What does Virginia have in common with Iran, Somalia and Sudan?
They all allow executions for crimes committed by juveniles.
Legislation submitted this year by Del. Vincent Callahan, R-McLean, and Sen. Patricia Ticer, D-Alexandria, would remove Virginia from that list by saying that juveniles who murder someone cannot be sentenced to death for their crimes.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong with a society that executes children,” Callahan said.

So it seems Vince Callahan, who until he sided with the anti-taxers for most of last year was considered a more moderate GOPer, seems to have come home a bit. Let’s hope he can bring some of his Republican brethren along.

[Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty] said that Virginia has executed 21 juvenile offenders since 1787. Of those, 19 were black.
Only six states, including Virginia, still allow people to be executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles, Payden-Travers said. Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of juveniles it has executed.

“The same folks who are criticizing the strong revenue growth also support new revenues for transportation,” [Governor Warner’s press spokeswoman Ellen] Qualls said. “Which is it: Do we have significant unmet transportation needs, or do we have too much revenue?”

No surprise, I guess, since he can’t raise money while the Assembly is in session. And after last year, who would want to take that chance! And the Assembly gets to name his interim successor.

“This is awfully early to be leaving,” Sabato said.

“This is an insane tradition almost unknown elsewhere around the country. There’s no need for a sitting attorney general to resign. We’ve invented a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Much is made over the fundraising advantage he’ll have since Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine can’t raise match his fundraising efforts. But as much as both of these guys will likely raise, there comes a point of diminishing returns. A lot of money can only bring you so far.

A couple of years ago, had you said the Dems would out fundraise the GOP in the presidential campaign, you would have predicted a Dem win. But money didn’t win it for George. Smarts did, although they obviously aren’t his smarts.

I can always count on losing a couple of days of work when I buy a new computer. Which is why my old one was over six years old. Things are almost 100% normal. We’ll see.

May not be posting today due to installation of new computer. Be back soon. (You know how that goes.)

“I thought I’d seen it all in 25 years of working with the General Assembly. We’ve seen numerous bills in recent years that would impact women’s access to contraception, unfortunately,” said Ben Greenberg, chief lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Virginia. “This bill is probably just the latest and perhaps the most threatening and extreme of examples of legislation that would do that.”

What he’s talking about is HB1918, which would decree that life begins at fertilization, introduced by Mark Cole (R-Frederickburg).

Greenberg said a number of popular birth control methods–the Pill, Depo Provera, the morning-after pill–all can potentially act after fertilization has occurred. Cole’s bill could prevent access to all those types of birth control.

“The only thing that would be available on the market, if these methods of contraception were made illegal, would be the barrier methods,” Greenberg said. “Condom manufacturers should be very excited by this legislation.”

Greenberg said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that couples do have the right to access birth control.

However, that hasn’t stopped some lawmakers–in Virginia and elsewhere–from trying to blur the line between abortion and contraception, Greenberg said.

For that reason, there is a bill in the U.S. Senate right now that would define what is contraception and clarify that it is not abortion.

“People have a hard time believing that our General Assembly could be hostile to birth control,” Greenberg said. “But this is another example of that fact. Hostility toward abortion has been documented for many years. The hostility toward birth control is of more recent vintage, and is evidenced by bills over the past three to four years, this being just the latest and most threatening example of them. It seem to me the women of Virginia should be outraged by this.”

Cole’s bill has been referred to the House Privileges and Elections Committee, which is not the usual repository of bills relating to reproduction. However, Cole’s bill makes reference to the state constitution in a way that could put it in that panel’s purview.

I think it better to refer this bill to the circular file. Thanks to a new blog – and PAC – called Virginia Family Values PAC for pointing this bill out. It’s not what the name might lead you to think.

Others are also assaulting contraception through funding measures.

In his speech last night, Gov. Warner expressed a willingness to compromise on the charter plan proposed by the state’s top universities. One of the losers may be university workers.

The legislation also is similar to permission the state gave its major medical centers in Richmond and Charlottesville nine years ago to operate free of some state bureaucrats and regulations.

UVa administrators point to the hospital as a major success under codified autonomy, but many of its workers are poorly paid and do not enjoy the benefits of state employees, Gaines of the NAACP said.

“We also know that the state has failed to do its part to address higher education’s needs,” [John J. Gaines III, a retired Charlottesville principal at McGuffey, Jefferson and Walker schools] said Tuesday. “We are concerned about the lower-paid workers at the university” and how they would be treated under charter status.

The UVA faculty also has some concerns. They outlined here.

The Charlottesville Daily Progress, perhaps not surprisingly, has covered this story well. You can find its stories here.

In last night’s State of the Commonwealth speech, Gov. Mark had no surprises. But as much as what he said, here’ what he didn’t say:

The speech also was notable for what Warner didn’t say.

1. No mention of the GOP-proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage
2. Silence on Jerry Kilgore’s cynical Death Penalty enhancement Act
3. No support for a constitutional amendment preventing raids on the Transportation Fund.

I can understand #1 and #2. But why not, as Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine has done, support a lock box on the Transportation Fund? Granted, it’s disingenuous to suggest, as some conservatives do, that that solves the state’s transportation problems, but that kind of discipline is what voters – including many who opposed the transportation referenda in 2002 – are looking for.

Though transportation is often cited as the major issue to be addressed by the Virginia legislature this year, both Gov. Warner and the House GOP have offered similar plans. The only notable difference is the GOP call for transferring a portion of auto insurance premiums into transportation. Warner advocated that idea last year, according to The Washington Post’s Mike Shear, so he may be amenable to it this year. But then, they run into the Senate’s powerful majority leader.

State Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Stafford), who was Warner’s chief ally last year, has said repeatedly that he opposes any shift of money from Virginia’s operating funds into the transportation fund. Doing so, he said, would steal from education, health care, colleges and public safety.

Chichester, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been coy about the Howell proposal. That’s typical for Chichester, who often remains opaque even to his closest allies in the Senate.

His views are likely shared by many members of his committee. If they all reject the insurance transfers, there could be an interesting reversal of allies this time around: Warner and Howell vs. Chichester and the Senate.

It’s also possible that Howell could once again find himself the odd man out. Warner could again reject the insurance transfer and side with Chichester for the smaller, one-time package.

Almost makes one wish that Chichester has something more up his sleeve. The Senate is not up for re-election this year and will still be more than a year away during next year’s session. This bi-partisanship is all lovely-dovey but it will dissipate once the session is over. Maybe Chichester can make things exciting, but more important, really do something to improve traffic.

“It’s politically easy to say that we should all be bipartisan.”
–Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, skeptically of Governor Mark Warner’s call for cooperation in the legislative session, but could have been said by any Capitol Hill Democrat about George Bush’s call for the same.