The state’s GOP leadership has apparently peaked into the Democrats playbook and decided to commit fratricide. Bitterness and recriminations are threatening to extend the controversy even further. Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine must be giddy. A former GOP state treasurer, Richard F. Neel Jr., has filed a conflict of interest complaint, alleging that the prosecutor, a Republican, tried to minimize the political damage to Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore. In so doing, he’s entrapped Virginia U.S. Sen. George Allen into the feud.

The complaint asserts no wrongdoing by Allen, but it is the first document to draw such explicit connections between [Paul J. McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who prosecuted the case], prominent figures in the eavesdropping case and the popular first-term senator and former governor.

Allen was surprised at the claims and said he has never communicated with McNulty throughout the 2 1/2-year investigation.

“Let him exercise his prosecutorial discretion. I will note there have been several convictions in the prosecution of the wrongdoers,” Allen said after addressing Monday’s gathering of Virginia’s electoral college at the state Capitol.

The complaint also exposes conflicting personal allegiences (sic) within the leadership of the state GOP that have been forever ripped apart by the eavesdropping scandal. Neel is a close friend of Matricardi’s and contends that Matricardi became a scapegoat so that the role of others within the party _ and their punishment _ might be minimized or avoided.

After Thomson resigned as party chairman, Neel sought the position to which Kate Obenshain Griffin, an ally of Allen and Kilgore, was eventually appointed. Neel was the state party’s treasurer until this year.

If you’re a Democrat, you’ve got to love the irony of the GOP’s self-flagellation. I don’t know the politics of Neel but wonder if this has anything to do with the ideological split among Republicans. Any thoughts or insights are appreciated.

With the last of town hall meetings on the proposal allowing the top three Virginia universities to gain more autonomy now behind us, Gov. Mark Warner doesn’t seem anymore enthralled with the idea than in the past.

Gov. Mark R. Warner on Thursday again voiced reservations about a proposal to grant “charter status” to three leading Virginia universities. But he vowed to resolve the issue next year.

Warner, echoing earlier words of caution, said the plan should not be considered in isolation. “Rather than look at special status for one, two or three, we’re saying, ‘Let’s look at what the whole state needs,'” he said.

“What the whole state needs” doesn’t sound like, to his credit, he’s ready to jettison the other schools to second class citizen. Still, details are missing.

Warner warned that the plan could raise tuition at the universities, though the three presidents have promised to avoid big increases. The governor also questioned why William and Mary should have more freedom in construction than larger campuses such as James Madison and Old Dominion universities.

The governor said his goals include increasing the number of people attending and graduating from college while maintaining affordability, expanding faculty research and filling shortages in nursing, teaching and engineering.

Filling teacher slots is all about one thing: the lack of pay they get. As for engineers, there seems to be a lot of engineers still looking for work after the tech meltdown in 2000. Few kids are majoring in technology for that reason.

Barnie Day wants to put the charter idea to a vote – in November 2006.

The thing not to do is to let past neglect, past funding cuts, somehow become the rationale for doing something foolish now.

There has been no debate of this proposal. There has been no real scrutiny of it. Two points here – if the “charter” idea is as good as it is being portrayed to be, then it will withstand withering examination; and if it is as good as it is being portrayed to be, there should be no rush, no hurry. If it is all that good, it won’t be weakened by the wait of a year or two.

At minimum, the legislature should hold public hearings in each of the counties of Virginia before they put any more distance between these universities and the people who own them. That might seem like a lot, but a lot is at stake here. What’s given away by charter can never, ever be taken back. In the matter of a charter, what is done by one legislature cannot be undone solely by another.

What would guarantee the debate, the scrutiny this proposal deserves, would be to give this matter some time and then put it to referendum. (2026 would be soon enough for me.) Let the people of Virginia who built and own these universities decide this matter directly.

With Virginia colleges expecting an increase of about 10,000 Virginia students wanting a college education in the coming years, new ideas are needed. With a good community college system, one hopes state legislators would be willing to force the better institutions to commit to taking any student who gets an associate degree at a community colleges.

In a new agreement with Old Dominion University, some Piedmont Virginia Community College students who were late in deciding to go for a bachelor’s degree will be able to transfer seamlessly.

Students with associate degrees in applied sciences – awarded for completion of occupational and technical programs – will be able to automatically transfer into ODU as juniors if they have at least a C average.

Until now, only students with associate degrees in arts and science could transfer automatically.

England’s Oxford University is widely known for producing some of the world’s best debaters, such as British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
But last weekend, the school’s moot court team was defeated by two former home-schoolers from a small Virginia college named after American Revolution patriot and orator Patrick Henry.

It wasn’t clear to me until now who the new $1 million PAC Leadership for Virginia would be backing. News coverage had talked only about moderate Republicans. But the PAC has announced the first candidate donation: $50,000 to Democrat Paula Miller in the 87th district special election tomorrow, whereas two-thirds of her opponent’s money has come from other GOP politicians.

The PAC’s co-chairs are former Republican Del. Anne “Panny” Rhodes and James Hazel, a Republican who was a policy adviser to Gov. Warner. Among its major contributors is Frank Batten , chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors for Landmark Communications, which publishes The Virginian-Pilot. He donated $50,000 to the PAC, but did not have any say in its endorsement of Miller, said Patricia Hale, the executive director. Hale, a former Republican state senator in Washington, said her group is backing Miller because she “is focused on the future of our state. She wants the state to be economically strong.”

Doctors are expected to lobby for changes in malpractice laws to help reduce their insurance premiums. Already, consumers are at a disadvantage in the Commonwealth.

Virginia’s laws, already among the nation’s toughest, have limited awards to injured people since the mid-1970s. Some lawmakers in Virginia back restrictions similar to those in California, where damages for so-called pain and suffering are limited to $250,000.

Virginia currently limits awards to $1.75 million, even when costs of care of a medically injured person can be many times that. Unlike Virginia, California does not restrict jury awards for medically necessary care.

In addition to restricting pain-and-suffering awards to $250,000, the General Assembly will consider blocking hospitals from requiring doctors to carry insurance that fully covers their liability under Virginia law. Other proposals would control payments to lawyers of injured people, offset awards by the amount covered by health insurance or other payments, and restrict where malpractice suits can be filed and how many experts can testify.

Why is it always the docs vs. the lawyers. I can appreciate that escalating premiums are getting out of hand and that up to half of settlements go towards lawyers’ fees, but are the real culprits insurance companies? I wouldn’t be surprised to see they are milking doctors in this battle for all their worth.

In sworn testimony, Petera said she told Matricardi that what he had done was wrong. When he insisted it was legal, Petera responded, “I told him I’m sure he had taught his 5-year-old not to do it.”
That didn’t stop her from leaving Matricardi’s office with the notes he had taken of the first intercepted phone call.
In his sworn testimony, Matricardi disputed Petera: “I recall she was very interested in the information . . . very interested in what they were saying about her boss.”
…There was so much badmouthing of Warner that he broke into the call to defend his decision not to handle the appeal.
According to Matricardi, Warner said, “I have done you a big favor by keeping Kilgore in the case.” His rationale was “they [the attorney general’s office] are not the greatest lawyers and if we wouldn’t have let them appeal it, then the State Board of Elections would have just gone and hired a fancy high-dollar law firm in Richmond to represent them and, you know, they are a lot harder to go against than the morons down at the attorney general’s office,” Matricardi summed up the phone call.

The Virginian-Pilot doesn’t think Dem lawmakers should benefit.

For them to reap a hefty reward would call into question their own values and priorities. Clearly the proper use of any money remaining after lawyers’ fees and the charitable contributions would be the promotion of Democratic Party principles. Depositing a cool half-million dollars or so in the campaign treasuries of next year’s statewide or legislative candidates would be a proper comeuppance to the wrongdoers.
Depositing the money in their personal bank accounts would make the Democrats look ethically squishy. Democrats would be better served to take the money and run – for political offices across Virginia.

Gov. Mark Warner rolled out his transportation plan Thursday. With his usual cautiousness, the plan isn’t likely to make much of a dent in the overall problem.

[U]nder his relatively modest attempt to begin solving the state’s many-billions-short transportation needs, Warner acknowledged that almost 80 percent of the new state and federal funds are one-time spending.

Approximately 40 percent of the total – about $374 million – flows from a state budget surplus, expected to be from $850 million to $1 billion. The bulk of the rest would come from federal dollars not earmarked for specific transportation projects.

Bowing to political realities, Warner did not revive his proposal – nixed by the assembly last year – to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance premiums to transportation.

Reaction to the governor’s program – most of which he has discussed for weeks without providing costs and some details – was positive. Most welcomed it as the first attempt to deal with the state’s enormous transportation demands, though environmental advocates were troubled that the plan does not address land development.

Note the comments from two legislators.

House Minority Leader Franklin P. Hall, D-Richmond, said Warner could not be too ambitious because of next November’s elections.

“It is an election year, so people are going to be very reluctant to step up with new proposals to exact new revenue,” Hall argued.

Sen. Martin E. Williams, R-Newport News, who heads the Transportation Committee, said that “a one-time fix isn’t what we need.

“We need a long-term solution,” Williams said. “We’re heading for a meltdown if we don’t have” a guaranteed new funding source for transportation.

Will Democrats again stay on the sidelines and watch as Republicans take the lead and fix transportation? There doesn’t seem to be the stomach for addressing the issue for one simply reason: lack of guts. Neither party will offer a sound plan, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Williams and moderate GOPers again show the way, while Democrats will either criticize it or say “Me, too.”

Two different stories describe VDOT.

Warner would fund initiatives to change how the much-maligned Virginia Department of Transportation does business.

It “will not solve all of our transportation needs, but it will change the way we do business. “Virginia expects nothing less with precious transportation dollars,” said Warner, who has chanted a “mantra of on time and on budget” to the now remarkably improved Virginia Department of Transportation.

OK. Is it still “much maligned” but “remarkably improved”? Or both?

Either way, here are the details of the Governor’s plan.

The $824 million breaks down this way:

$256.4 million to wipe out transportation debt. A chronic problem that plagues VDOT is the number of projects finished but not paid for, Warner said. This one-time cash payment will end debt financing.

$147 million for additional projects in Virginia’s six-year transportation plan. The Commonwealth Transportation Board will distribute this money by July 2005 to projects for highways, ports, transit providers and airports.

$140 million to create a revolving loan fund that encourages private firms to invest in public-private road-building projects. A private firm could use the money to develop a proposal, which can be expensive to produce, especially for large projects. It could also jump-start existing public-private ventures by providing up-front money until other revenues, such as money from tolls, start rolling in.

$97.4 million would be set aside for maintenance of roads, bridges and neighborhood streets.

$80 million to encourage cities and counties to manage, design, build and maintain their own roads. Under this plan, cities and counties that opt in would use this money to replace federal transportation dollars they receive. Then VDOT would allocate those federal funds to another project.

$80 million to invest in mass transit. Half of the money would buy more Metro railcars. Another $20 million would buy Virginia Railway Express cars.

And $10 million each would be set aside for Virginia Beach bus rapid transit and a statewide bus purchase.

$23 million each year to upgrade Virginia’s rail system. The money would come from the 3 percent tax paid on auto rentals.

Public-private partnerships are again being touted as a panacea by certain Republicans. House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) thinks public financing is “outdated.” Sort of like the Geneva Conventions, I guess.

This battle isn’t in the courts, like the eavesdropping case; it’s in the roped ring of a political slugfest. Various reports of the two’s debate this week revealed talking points and questionable reporting.

UVa. Professor Larry Sabato moderated. He said “Kilgore is not a natural debater [and] hopes to show that he is more likeable and more trustworthy….What Kilgore really wants to do, is to deny Kaine ‘Warner’s second term.'”

Maybe Kilgore’s lack of debating prowess was why the event almost didn’t come off.

Kilgore threatened to pull out of the long-scheduled forum Monday because he objected to rules that changed from last year and would have allowed the two candidates to question each other. Sponsors yielded and dropped this proposal.

Kaine cited the eavesdropping case and evidence that Kilgore tried to pursue a course of “plausible deniability” as proof that the attorney general couldn’t be trusted as a leader. Kilgore’s response: “He is beating a dead horse. We turned the situation over to the authorities. We’ve moved on.” Well, yeah, I’ll bet he’d like to move on. Sabato thinks voters will.

Both candidates are pandering to the intolerant right on the gay issue, although Kaine says he doesn’t think a gay marriage amendment is needed. Kilgore believes gay are born that way.

He said they adopt that lifestyle by choice.

Both said they would like to see a total repeal of the car tax and supported elimination of the tax when they ran for office in 2001.

The reporting was both good and bad. AP writer Bob Lewis leads with

Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore effectively began a bitter 11-month battle for governor Wednesday, evoking a dying Republican scandal and implying a liberal Democratic agenda on gay rights and capital punishment in often seething exchanges.

A “dying” scandal? The transcripts that revealed the degree to which Kilgore tried to knowing what an AG should know were released this week. And the scandal is “dying”? If it speaks to Kilgore’s honesty, it should be a live question. Perhaps Gibson has already moved on.

The political intelligentsia has.

“It could have a negative impact on the Democratic side if they push it too far,” Matt Smyth of the University of Virginia Center for Politics told The Augusta Free Press.

“If they push this too much on the voters, there could be a backlash,” Smyth said on Thursday, a day after presumptive ’05 Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Tim Kaine, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, grilled Kilgore on the 2002 political eavesdropping case in which former state GOP executive director Ed Matricardi played a starring role at a joint candidate forum in Richmond.

“That’s one of the unknowns in politics. Negative campaigning is proven to work, but there is a fine line between having something be effective and coming across as a bully. The problem is that it is never easy to tell where that line is,” Smyth said.

James Madison University political-science professor Bob Roberts, for his part, isn’t so sure that the issue can play even a minor role in aiding the Kaine campaign.

“This is where campaigns make mistakes,” Roberts told the AFP on Thursday. “They assume that Watergate can happen again, and really, the evidence suggests otherwise. No one involved in the major political scandals that we’ve seen since Watergate has been adversely affected by it, from President Clinton on down.”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to do with the future of Virginia. It doesn’t have anything to do with jobs or education or anything like that. But that’s politics,” Smyth said.

That is the same message being trumpeted by the Kilgore campaign.

Did either one of these guys see the Swift Boat ads or minimize the imp[act they had on the presidential campaign? The GOP consulting firm Public Opinion Strategies thinks scandal works.

Kudos to Michael Sluss who corrects the record.

The political rivals also renewed their long-running dispute over tax increases passed earlier this year by the General Assembly and signed by Democratic Gov. Mark Warner. Kilgore said a projected surplus of $1 billion validates his staunch opposition to the tax package, which will generate at least $1.3 billion in new revenue over two years.

“You just raised taxes, you didn’t do reform,” Kilgore said.

The tax package included increases in the sales tax on goods and the excise tax on cigarettes. But Kaine noted that it also eliminated the so-called “marriage penalty” on the income tax and required a gradual reduction in the sales tax on groceries. And the new revenue will fund overdue investments in schools and other essential services, Kaine argued.

Citing Kaine’s response to the “didn’t do reform” comment is the way to debunk misrepresentations.

The Washington Times makes sure the lead incites the right.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore yesterday agreed that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, but only Mr. Kilgore said the state constitution should be amended to enforce that distinction.

And the paper’s story puts the phone scandal in the best light.

According to his deposition, three days after the first call, Mr. Kilgore’s office alerted the state police to the eavesdropping. No one told the Democrats their second call was about to be intercepted.

Mr. Kaine said the attorney general was not showing leadership. But Mr. Kilgore asserted that were it not for his office, the crime would never have been reported to police.

Bob Gibson of the Charlottesville Daily Progress writes,

Kaine, a Richmond Democrat, accused a defensive Kilgore of refusing to hear information that came to his top aides about a GOP official’s eavesdropping on a Democratic conference call and intent to listen in on another a few days later, which happened in March 2002.

I can see writing that Kilgore angrily replied or stumbled over his response, if either was the case. But to characterize Kilgore as “defensive” is a judgement call I don’t think reporters should make.

In a column last weekend, Jeff Schapiro notes the people Kilgore is surrounding himself with.

Kilgore’s lopsidedly male privy council is virtually unchanged since his victory for attorney general in 2001 in his second try for that office.

This worries some Republicans, though they say so only privately, fearing that going public might bring out the vengeful side of Kilgore’s handlers, all of whom are schooled in rough-and-tumble politics.

The concern: The Kilgore team, winning record notwithstanding, is weighted to the right and wedded to ideas – not to mention the means of communicating them – that may be wrong for the candidate, the GOP and the state.

Further, this potentially makes it trickier for Kilgore to reach beyond his conservative base and more difficult for moderate Republicans and independents to embrace him.

“It will be a real measure of Jerry whether he can control the people he’s hired,” a veteran Republican activist said.

…[I]s Kilgore attempting to pass for a moderate, if only to woo those Northern Virginia infidels with very deep pockets?

Kilgore operatives hint that this might include a finance chairman with ties to Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, whose high standing with the GOP-leaning business elite was solidified in winning, over Kilgore’s opposition, a $1.4 billion tax increase for police, schools and human services.

Republican centrists in the General Assembly may take some comfort in the selection of Ken Hutcheson as campaign manager. He’s tight with the Senate “Gang of Five” who sided with Warner in the tax fight.

But this would seem little more than good cop, bad cop.

Consider the new face in the Kilgore crew, Scott Howell, the television advertising specialist: He started in South Carolina, not known for genteel politics; worked for Lee Atwater, who was anything but a scoutmaster; and helped take out U.S. Sens. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002 and, this year, Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader from South Dakota.

One of Howell’s ads on behalf of Cleland’s opponent, Saxby Chambliss, was notorious. It questioned Cleland’s patriotism, juxtaposing a Democrat who lost his legs and an arm in Vietnam with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

In Virginia, Howell will again face the Democratic TV consultant he bested in Georgia and South Carolina. Karl Struble, who worked for Cleland and Daschle, counts Tim Kaine among his clients. Struble has got to hope the third time is the charm.

Throw in John McLaughlin, Kilgore’s nationally prominent poll taker, and you have a front line with a knack for the hard-edged.

While reports on the debate describe it as nasty and negative, the Daily Press asks, “Does good theater make for good politics?”

Sure. Some reports called the Kilgore-Kaine performance “negative and nasty.” It was not. It was pointed, robust and exuberant. These two guys don’t agree with each other. A lot. So we’re going to flesh things out and have ourselves somethin’ of a foot-stompin’ campaign. Wonderful.

The two candidates will try their best to define each other in the worst possible terms. That has been standard American campaign practice for more than 200 years. Democrats will at least be encouraged that their likely candidate, Kaine, was the bulldog in this week’s affair.

“I will not let anybody make up stuff about my record and lob it in from long distance without responding,” Kaine said about zingers Kilgore recently loosed during a Republican retreat held at The Homestead. “I look forward to sessions like this because I like being in the same room with the guy who will attack me and make up stuff about my record.”

The Press also thinks defending death row inmates, which Kilgore “accused” Kaine of doing, is something acclaimed American lawyers have done for centuries.

Why those noxious British troops who slaughtered Americans on the streets of Boston in 1770, thereafter referred to as the Boston Massacre.

Said Adams of his act: “It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”

The Roanoke Times thinks it’s besides the point.

Regardless of who is elected, Virginia will retain the death penalty, and gun rights won’t be threatened. Kilgore was not a party to the Republican eavesdropping scandal. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it won’t happen in Richmond.

State fiscal policy may be a cold-button issue. But unlike the above, it is a genuine issue.

On this score, neither candidate inspires total confidence. Kilgore, however, is giving particular pause.

A prospective $1 billion surplus this biennium, Kilgore asserts, proves this year’s tax increases were unneeded. But a car-tax budgeting glitch, rising Medicaid costs, legally required partial replenishment of the “rainy day” fund and a sorely needed, if temporary, funding infusion for transportation all have strong claims on that surplus.

How well shall Virginia stay on fiscal course, so it can effectively and efficiently provide basic services at a reasonably high level of quality? The question transcends the two Virginias and deserves to be at the heart of the forthcoming campaign.

Gov. Mark R. Warner wants college students in the classroom, but not necessarily in the dorm.

Warner said he wants to move more aggressively to link the K-12 system to higher education.

“Thinking about them as two separate worlds is a huge mistake,” he said.

More economical alternatives include a K-13 system that includes one year of community college, he said.

Warner also expressed interest in programs that stretch students while they’re still in high school.

Under a relatively new agreement, if a student takes an advanced placement course and gets a certain score, that course credit will not only transfer to 62 of 65 two- and four-year colleges, but also count toward a degree requirement.

Warner painted a grim picture of the state’s ability to generate income, noting that the percentage of people with a college education in many parts of the state is “dismally low.”

Or are they discriminatory?

A study released yesterday by the [National Association of Scholars] showed that U.Va. discriminates in favor of black student applicants to the undergraduate school, according to David J. Armor, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, who conducted the study. The study was not related to the complaint filed against U.Va. by the father of the white student.

“What the study shows is that there’s an overwhelming preference given to black applicants at U.Va.,” said Armor, who is with the NAS, a Princeton, N.J., organization founded to fight political correctness in academia.

The study looked at high school grades, SAT scores and class rank at several schools. At U.Va., the study looked at data on 14,600 undergraduate applicants who applied to U.Va. in the fall of 2003. The study found that nearly 65 percent of all black applicants were admitted, compared with 36 percent to 38 percent for all other groups.

The study found that median SAT scores for all U.Va. admissions was 1350, compared with a 1026 average for admitted black students.

…Roger B. Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, said UVa and William & Mary were targeted because of “very severe discrimination.”

A black student who has an LSAT score of 160 and an undergraduate grade point average of 3.5 has a 95 percent chance of getting into UVa’s law school, Clegg said. The odds drop to 3 percent for a white student, he said.