Category Archives: Money in politics

“Blessed“ Is the Second RVA Casino Referendum

Posted on September 23, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Jon Baliles

Early voting has begin in Virginia and the Richmond casino advocates have gone all-in with the mayor and City Council to make sure the referendum got back on the ballot and now are betting the house with an absurd amount of money to make sure the referendum passes this time.

Jimmy Cloutier at Virginia Investigative Journalism has an interesting piece on the all out effort by the casino advocates to buy their way to a victory at the polls  this time around. He points out that two out-of-state companies (Urban One, based in Maryland and Churchill Downs, based in Kentucky) have already raised $8.1 million which “dwarfs the amount of money raised in every Virginia legislative race and ballot initiative in state history, according to an analysis of campaign finance data by OpenSecrets.” Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Elections, Gambling, Money in politics, Open Government, Politics, Public safety & health

Tagged

Voyeurism Isn’t Good for the Soul (or Politics)

Posted on September 18, 2023 by | 28 comments

Susanna Gibson, Democratic nominee for the 57th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.

by Shaun Kenney

The scandal of the week involving Susanna Gibson is an indictment of our politics. Shame on us all for participating in it.

HAMLET Get thee ⟨to⟩ a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be
a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am
very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses
at my beck than I have thoughts to put them
in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves
⟨all;⟩ believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

— William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” Act 3, Scene 1 (1601)

Ophelia has given herself to Hamlet. Yet having placed her trust totally in men — her father, her brother, her lover — she is told by her beloved to remove herself to a nunnery. Or in the context of the Elizabethan age? A brothel — thus exchanging the ideas of nobility and love for pure utility and momentary pleasure.

Realizing the world for what it is — or at least, the world of Hamlet, Laertes, and Polonius — drives Ophelia insane. Having relied upon a branch made of willow, she drowns in a shallow pool, able yet unwilling to save herself and face such a world. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Elections, Ethics, Excellence and grace, General Assembly, Leadership, Money in politics, Politics, Public corruption

Tagged

An Utter (and Videotaped) Disgrace of the Virginia General Assembly

Posted on July 16, 2023 by | 29 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Scott Johnson at the podium on Jan 17, 2023 testifying before the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions.

Whatever the Virginia Health Care Association (VHCA), the state’s nursing home lobbying organization, pays its General Counsel, Scott Johnson, it is not enough.

He has been representing them for 20 years, and he owns the General Assembly.

This is going to sound boring as I frame the background that is the subject of the hearing. But I feel I must try to explain the complexities to make what happened in the hearing understandable.

But I promise the hearing itself is not boring. There are heroes, heroines and villains.

That hearing was a thoroughgoing disgrace to the General Assembly of Virginia. Members are seen clearly to surrender their authority, their duties, and their personal dignity to an industry they are elected to oversee.

It was videotaped for posterity.

It represents the “Virginia Way.” a product of unlimited campaign donations. It is reprehensible.

The law passed through this process must be repealed in its entirety. Continue reading →

29 Comments

Posted in Campaign finance reform, Entitlements, General Assembly, Government Oversight, Health Care, Labor & workforce, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Medicaid, Money in politics

Tagged

Clean Virginia Win is Bad News for Gas Consumers

Posted on June 22, 2023 by | 17 comments

By Steve Haner

Renewable energy donor Clean Virginia Fund was the biggest winner in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries, going head to head against Dominion Energy Virginia in several nomination contests and often winning.  Senior incumbent Democrats with strong Green New Deal voting records went down to defeat, because good wasn’t good enough. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Elections, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Money in politics, Regulation, Utilities

Tagged , ,

Light Rail: Idiotic Idea In 2016. Idiotic Idea Now.

Posted on June 16, 2023 by | 4 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Virginia Beach voters THOUGHT they drove a stake through the heart of the absurd plan to bring light rail to the city after an overwhelming vote in 2016 against the nutty, developer-driven boondoggle.

But never underestimate cultists with an agenda. You know, developers who believe taxpayers have a duty to open their wallets to help THEM get rich. Or climate kooks who don’t understand a cost/benefit analysis.

No surprise, then, they’re back. Some shadowy online group is beginning to push a bad idea that was buried in a landslide 7 years ago.
Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Finance (government), Infrastructure, Money in politics, Uncategorized

Tagged

Scandal in Plain Sight – Virginia’s Failed Regulation of Law-Avoiding Nursing Home Owners

Posted on June 10, 2023 by | 28 comments

by James C. Sherlock

One of the most important and heart-wrenching decisions families make for their elderly loved ones is whether they are able to keep them in their homes as they get older and sicker.

Sometimes that is not feasible for a long list of reasons in each case.

More than 30,000 Virginians live in nursing homes.

Both the federal government and Virginia regulate them.  The Virginia Department of Health, for both the Commonwealth and the federal government, inspects.

We should be able to expect patients to receive at least basic standards of care. A high percentage in Virginia have not .

In a five-star system, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rates 98 of Virginia’s 289 nursing homes at one star – defined as much below average. More than a third.

Nationwide, only the worst 20 percent receive a one-star rating.

The last time I reported, in October of 2021, those figures were 54 one-star facilities out of 288. Nineteen percent.  So some of our nursing homes have gotten precipitously worse.

The ratings are backward-looking a couple of years, so the measured declines discussed here did not start recently.   By definition of the way that Medicare compiles records and assigns scores, some have been bad for a long time.

People have suffered and died from the lack of proper care and effective oversight. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Change Management, Consumer protection, Courts and law, Efficiency in government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Law enforcement, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Medicaid, Money in politics, Open Government

Tagged

Geez, Louise

Posted on April 26, 2023 by | 32 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Uh-oh. Looks like Louise Lucas is a little rusty when it comes to campaigning for office.

The powerful Democrat from deep blue Portsmouth is used to steamrolling any hapless Republican who gets in her way and sashaying into Richmond where she serves as the president pro tempore of the Senate and gets the juiciest committee assignments.

Thanks to redistricting, however, the queen of Portsmouth finds herself inconveniently lumped into the same district as another Democrat. That’s Lionel Spruill, who appears to be out-hustling her on the campaign trail and out-raising her in campaign funds.

As of March 31, Spruill had $659,915 on hand and poor Louise had just $569,506. The Democrat primary is June 20.
Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Elections, General Assembly, Money in politics, Uncategorized

Tagged

How To Really, Really Tick Off Fairfax Taxpayers

Posted on April 5, 2023 by | 28 comments

Screen shot from WJLA-7 April 4 report.

People don’t understand!  These political leadership jobs are hard! It is a great sacrifice to serve, and it is only fair that the taxpayers contribute to the comfort and convenience of those of us working so hard for their better future.  They can be so ungrateful….

Did that go through Fairfax Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay’s mind as he watched local WJLA-7 news kick him around like a rag doll yesterday for using a county car on personal business and, worse, political business? Or was it what should have gone through his mind:  How could I be so dumb and greedy and assume nobody would notice or care?

This is not a new story, because it happens often and gets ratted out all the time.  This is not a partisan story, because this behavior crosses all lines. Lack of electoral competition does contribute to this way of thinking. This may not be a fatal blow for Democrat McKay, who as board chairman recently raised his pay from $100,000 to $138,000 per year (as the televised report helpfully reminds us.)

No, this is a “when will they ever learn” story. People who don’t get the privilege of transportation with the entire bill paid by involuntary tax levies, people who must pay the hated car taxes and registration fees and fuel bills on their cars, tend to get irritated when they find out politicians (or any government employees) use public cars for tons of daily private business.

Someone please forward this to the Internal Revenue Service. I know the folks at the Virginia Department of Taxation, and they can check to see if McKay’s valuable perk was declared for tax purposes. It is very much supposed to be. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Entitlements, Government Oversight, Money in politics

Tagged

Meet Abrar Omeish, Exhibit A in the Woke Army

Posted on March 15, 2023 by | 60 comments

by Asra Q. Nomani

Exclusive: In 2019, Abrar Omeish canvassed for support at a fundraiser for the anti-Semitic group American Muslims for Palestine and said she wanted to change the “narrative” on Palestinians. She was elected to office and launched a tirade against the state of Israel, which she smeared as an “apartheid” nation, repeating the talking points of an anti-Semitic brigade in the Woke Army. Here is the full transcript.

Last month, at Luther Jackson Middle School, parents gasped as a Fairfax County Public Schools board member, Abrar Omeish, stumbled through a clumsy speech and called the historic battle of Iwo Jima “evil,” even though the decisive victory by U.S. Marines led to eventual victory by Allied forces against Japan and Nazi Germany and its leader Adolph Hitler, ending the brutal genocide of Jews in the Holocaust.

In the days after, the remarks sparked a national outcry, even spilling over globally, with Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a former U.S. Marine, assailing the remarks and a pair of comedians asking indelicately: “How did this clown get elected to a school board?”

Editor’s note: For Asra’s twitter conversation on the event see here.

I know the answer because I witnessed it happen, and the answer reveals an unholy alliance that I expose in my new book, Woke Army, between the Democratic Party and rigid anti-Israel, anti-Semitic establishment Muslim leaders in the United States. These establishment Muslims include activists, politicians, and academics — from Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian. and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

What is particularly disturbing is that this Woke Army set its sights on K-12 schools and their children. School board member Abrar Omeish is Exhibit A in this dangerous alliance in K-12.

I saw it first-hand one Saturday night on Sept. 7, 2019, documenting the evening in video shared here for the first time.
Continue reading →

60 Comments

Posted in Book review, Children and families, Courts and law, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Demographics, Education (K-12), Elections, General Assembly, Leadership, Money in politics, Political Influence, Politics, Uncategorized

Tagged

A New 800-Pound Gorilla in Virginia Politics

Posted on March 6, 2023 by | 26 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Ivy Main, in a recent commentary in the Virginia Mercury, identified a change in the power dynamic of Virginia politics that is taking place: “Amazon is the new Dominion.”

Amazon’s presence in the Commonwealth has grown significantly over the past decade. It has taken place in three areas— distribution facilities, the second headquarters, and data centers.

When most Virginians think of Amazon, they think of the boxes or white plastic bags with the swoosh that get left on their front porch. Many, however, also think of Amazon as the source of their pay check. Surprisingly, there does not seem to be a definitive list of Amazon facilities in the state. From press releases and other material, I have pieced together the following list of localities in which Amazon has built a facility. The list includes sortation centers, distribution centers, delivery stations, and fulfillment centers. They serve different purposes, but it is not necessary to go into more detail here. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Economic development, General Assembly, Money in politics, Political Influence, Politics

Tagged

New Yorkers, Virginians Will See Your Political Campaign Contributions and Raise You Dick Saslaw

Posted on March 2, 2023 by | 40 comments

Sen. Dick Saslaw Official Photo

by James C. Sherlock

The New York Post was scandalized.

In a stunning display of how New York politics work, two of the state Legislature’s most outspoken opponents of charter schools are also among the biggest recipients of campaign cash from New York’s teachers’ union and its political action committee.

State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the New York City Education Committee, has raked in $33,300 since his first Senate race in 2018, putting him in the No. 3 spot behind Sen. John Mannion (D-Syracuse), who got $35,100 during the same period.

The money for the anti-charter pols came from both the New York State United Teachers — parent of the city’s powerful United Federation of Teachers — and its Voice of Teachers for Education PAC, state Board of Elections records show.

“Stunning,” they wrote.

Pikers.

Now I happen to agree with the Post’s position supporting charter schools. But the writers of the article are spoiled by New York’s campaign finance laws.

They need to come to Virginia to see what real financial influence in politics looks like. Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Campaign finance reform, Money in politics

Tagged

Suggestions to Ease Virginia’s Housing Crisis without Additional State Money

Posted on December 3, 2022 by | 33 comments

Courtesy californiahumandevelopment.org

by James C. Sherlock

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, on cue, wrote in an editorial the other day that more state money was needed to fund local housing.

Maybe.

But that is not the first place to look.

The governor wants to condition development aid to local communities on their reforming land-use policies to permit more construction.

I have a few ideas along that line.

Proffers, also known as conditional zoning, are a recognition that real estate developments have impacts on other properties and on services provided by the local jurisdiction. Fair enough.

The money for roads, sewers and schools has to come from somewhere. Proffers make the developers and their customers pay for a share of capital improvements deemed necessary by city/county planners.

Wielded unpredictably, and sometimes unethically, they are also part of the problem. See the excellent article Politics and Proffers by Matt Ahern for the games played with proffers and their cost to the housing economy.

Then there is low-cost housing.

The Commonwealth by law permits but does not require localities to waive fees for low-cost housing. That law, originally and curiously restricted to only non-profit developers, was updated in 2019 to permit the same waivers to for-profit builders.

Send state housing funds only to jurisdictions that do so. Require in law a limit to the costs of proffers for low-cost housing.

Finally, tax Virginia’s astonishingly profitable non-profit hospitals to help them with their mission of caring for the disadvantaged — in this case in low-cost housing. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Efficiency in government, General Assembly, Government Oversight, Housing, Land use & development, Money in politics, Not-for-profits, Political Influence, Politics, Poverty & income gap

Tagged

Out-of-State Money Floods to Incumbent Democrats in Virginia’s Competitive Congressional Races

Posted on October 26, 2022 by | 49 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I have the utmost respect for political candidates as a class.

They are people who put themselves in the arena while most are spectators.

The American people I think agree.

But by huge margins we decry the amount of money in political campaigns.

  • We deplore the fact that the money required discourages many persons from running who cannot self-fund and refuse to dial for dollars;
  • Most consider vast donations of money to be inevitably corrupting. At a minimum, access by big donors is paid for and assured;
  • Finally, voters would prefer to hear the messages of candidates, directly. Not just the loudest ads amplified by money.

I have shared those views all of my life.

Virginia’s nearly unique problem is unlimited funding, including unlimited out-of-state funding. Most other states have restrictions on both.

Why not Virginia? Continue reading →

49 Comments

Posted in Money in politics

Tagged

More on Virginia Sheriffs

Posted on September 30, 2022 by | 97 comments

Governor Youngkin and incoming officers of Virginia Sheriffs Association  Photo Credit:  Virginia Sheriffs Association

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

This article is a follow-up to Jim McCarthy’s article on sheriffs.  My main purpose is to provide some details and more context to the discussion of the position of sheriff in Virginia.

The sheriff is a “constitutional officer.” Article VII, Section 4 of the state constitution directs that in each county and city there shall be elected, among other positions, a sheriff. The provision goes on to say, “The duties and compensation of such officers shall be prescribed by general law or special act.”

The general powers of a sheriff include law enforcement, jail operation, court security, and service of process. However, state law authorizes cities and towns to establish any departments set out in their charters. As a result, all cities and most towns have charter provisions allowing them to establish a police department. Therefore, sheriffs in cities are limited to administering the jail, providing security in the courts, and serving process papers. Continue reading →

97 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Elections, Law enforcement, Money in politics, Political Influence

Tagged

New Fed Policy Would Hide CMS Data on Patient Safety Records of Hospitals

Posted on July 7, 2022 by | 13 comments

by James C. Sherlock

One of the most disturbing commentaries I have read in a long time relating to federal efforts to improve hospital patient safety reports a major step backwards in that program.

I have written here many times of the power of the hospitals over Virginia’s politics. A proposed new federal rule shows that power at the federal level. It would negatively affect your ability to understand and compare the patient safety records of hospitals.

The Biden administration Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) proposes to hide from the public a CMS rating that helps consumers view relative patient safety grades of hospitals. As important to the hospitals, perhaps, no one would be able to report on that information.

It also proposes to waive $350 million in fines for hospitals that violated existing regulations.

CMS for the Secretary of Health and Human Services is, with this rule, exercising the extraordinary powers the Secretary gives himself by constantly extending the Declaration of Public Emergency for COVID.  And yes, that is legal.

Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) submitted a 17-page letter of comment. It of course supported the waiver of fines.  On the issue of suppressing patient safety data, the VHHA wrote, unsurprisingly:

“VHHA and its members are supportive of the proposed suppression (of data) in the HVBP program.”

The letter also encouraged CMS to also suppress pneumonia mortality measure because of the potential overlap with COVID- related pneumonia.

The only way that could happen since CMS is already suppressing data with a primary or secondary COVID diagnosis is if there was no reported COVID indication in pneumonia cases.

The proposal itself represents a major scandal.  A total of 1,533 comments, now closed, were submitted on the proposed rule.

They comments from doctors and patient safety groups were unsupportive.  Hospitals were very supportive.  The Virginia Department of Health sent a short letter on the larger rule, but did not comment on data suppression.

The result: political healthcare rules courtesy of the Biden administration and the hospital lobby.

The following article is reprinted by permission of Kaiser Health News. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Federal, Government Oversight, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Money in politics, Political Influence, Public safety & health, Regulation, Transparency

Tagged