Paying the Price of Eavesdropping
Va. GOP settled suit Dems brought against it for illegally listening in its strategy phone calls. Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore apparently adopted a “see no evil, speak no evil and certainly, ear no evil” strategy.
Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore concedes he purposely avoided learning details about illegal Republican eavesdropping on a Democratic conference call when he first found out about it.
Had he learned more, he might have prevented the second illegal interception, he acknowledged in a deposition.
Answering questions posed by a lawyer for Democrats, Kilgore said he made a conscious effort to avoid learning what his chief administrative officer, Anne Petera, and former campaign manager, Ken Hutcheson, knew about the eavesdropping case.
Democrats’ lawyer Kenneth Smurzynski asked:
“You would agree, sir, that you and your office – if you had had the ability to do so – should have prevented the Monday call from being intercepted, is that correct?”
Kilgore replied:
“If we had known about it, that would have been a good thing to do.”
The settlement helps Kilgore.
“Clearly this settlement is a good thing for Jerry Kilgore,” said University of Virginia political science professor Larry J. Sabato.
The damage, he said, would be to the state GOP to meet the largest burden of the settlement agreement.
“It’s not going to cripple the Republicans, but it certainly puts a huge dent in their war chest for 2005,” Sabato said. The party will have difficulty persuading givers to dig deeper to help pay an enormous settlement to end a debilitating scandal.
New College?
Both candidates for governor say they support a New College of Virginia in the Southwest.
Kilgore said he understands the differing needs in various sections of the state, especially as they are reflected in the 1 percent unemployment rate in Northern Virginia and the double-digit or near double-digit unemployment in Southside and Southwest Virginia.
That is why, said Kilgore, he believes in education and the New College of Virginia. To improve the economies of Southside and Southwest Virginia and encourage businesses to relocate in both, “we have to show that our work force is ready and educated,” he said. “And I think this university is going to help us convince other businesses in Virginia to expand and create opportunities and jobs right here.”
Given that Virginia’s existing colleges can’t get enough money to pay the bills because politicians like Kilgore won’t fund them, why are we planning to build another school? A group in Martinsville says it’s ready to pledge $50 million to the effort. But wouldn’t you like to hear something more specific than “this university is going to help us convince other businesses in Virginia to expand and create opportunities and jobs right here”?
If we’re talking about the staff of the new university, how much of it will come from other Va. institutions, depleting them and perhaps sending to the New College the least qualified?
Leadership for Virginia
Asks the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page:
Another ya-ya group – weighted with a number of familiar names and loftily calling itself Leadership for Virginia (LFV) – has formed up evidently to agitate for more state spending. LFV (FFV?) likely will blue-sky Virginia’s “needs” requiring dollars in the stratosphere. Question: Will LFV follow in the footsteps of too many predecessors, and fail to stipulate where the funds to meet the needs will come from?
The new group, formed principally to protect the 17 GOP House members who voted for a tax increase, has raised more than $1 million for the effort. I don’t think the group has to say where the money will come from. By supporting those who voted for last session’s tax increase, Leadership for Virginia is saying quite clearly new taxes were – and perhaps still are – needed.
Why not?
Williamsburg’s city manager and attorney are concerned that [protecting gays from workplace discrimination] could make the city open to lawsuits. Some council members disagree.
…The current policy says the city does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age or disability.
…City Manager Jack Tuttle, citing Phillips’ memo, recommended this week that the city leave its policy alone. Phillips referred to a 2000 state Supreme Court ruling that Arlington County could not extend health care to unmarried domestic partners because it clashed with state laws.
…Seven out of 135 cities or counties in Virginia have added “sexual orientation” to their job discrimination policies, including James City County, which did so in 2000. None of those actions have resulted in legal challenges, Greenia said.
…”When you get down to being specific to every organization, do you do overweight people or bald people? You have to be careful that you’re not opening Pandora’s box,” Chohany said. “So I will give it good consideration.”
While we’re at it, why not take off the books laws that protect blacks and women from discrimination? Makes the city less vulnerable, huh?
Giving It Back
Va. GOP wants to return budget surplus to taxpayers.
Virginia taxpayers should receive the bulk of the projected revenue surplus back from the state by repealing the 2004 tax reform package and fully implementing the capped car-tax program, according to a resolution approved by the Republican State Central Committee on Saturday.
That group includes Lynchburg Republican Preston Bryant, a member of the House Appropriations Committee who helped craft the tax plan. Leaders of the House and Senate legislative money committees have repeatedly cautioned that the surplus should fund obligations such as Medicaid and possibly some transportation projects.
State lawmakers also capped car-tax reimbursements at $950 million, which concerns opponents who say the state isn’t living up to former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s promise to eliminate the tax.
Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, the party’s presumptive gubernatorial candidate, wasted little time to rally the party faithful by criticizing the tax reform plan and the lawmakers who supported it, including his likely opponent in next year’s race, Lt. Gov. Timothy Kaine.
“Tim Kaine is just John Kerry with a Richmond address,” he said to applause from like-minded supporters. “Both are out of touch with Virginia’s values and, I submit, are out of touch with Virginia voters.”
Reached by phone later Saturday evening, Kaine accused his opponent of being dishonest with the voters concerning Kaine’s work during his public career.
“He’s shown that his idea of a campaign is to retreat to the Jim Gilmore-era of bitter partisanship and fiscal irresponsibility,” Kaine said. “This is exactly the kind of thing I expect from him.”
Kilgore shared credit for the surplus with the anti-tax contingent of the party.
“I stand here proudly with those who said government should live within its means … . Ladies and gentlemen, we were right,” he said. “We must create a Virginia that knows when government can help and when government can hinder.”
Del. Ben Cline, R-Amherst, repeated Kilgore’s statement later, saying, “It demonstrates that the party is united from the top of the ticket to the grassroots to return the surplus to the taxpayers.”
Lynchburg Republican Chairman Wendell Walker helped craft the resolution, which passed by a voice vote.
Walker said many Republicans are upset with Bryant’s vote on the tax reform package, which raises some taxes and lowers others. He did not consult with Bryant before crafting the resolution.
“I don’t need Preston’s permission to make comments in regards to the Republican Party, just like he doesn’t consult me when he goes down and votes for tax increases,” Walker said.
Bryant could not be reached for comment.
But he may be calling the Leadership for Virginia.
It Ain’t Over
Voter activists are staying that way.
Welfare
Wonder how many textile workers voted for Bush and many other politicians over the years because they wanted to end welfare given to all those lazy folks who shouldn’t be waiting for a government hand out?
Come Jan. 1, much of what remains of the Southeastern textile industry will be in jeopardy.
That’s the day all of the last import quotas on textiles and clothing are eliminated. Workers in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama will wake up to an era of stiffer – some say unfair – competition.
“As many as 600,000 jobs could be lost in the United States in textiles, apparel and related jobs,” said Robert DuPree, vice president of the National Council of Textile Organizations, the industry’s trade association. “It means a decimation of the bulk of the industry.”
New Year’s Day marks the end of a decadelong plan by the World Trade Organization to phase out quotas on textiles. The goal is to allow developing nations greater access to American and European markets. International trade in textiles and apparel is a $495 billion business annually.
China is poised to take advantage of the change. After it joined the WTO in 2001, China aggressively built its manufacturing base, especially in textiles, with help from foreign investment and its huge domestic market and labor force. It has been able to undercut competitors each time a quota was lifted.
American manufacturers are looking to the federal government for at least a temporary reprieve.
Temporary reprieve=government handout.
Fat Pigs
Barnie Day asks where’s the money?
C. Richard Cranwell, the gentleman from Vinton, had a favorite admonishment to those who sometimes confused motion with direction: “You can’t fatten a pig by weighing it.”
….Translation: Denial, deferral, delay is not direction. [Republican Steve Baril, the attorney general candidate]’s “Transportation Marshall Plan” may not be the be-all, end-all that there is on transportation, but it still leads the wannabe pack, at least to my way of thinking. Here’s the thing – and there’s no way around this one – it takes money – sustained money – to build and maintain our roads, our highways and our bridges. Sure, we can keep weighing this pig, but at the end of the day it takes money.
Gordon Morse skewers Cong. Jo Ann Davis
In other words, you might say, Davis voted for it, before she voted against it.
Who Wants Higher Taxes?Smart people, says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Now, an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggests a different interpretation of the division within the party.
It turns out that those who voted for the increases were more likely to have been born and attended college in Virginia than those who did not.
Va. Dems Rural Strategy
“[Tom Morris, a political scientist and president of Emory & Henry College in Virginia’s far southwest,] suggests, two ways for a Democrat to gain the ear of rural Virginia. One is to avoid, wherever possible, hot-button cultural stances such as support for gun control and opposition to the death penalty. Warner abandoned the usual Democratic positions on both.
At this point, however, it would be disingenuous for Kaine to follow suit. As mayor of Richmond, he used his own money to pay for buses to a Million Mom March favoring gun control and an end to gun violence. He also opposes capital punishment, a doctrine of his Catholic faith.
On the other hand, Kaine’s close identification with his faith community – as a law school student, he took a year off to work with Catholic missionaries in Honduras – should be a positive in a region where religion is strong.
Kaine’s best hope may be that a classic philosophical debate over taxes supersedes social issues. He’ll be arguing that Virginia was right to approve a $1.4 billion tax increase for education, health care and public safety earlier this year. But even there, he’ll be fighting upstream against Kilgore’s low-tax mantra in much of rural Virginia.
The second key is familiarity, showing up over and over again.
Democrat Doug Wilder flaunted conventional wisdom in 1985 when he campaigned heavily in rural communities. The result, an 8 percentage-point advantage in the southwest 9th District, was one of the keys to his election as lieutenant governor that year.
Warner also followed the strategy, pouring energy, time and dollars into crafting economic and health-care solutions for economically fragile rural counties and towns.
Last week, at the Farm Bureau’s annual convention at The Homestead resort, Kilgore showed the power of familiarity. A rousing reception drew even louder applause when he opened with the line, “I was country when country wasn’t cool.”
Country isn’t cool. It’s hot!