to Detect Local Fiscal Distress,” published by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

It turns out that 22 states, many of whom have learned from hard experience, have established mechanisms for monitoring the fiscal health of local governments. The idea is to spot the warning signs of fiscal distress in the hopes that local elected officials will take action before their municipality becomes the next Detroit, Mich., Stockton, Calif., or Central Falls, R.I.

Virginia requires cities, counties and towns to file audited documents called Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs), but the oversight ends there. No one at the state level analyzes the data or conveys findings to the public.

Of the 22 states that monitor local fiscal health, Pew classifies eight as “early warning states” with laws defining when local governments are in “fiscal distress” and systems to identify when a locality reaches that status. As Pew notes, an early warning system can save states big headaches and liabilities down the road if it can avert local government failure.

Another big bonus: Credit-rating agencies look positively upon such systems. “All else being equal, we tend to assign higher ratings to troubled governments in states with strong oversight, well-established policies of intervention, and a track record of success,” the study quotes Moody’s Investors Service as saying. Among the key indicators that analysts in other states scrutinize:

  • Audits and other financial information submitted on time
  • Deficits and minimum fund balances
  • Size of debt-service obligations, and debt service as a ratio of population and operating revenue
  • Sufficiciency of cash for services
  • Total revenue and expenditures per capita
  • Unrestricted fund balances
  • Cash-to-liabilities ratio
  • Pension plan funding ratios

Few local elected officials have the financial training to read municipal balance sheets and spot the signs of impending trouble. A state report card on key indicators and ratios would be invaluable to them and to members of the public. Flashing warning signs would give them time to address problems before they reached the point where, like Petersburg, city officials have to make catastrophic cuts to core government services.

(Hat tip: Tim Wise)

9 Comments

Posted in Government Finance

Tagged

Safe Spaces: Not Just for Classrooms Any More

Posted on October 9, 2016 by | 17 comments
Douglas Muir

Douglas Muir

by James A. Bacon

Narrowing the realm of politically acceptable speech, not only on but off the grounds, the forces of political correctness at the University of Virginia have compelled adjunct professor Douglas Muir to take leave from teaching positions at the School of Engineering and Darden School of Business. Muir’s offense: comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan.

Muir caused a stir when he added a comment to a Facebook post by Charlottesville real estate agent Roger Voisinet. In the comment, Muir stated, “Black lives matter is the biggest rasist (sic) organisation (sic) since the clan (sic). Are you kidding me? Disgusting!!!”

When Charlottesville City Councilman Wes Bellamy heard about Muir’s comment, according to the Daily Progress, he wrote, “How can you compare people standing up for justice to the KKK, who have unapologetically hung many African-Americans? They are outright and blatantly racist, and when you look at Black Lives Matter, that’s white people, Latino people, Asian people and young and old. … Comparing that to the KKK shows me how culturally incompetent some people can be. It shows me how much work we need to do in this country.”

As the furor gathered momentum, engineering and business school officials released statements denouncing Muir’s Facebook comment. Said Craig E. Benson, dean of the engineering school: “While free speech and open discussion are fundamental principles of our nation and the University, Mr. Muir’s comment was entirely inappropriate. UVA Engineering does not condone actions that undermine our values, dedication to diversity and educational mission. … We believe humanity will not solve its ongoing challenges unless it embraces the ideas and talents of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives.”

The circumstances of Muir’s departure are uncler. However, Benson’s statement that “Mr. Muir has agreed to take leave” implies that university officials asked him to step down from his teaching positions.

Bacon’s bottom line: Let me make one thing crystal clear — I do not agree with Muir’s comment. I am not a fan of Black Lives Matter but I would not characterize the movement as “racist.” At the same time, I object to the hysteria over his comment and find it frightening that a comment made in a forum outside the university classroom would lead to his ouster. Purging him for his thought crime — and let’s be honest, that’s exactly what his offense was — declares that the views of a large swath of the populace are so illegitimate that they cannot even be expressed. Such an approach does not change anyone’s heart: It drives incorrect thinking underground and breeds bitter resentment.

I had hoped that the University of Virginia would resist such campus totalitarianism, but the tenor of the times has reached such a fevered pitch that Mr. Jefferson’s University has declared some views to be literally unspeakable.

Before I take a closer look at how the university is shutting down free speech and intellectual diversity, let me repeat that I do not agree with Muir’s statement that BLM is “racist,” much less the most racist organization since the KKK. BLM arose in response to a legitimate concern: the excessive use of police force against African-Americans and the unequal impact of the criminal and civil justice system. All Americans, including conservatives, libertarians and others who hold civil liberties dear, should oppose unjustified police force. All Americans should oppose racial discrimination in criminal sentencing, and all should be disturbed by the debilitating impact of court fines and penalties on minorities and the poor. These issues received insufficient attention in the past, and BLM deserves credit for bringing them to the public’s attention.

However, there are good reasons why many Americans dislike BLM. Rather than acknowledging the complexity of the issues– to pick one example, the fact that many African-Americans lobbied for harsher penalties against crack cocaine in the 1990s when it was tearing apart black communities — BLM has taken the hard-leftist position that all perceived injustices are the result of a deeply racist system, that broader society is deeply racist, and that anyone who disagrees with its leftist critique and prescriptions themselves are racists. The movement (aided by the media) has created an exaggerated sense of injustice by assuming police guilt before all the facts are known; often the facts have either exonerated the police or showed the circumstances to be more ambivalent that initially believed. BLM rhetoric also has stirred up animosity that encourages some African-Americans to resist the police, thus creating more potentially violent confrontations and inspiring police to back away from engagement in some inner-city neighborhoods — the so-called Ferguson effect — which in turn has fomented a sense of lawlessness and a spike in black-on-black murder.

Does all that make BLM “racist,” as Muir suggested in his comment? No, I don’t believe it does. BLM is a coalition that encompasses people from all races who are combating what they perceive as racism, and their express goal is to purge the system of racism. (One can argue the degree to which BLM beliefs are grounded in reality, and one can point out the unintended consequences of its rhetoric without labeling it racist.) So, I would say that Muir’s comment was unfounded and a distraction from the real issues.

But was his throw-away comment, made in an online forum unaffiliated with the university so reprehensible that it should cost him his job teaching entrepreneurship? That’s a very different matter.

First, I would suggest that Muir’s views are hardly exceptional. According to the Pew Research Center, “All told, 43% support the movement. … About one-in-five Americans (22%) oppose the movement.” (My italics.)

By denouncing Muir, university officials are saying that the views of one-fifth of the American people are so beyond the pale that the mere expression of them is sufficient grounds for losing their job. Did Muir even bring this personal view into the classroom? I have seen no evidence that he did. Nor have I seen any evidence presented that his personal views affected his teaching or his interaction with African-American students. Maybe such evidence will surface, but I haven’t seen it, and such evidence was not needed to fuel the hysteria leading to his ouster.

UVa Provost Tom Katsouleas

UVa Provost Tom Katsouleas

Look how senior UVa administrators framed the issue. Provost Tom Katsouleas felt moved to issue an October 7 statement that Muir’s statement “on his personal Facebook page” is “inconsistent with the University of Virginia’s values and with its commitment to the principles of academic freedom.”

I dare say that in an institution of 15,500 faculty and staff, many employees have made provocative and ill-considered statements on their Facebook pages and other online forums — some from a leftist perspective as well as that of the right. But this is the first time (in my recollection) that a university Provost felt compelled to single one out for condemnation. Katsouleas went on to say:

The University of Virginia stands firmly against racism and social injustice of any kind. Our mission statement offers “our unwavering support of a collaborative, diverse community bound together by distinctive foundational values of honor, integrity, trust, and respect.” This position in no way squelches academic freedom, which welcomes dissent and encourages the voices of others whose perspectives may differ from ours — thereby adding new insights to our own. But statements such as Mr. Muir’s do not foster intellectual exploration, nor do they encourage the voices of others.

Our own School of Nursing puts it best: “Compassion and respect live here.”  We can engage in healthy debate and respectful disagreement without offering insults that suppress the free expression of ideas. I encourage all of us to keep respect and truth at the center of the conversations we will have about this incident in the coming days.

Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed)

Tagged ,

The Economics of Coal Ash Disposal

Posted on October 8, 2016 by | 3 comments
A trucks hauls coal ash from a retention pond to a permanent pond at Domiion's Possum Point Power Station. Photo credit: AP

A truck hauls coal ash from a retention pond to a permanent pond at Dominion’s Possum Point Power Station. Photo credit: AP

To cap coal ash pits in existing locations or to haul it off to landfills is the multibillion dollar question facing the electric utility industry.

by James A. Bacon

The debate over coal ash hasn’t gone away — it’s just morphed. For much of the year, public attention focused on how to de-water millions of tons of coal-combustion residue that utilities and industrial companies accumulated over decades in large retaining ponds. Discussion centered on how to ensure that the water released into rivers and streams did no harm to aquatic life and human health. Now attention is turning to what to do with coal ash once it’s dry.

The October 17 deadline is fast approaching for industrial-scale coal burners to file written closure plans for their coal ash ponds. Each company must choose whether to go with the “closure-in-place” option or the removal option. Closure in place could spare ratepayers billions of dollars in added costs, but “removal” could reduce long-term health risks from potentially toxic metals that could leach from the coal ash pits into the groundwater and, from there, into rivers and streams.

Here in Virginia, Dominion Virginia Power has laid out plans to consolidate coal ash on-site at its power stations, and to cap the material with an impermeable plastic lining and vegetation to prevent rainwater from percolating through. Environmentalists say that won’t prevent groundwater from migrating through the ponds and picking up heavy metals in the process. As evidence, they point to water quality tests that show elevated levels of metals appearing in locations outside Dominion’s facilities. Clouding the matter, however, the state Department of Environmental Quality says that its tests show contradictory results.

In a recent conference call with media, Jim Roewer, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, emphasized the high cost of transporting the ash to lined landfills, as environmental groups have called for. In an informal survey early in the regulatory process, he said, four out of five utilities said they expected to go with the closure-in-place option. That preference reflected the economics of coal ash disposal at their particular locations. A June Tennessee Valley Authority study concludes that it would cost about $280 million to close its six coal-ash sites using closure-in-place but $2.7 billion using the cheapest combination of truck and train — almost ten times as much.

Dominion has said that the tab for the removal option could run the clean-up cost to as much as $3 billion. Virginia environmental groups have pointed to decisions by Duke Energy, Santee Cooper, and SG&E in the Carolinas to transport the coal ash to landfills, arguing that Virginia citizens should have no less protection from exposure to toxic levels of chemicals than those of North and South Carolina.

Roewer argues that the economics of closure-in-place versus removal vary widely from site to site. While removal may be an economically viable option in some locations, it is far more expensive in others. Trucking coal ash long distances is economically impractical. While most coal-fired power plants are served by railroads, that doesn’t mean it’s simple to load the ash into trains for shipment to landfills. The rail lines were designed to dump coal at the station; loading facilities would have to be constructed at considerable cost to load the ash onto trains. Unless the landfill were located directly on the rail line, the other end of the line also would require another facility to unload the coal ash onto trucks for the short haul to the landfill.

Environmentalists suggest that recycling the gritty coal ash into cinderblocks or other products could reduce the need to dispose of so much ash. “Recycling of coal ash … costs far less than excavation and removal,” says Brad McLane, a Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) attorney who has represented the James River Association in coal ash litigation. “This is happening at the Winyah plant in South Carolina and is being performed by the Southeastern Fly Ash Association. Coal ash recycling may not be feasible everywhere, but where it is feasible, it is a win-win solution.”

Recycling coal ash tends to be most feasible in large metropolitan areas where a third party enjoys a big enough market to justify building a dedicated recycling facility. Dominion has ruled out that option for its rural Bremo Power Station. In urban areas, obtaining the needed permits to build a recycling plant could add years to the disposal process. And any solution that entails trucking large volumes of coal ash through residential areas, as would be the case with Dominion’s Possum Point Power Station, poses problems of its own.

But McLane also questions Roewer’s estimate that four out of five power stations will pursue closure-in-place. “That is not consistent with our experience in our region.  All sites in South Carolina are being excavated, and more than half of the sites in North Carolina are being excavated, with review still occurring regarding the long-term approach for the remaining sites in North Carolina.”

Moreover, Roewer is not considering some of the costs and risks associated with closure-in-place, McLane says. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Coal Combustion Residue (CCR) rule generally provides for only 30 years of post-closure care, but coal ash pits, some of which in Virginia are located near low-lying waterways, will incur “the risk of catastrophic failure over the millennia” to sea level rise and increased storm intensity as a result of climate change.

EPA’s risk assessment looks at the risk of coal ash leaching over a 5,000-year period. If heavy metals do leach into the groundwater and contaminate surface waters after 30 years, additional measures will be required to address the pollution, McLane says. “Utilities may end up needing to go back and excavate these sites years in the future to comply with the CCR rule after having wasted money on half measures that will not work. Why not do the right thing from the start?

Bacon’s Rebellion asked Dominion for input to this story but, preoccupied with hurricane preparations, the company was unable to respond.

3 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment

Tagged , ,

Cybersecurity a National Nightmare… and Opportunity for Virginia

Posted on October 7, 2016 by | 3 comments

cyber_securityby James A. Bacon

Not long ago, an unknown hacker from outside the United States shut down the server of Professional Dermatology Care PC in Reston in what appeared to be a ransomware attack: Give us money or you’ll never see your 13,000 patient records again. The dermatology practice posted a statement on its website, stating that it had contacted the FBI, increased its cyber-security measures, and would be sending written notices patients. So starts this month’s cover story of Virginia Business magazine about cyber-security.

Let’s just say that I can feel the dermatologists’ pain. No one is holding Bacon’s Rebellion for ransom, but my blog has been shut down for more than a week now in a “distributed denial of service” attack on the shared server that hosts Bacon’s Rebellion and hundreds of other blogs and websites. Readers can no longer find old blog posts. I can’t access a draft of an article I was writing the day before the attack. Readers are thwarted in efforts to register and post comments. Other than moving to a new server to set up the jury-rigged blog that you are now reading, I am helpless.

In a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, an outsider bombards the server with superfluous requests from hundreds, even thousands, of computers — typically slave computers infected with malware. The fusillade crowds out legitimate users trying to visit the site. The web host company — Hostmonster.com in my case — can identify and block the IP addresses of attacking computers, but the attackers simply shift to other computers.

“Basically, we have to wait out the attack,” a Hostmonster technician told me this morning. “It’s essentially out of our hands.”

These attacks are increasing in frequency because the bad guys — most of them residing in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe — have figured out how to make money by holding companies ransom, stealing credit cards, and other means. Just as IT is a growth industry in the U.S., cyber-thuggery is a growth industry overseas. Every time the good guys introduce an innovation to make cyberspace safer, the bad guys match them with an innovation of their own. We live in a world in which the Chinese break into corporate computers and steal technology, parties unknown probe for vulnerabilities in the electric grid, and Russians compromise the computers of the Democratic National Committee (and, most likely, the private email server of a certain former Secretary of State). No one is immune…

Which, ironically enough, makes cyber-security a potential growth industry for Virginia. As Virginia Business observes, some 650 Virginia companies are engaged in one aspect of cyber-security or another. Many arose from the security obsessions of the U.S. military, intelligence and homeland security communities, but newcomers are developing niches to serve private industry. The greater the cyber-threat, the greater the business opportunity for Virginia-based enterprises.

Here’s the rub: Virginia faces a severe manpower shortage. Writes Virginia Business: “Virginia has an immediate need for about 17,000 cybersecurity professionals, with each job paying an average of $80,000 per year.”

If those positions could be filled, they would amount to nearly $1.4 billion in payroll! The McAuliffe administration sees a huge economic-development opportunity.

“Cybersecurity firms by and large are based on talent, and they are pretty much as good as the talent they are able to fund,” says Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson. “And so the states that have the best people and have the most talented workers are going to be the ones that garner the most amount of [cybersecurity companies] over the long term.

Many of the Virginia initiatives noted by Virginia Business focus on workforce development:

  • The Mach37 cybersecurity business accelerator in Herndon, an initiative of the Center for Innovative Technology, has helped launch 35 cybersecurity companies collectively employing more than 100 workers.
  • State government established a cybersecurity apprenticeship program to help students in community colleges and technical centers get on-the-job experience while earning degrees and certificates in cybersecurity fields.
  • Virginia Tech has received a $19.4 million National Science Foundation grant to use for cybersecurity workforce development.
  • The state’s New Economy Workforce Credential Program funds two-thirds of the cost of workforce credentials programs for students who complete vocational certification programs and earn industry-recognized credentials in high-demand professions such as cyber-security.
  • The state Department of Education sponsored a pilot program of 32 cybersecurity summer campus for high school students across Virginia.
  • Governor Terry McAuliffe signed into law this summer a measure requiring computer science be integrated into State Standards of Learning by 2017.

“A lot of us have insomnia,” said Northern Virginia cybersecurity consultant William Lumpkin, known by his hacker handle InfoJanitor. “Because if you knew how vulnerable things are all the time, it would make you a little nervous too.”

3 Comments

Posted in Economic development

Tagged

Blog Update

Posted on October 6, 2016 by | 3 comments

The old server that served Bacon’s Rebellion at Hostmonster.com is still out of condition, the victim of a “denial of service” attack. The server hosted multiple websites, so there is no evidence that Bacon’s Rebellion was the target of the attack.

It has been nearly a week now but Hostmonster still has not resolved the issue. One technician told me that he has rarely seen it take so long to fix a problem like this. It should not be long, however. Once I can access all my files, I can work toward restoring the blog’s full content and functionality.

In the meantime, if you miss participating in Bacon’s Rebellion as much as loyal reader (and frequent comment contributor) Allen Barringer, follow his directions on how to gain full access:

Thanks to Jim Bacon’s problems with his blog hosting service, lots of us are having difficulty signing on to Bacon’s Rebellion. If you try to log in in the usual way with your BR user name and password (or if you have set up your computer to log you in to BR automatically) it will fail — you will get an error message that says you have an invalid password, and also that you have tried too many times to login.  Neither is true; this is an error from BR’s former blog hosting service. There is an alternative: look again at that log-in screen and you will see that it says: “Log in with WordPress.com /or/ Login with username and password.” The first alternative, “Log in with WordPress,” will work, as it bypasses the old blog host and goes directly to Jim’s new website; but you must first create a WordPress account. If you do not have a WorkPress account, here is how to create one:

What is WordPress.org? This is a volunteer organization consisting of people who promote and support blogging, and write the ‘open source’ computer program that makes blogs like Bacon’s Rebellion possible. Most blogs use the free WordPress software, and many blog readers sign on through WordPress because that signs them on simultaneously to all the WordPress-based blogs they subscribe to, or “follow.” By creating a WordPress account you incur no obligation to WordPress;  however, you will be able to sign in to any WordPress-based blog (including BR) through your WordPress account, and also, if you have an interest in blogging, you will be able to read and participate in any WordPress discussion forums.

To create a WordPress account, click on this link: https://login.wordpress.org. A login form will appear. At the bottom right, click on “Create an account” and the “Registration” screen will appear. Choose a Username and fill in your email address — you can skip all the other blanks — except, click on the blank next to “I am not a robot”; and then click on “Register.” Now, WordPress.org will send you an email with a temporary password.  Get the temporary password and sign in.   Your account at WordPress.org simultaneously exists at WordPress.com, with the same username and password. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration

Tagged

Muddled Thinking about School Absenteeism

Posted on October 6, 2016 by | 9 comments

absenteeism_chart

by James A. Bacon

Slightly more than one in ten Virginia school students were “chronically absent” from school in the 2014-2015 school year, meaning that they missed 10%, or 18 out of 180 days, or more of the school year, according to a new study published by Luke C. Miller and Amanda Johnson for the University of Virginia EdPolicy Works.

Nor surprisingly, the authors found that chronic absenteeism was associated with lower standardized test scores and a higher propensity to drop out of school. Hardly shocking, they found that low-income and minority students were more likely to be absent. The study, “Chronic  Absenteeism in Virginia and the Challenged School Divisions,” focused on three troubled, inner-city school systems, Norfolk, Richmond, and Petersburg, where absenteeism is far more prevalent than for Virginia schools as a whole.

The primary contribution of the study is to delve into possible causes of school absenteeism, with the idea that a keener understanding of the phenomenon will help us craft better solutions. Here is the authors’ framework for addressing the issue:

Reasons for being absent can be clustered into three categories. … First, students may not be able to attend school because they cannot attend, for example, if they are sick, they are homeless or experiencing other forms of housing instability, or they have family obligations such as caring for younger siblings. Second, some students are absent because they have an aversion to going to school, for example, if they are having a tough time adjusting to a new school or if they do not feel safe at school. Third, students are absent from school because either the students or the parents would rather the student be somewhere else, for example, hanging out with friends at the beach or going on a family vacation. By targeting one or more of these reasons, interventions have proven successful at reducing chronic absenteeism.

Miller and Johnson tested their proposition that unsafe schools might be a factor by correlating absenteeism with school-level measures of discipline, crime, and violence data. The correlation is not a strong one. “The relationship between school safety and chronic absenteeism is not consistent across the three school divisions or Virginia,” they write. “In Petersburg, the safest schools have the highest rates of absenteeism.”

The authors also examine the idea that students attending new schools might have a more difficult time adjusting, thus making them more prone to absenteeism. There the data seems more consistent. “Transitioning students are roughly 60% more likely than non-transitioning students to be chronically absent in Norfolk and Richmond and 50% more likely in Petersburg.”

The authors call for more research to focus on schools and school divisions with high concentrations of high-poverty students that have done a better job of reducing absenteeism and identifying the practices they employ.

Bacon’s bottom line: Translating the study’s findings on “transitioning students” into plain English, it seems entirely plausible that new kids in school, especially middle and high school, have a tougher time fitting in. Social cliques are already established, and it takes greater effort to find acceptance. Some kids may get discouraged, and they may skip school more frequently as a result. This phenomenon may be more pronounced in schools dominated by lower-income kids less indoctrinated in the middle-class mores of “put yourself in their shoes,” and “be nice to everyone.” Sadly, schools are powerless to address the reasons why low-income households, which are vulnerable to housing evictions, move to new districts in the middle of the school year.

Ferris Bueller -- not your garden-variety chronically absent student.

Ferris Bueller — not your garden-variety chronically absent student.

On the other hand, some of the analysis seems ludicrous, such as the idea that students who chronically skip school might be “hanging out with friends at the beach” or “going on a family vacation.” Really? How many low-income households send their kids on spring beach week or take family vacations together? Ferris Bueller wannabes are not the problem.

The most muddled thinking involves the relationship between absenteeism and school safety. The only hypothesis considered in the study is that students might be more likely to skip school if they do not feel safe at school. That idea is plausible to the extent that some students who fear bullying might wish to avoid their tormentors. But it is just as likely that the students most inclined to inflict violence upon others tend to be the same students who are chronically absent. As the authors themselves acknowledge, the absentee numbers include time absent due to suspensions. Why do students get suspended — usually because they have gotten into fights or otherwise behaved violently.

Which gets us to a related matter. It’s not the absenteeism itself that causes students to do poorly in their studies, although missing class certainly doesn’t help matters. The kids who skip school are also the ones most likely to act up in class, disrupting the teaching of everyone. The authors themselves observe, “There is also evidence that having chronically absent classmates lowers the achievement of students who are not chronically absent themselves.” But somehow Miler and Johnson overlook the common-sense observation that the problem doesn’t arise from the troublesome students being absent, it arises from them being present — and disrupting class! Needless to say, these troubled students have other issues — disabilities, bad attitudes, whatever — that make them less motivated to succeed academically.

Finally, I find it astonishing that academic researchers could ignore the role of what some call the “lure of the street.” Some school kids just find school boring. They’d rather be where the action is, and in the inner-city school systems examined here, the action is associated with the street culture of sex, drugs and partying — basically, the same activities that many affluent kids engage in, with the difference that affluent kids are raised in households where they are expected to get grades good enough to gain them admission into college.

In the final analysis, the study was marginally useful in moving the debate over absenteeism in a useful direction… but only marginally.

(Hat tip: John Butcher.)

Upadate: Here is Butcher’s take on the absenteeism data.

9 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

Tagged

Lottery Winnings and College Attendance

Posted on October 5, 2016 by | 1 comment
Woohoo! This gentleman may have other priorities than advancing his academic credentials.

Woohoo! This gentleman may have other priorities than advancing his academic credentials.

by James A. Bacon

My mother was acquainted some forty years ago with a woman who lived on welfare and then won a life-changing amount of money in the lottery. As the story has been passed down to me, the woman used the money enjoy the high life, buying expensive clothes and expensive liquor, giving money to family and friends, and doing who-knows-what else. Within several years the woman had spent her entire windfall and ended up back on the dole. Undoubtedly the story has strayed somewhat from the facts in the telling and retelling over the years, but the bottom line is the same: Welfare mother wins big lottery, squanders winnings, and ends up back on welfare.

Ever since hearing that story, I have been fascinated to see how lottery winners respond to their good fortune. Do they use their winnings in ways to improve their lives and the lives of their children over the long haul, or do they blow it all in an orgy of self indulgence? The defining variable, I always believed, was a psychological trait famously identified by the urbanist Edward Banfield: the willingness to defer gratification.

Now comes a paper by four economists, “Parental Resources and College Attendance: Evidence from Lottery Wins,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, that examines in a systematic way the relationship between winning the lottery and sending kids to college.

Drawing upon federal tax records linked to federal financial aid records, the economists examined more than one million children whose parents won a state lottery to trace the effect of additional household resources on college outcomes. Their findings:

Wins less than $100,000 have little influence on college-going … while very large wins that exceed the cost of college imply a high upper bound (e.g., wins over $1,000,000 increase attendance by 10 percentage points). The effects are smaller among low-[socioeconomic status] households.

The economists made some other findings that did not bear upon their main line of inquiry but were interesting nonetheless: Lottery winners “decrease labor supply” (in other words, work less), increase consumption (like my mother’s welfare acquaintance), and/or put money into savings. People with mortgages often use winnings to pay off the mortgage; big winners use the windfall to move into wealthier neighborhoods.

Lower-income households use very little of the lottery winnings to send their kids to college. One can only speculate as to why. Perhaps students from poor households are less academically qualified to go to college; indeed, significant numbers may have dropped out of high school. Alternatively, perhaps poor households place a higher value on immediate gratification than the delayed rewards that come from earning a college degree.

Or perhaps, thanks to Pell Grants and college loans, financial resources just aren’t a barrier to college attendance by the poor. As the economists declare, “borrowing constraints are not explicitly hindering college attendance.”

New policies seeking to raise educational attainment should not be primarily justified on the basis of the existence of such constraints. Further, redistribution of income rewards to low-[socio-economic status] households would likely be ineffective at generating enrollment changes. … Policy makers seeking to increase educational investment, particularly among such households, might instead see benefits from interventions that reduce the cost of college or strive to increase the consumption value that households place on college.

Bacon’s bottom line: My take-away is that various plans touted by certain presidential candidates to make college tuition “free” (to low- and middle-income students, not to taxpayers) are unlikely to increase the number of students from low-income families attending college.

1 Comment

Posted in Poverty & income gap

Tagged

Think Elections Are Rigged? Here’s One Way to Make the System Fairer

Posted on October 5, 2016 by | 3 comments

by Brian Cannon

“Rigged” is the word of the election season. Donald Trump said this week that the debate was rigged. Bernie Sanders supporters used the term to describe the party’s control of the primary process. The meme is resonating with voters, too. Here at One Virginia 2021, we’ve taken notice as well: Our new documentary film produced by WCVE on gerrymandering is called GerryRIGGED.*

People have the sense that the fix is in. Politics feels like a broken system run by people who get rich inside their “public service” and enjoy an unbelievable re-election rate. What do we mean by this re-election rate? Consider, all 435 voting seats are up for re-election in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cook Political Report says that only 37 are competitive!  That’s embarrassing.

Last November, when all 140 seats in Virginia’s General Assembly were up, 122 of the members chose to run for re-election.  All 122 were re-elected.

In November of 2014, when Sen. Mark Warner and Ed Gillespie were running neck and neck in a U.S. Senate race in which the candidates were separated by less than 1% of the vote, all congressional seats in Virginia were also up for re-election.  In not one of those congressional races did a challenger come within 15%.

I hate to be so disheartening as to say the system is rigged, but it sure does appear that way for incumbent politicians.

So can we fix it?  In 2011, college students competed in map drawing exercise put on by the Wason Center for Public Policy with the same software the politicians use to gerrymander. Only the college students were using good government criteria such as:

– keeping localities together, not carving up neighborhoods;
– respecting communities of interest;
– drawing districts that pass compactness measurements and also the eye test; and importantly
– not drawing districts to benefit one party or politician.

It’s not rocket science, just good government.

The result?  The student maps were better. In each individual category and in even pairs of good government categories, the student maps were superior to the political maps. The average number of competitive districts in the Virginia Senate drawn by politicians was 6.89 seats out of 40. The average for the students was 9.67. For the House of Delegates, the politicians averaged 24 competitive seats and the students averaged 26.5 competitive seats, with one winning map having 31 competitive seats. Incidentally, “competitive” refers to races that could be as far apart as 55% to 45%. Competition is so hard to come by, the window has to be wide.

For more on the competition’s results and a wonderful read on the history of Virginia gerrymandering, please see Altman and McDonald’s article in the University of Richmond Law Review.

We can do this better, folks. States as politically and geographically diverse as Iowa, Ohio, Arizona, and Washington have all figured this out.  Good Virginians on both sides of the aisle are pushing for reform in both chambers of the General Assembly. Perhaps the the concern about “rigged” elections will embolden more people to step forward and call for electoral reform.

* Merriam-Webster does an excellent job of reporting on the opaque origins of the term “rig” as a verb meaning “to manipulate or control usually by deceptive or dishonest means.”

3 Comments

Posted in Electoral process

Tagged