Upon hearing House Appropriations Chairman Del. Vince Callahan, who clashed with Governor Warner and Senate Majority Leader John Chichester (R-Stafford) last year over the budget, call the former “an outstanding asset and then praise the latter,

Christopher Newport University President Paul S. Trible Jr., [quipped] that although “it’s encouraging to know that Republicans and Democrats are going to work together, it’s even more encouraging to know that Republicans and Republicans are going to work together.”

Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, seconded the idea of Republicans working together.

“The Democrats for the longest time were the majority party in Virginia, and the majority of Virginians agreed with their ideals. And then the extremists within their party came in and tried to define what that party stood for. And what you’ve seen since is that the party has struggled to get its footing.

“I don’t want to see that happen to the Republican Party,” Hanger said

Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling) intensified efforts to connect his job as an anti-gay activist with his work as an elected official this week, prompting a sharp response from a board colleague and school officials.
Delgaudio is executive director of Public Citizen of the United States, an anti-gay lobbying group that has spent millions of dollars on a nationwide campaign that has often vilified gays as pedophiles and rapists

… In a 1995 fundraising letter for Public Advocate, Delgaudio wrote: “Just imagine a world where the police allow homosexual adults to rape young boys in the streets.”

A 1991 Delgaudio letter reads: “As homosexuals die off due to AIDS, the remaining AIDS carriers prey on children to replenish the ‘Homosexual Community.’ “

The Williamsburg City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a proposal to add the words “sexual orientation” to its anti-discrimination policy.
The council voted 5-0 to change the wording to specifically protect the city’s gay workers. The former policy said the city does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age or disability in employment or the provision of services.

Eavesdropping
Accused by even some of his friends of being too cautious, Governor Mark Warner apparently came under attack from within the party during the conference call that was illegally listened to by the GOP. I doubt the Dems will release that part of the call.

Matricardi’s boss, party Chairman Gary R. Thomson, testified that Matricardi told him a Democratic senator had called Warner spineless.

Wonder who that could be? Nominations are now open.

And where is the GOP going to get the fine money?

A Republican party source said the party will be able to pay the money without having a negative impact on its finances. The most recent financial report filed by the party with the State Board of Elections showed it with only $55,000 in its banking account.

Shawn Smith, spokesman for the Virginia GOP, declined to say whether the party has set up a special fund to pay the settlement.

87th Endorsement
The Virginian Pilot endorses Democrat Paula Miller in the race for the 87th district House of Delegates race.

GOP Split
Roanoke delegate Preston Bryant obliquely responds to the criticism directed at him during the party’s recent state gathering.

Impact Fees
Expanding the program in Stafford?

Gay ProtectionLooks like Williamsburg will add sexual orientation to the list of protections afforded in it equal opportunity program.

Charter Schools
The Staunton News-Leader is here talking about the big three Va. universities trying to secede from the Commonwealth.

It is projected that tuition at U.Va. will increase up to 61 percent in five years if the charter initiative passes. We may assume similar rates of increase will occur at William and Mary and Tech.The autonomy sought by these schools is far too broad — absurd, in fact. Under the terms of the charter as it now stands, Tech, U.Va. and William and Mary seek to be exempted from state and local statutes or ordinances, rules, regulations and guidelines. They also seek exemption from assessment and payment of all state and local taxes or assessments on any of their projects, property, operations or transactions and any income earned from them.

…[The proposal] would authorize the institutions to implement inferior benefits and severance protection for anyone hired after the charter went into force, if it is passed. Outsourcing of jobs and services will lead to cheaping out by contractors who will pay low wages and offer minimal or no benefits to employees. The quality of employees will suffer accordingly. That, in turn, will lead to shoddy or non-existent service.

…The charter initiative represents raw greed overtaking anything resembling a desire to educate. Besides pricing many students out of a chance to attend these three schools, U.Va. envisions itself as becoming a steward of “research parks” which will have little to do with advancing students’ education or employability and much to do with making money. What we will be left with is something more akin to corporatization than higher education.

…Virginia will suffer, the localities where these schools are located will suffer, students, faculty and staff will suffer, diversity in the student population will be replaced with wealthy homogeneity. This is not a good proposal.

I don’t think they like it.

New Jobs Initiative
Governor Mark Warner yesterday outlined his jobs proposal. Tourism is part of it. It also includes

$5 million for the Virginia Artisans Initiative, including retail centers in Staunton and Southwest Virginia to showcase local arts and crafts.

$4 million for grants to regional consortiums that develop plans for matching education and work force training programs to industry needs.

$4 million to redevelop old or abandoned industrial sites.

$3 million for a new network of “rails to trails” projects in Southside Virginia.

$379,000 to launch an advanced manufacturing program at Dabney Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge.

$325,000 for research on specialty crops at Virginia Tech and Virginia State University.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorializes in its article.

Although some might consider it too modest, Ruff countered that the plan sets the right tone and scale for the communities to handle and profit.

But nowhere in the story do they cite or quote anyone saying the proposal is “too modest.”

The story also says “[t]he major culprits have been in areas outside the control of government, including steep declines in the communities’ traditional sectors, from textiles and manufacturing to coal and tobacco.

Blowing Smoke
Speaking of tobacco, some folks want to save the industry.

Over the next few months, expect to hear the word “transitional” being used a lot to describe tobacco growing in this country – and in the Dan River Region.

Thanks to passage of a $10.1 billion quota buyout bill, tobacco growing will never be the same.

…But if the tobacco quota buyout makes American-grown tobacco more competitive in the world market, the effort to get the bill through Congress will have been worthwhile. And if more competitive American-grown tobacco revitalizes the local tobacco-growing industry, that will be even better.

By all means, let’s make the production of a product that serves little purpose other than to kill you prematurely “even better.”

“So, what do you pay if you don’t pay?”
The Hampton Roads Daily Press uses the Senate Finance Committee’s recent transportation report to add up the costs of the state’s crumbling transportation network.

Chap Petersen Announces
Of Fairfax Democrat Del. Chap Petersen’s announcement that he is a candidate for Lt. Governor one story summed it up this way.

He listed higher education, transportation and saving taxpayer money as among his top issues and vowed to wage a “people’s campaign” that would focus on personal contact, hard work and “original ideas.”

Petersen made all the key points Democrats statewide must articulate: Higher Ed, transportation and government efficiency.

He also mentioned something national Democrats should consider: original ideas.

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!

A video ad that states “Jesus didn’t turn people away” is rejected by the networks.

“There may be a new form of political correctness arising in America, one in which attempts are made to avoid violating the sensibilities, not of women or racial minorities, but of conservative Christians.”

–Alan Wolfe, a professor of religion at Boston College.

Transportation
It seems a toss-up which will be the hot issue in the upcoming legislative session: transportation or higher ed? And can there be anything more than lip service?

Well, the Guv has a plan. Much like his tax plan of last year, he’s not telling us yet. He says it’s not “asphalt only.” But get this.

He indicated that he wants extensive media coverage of it before he discloses his proposed amendments to the state’s budget on Dec. 17.

He doesn’t want to tell us what it is but he wants coverage. Wonder if the press will play ball?

Of course they will. A couple of days after the previous story appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch the paper again ran a story about the Guv’s plan – with few more details. The AP, however, says public-private partnerships are part of the plan.

“The same old way of building roads that we’ve done for the last 100 years shouldn’t be the only alternative,” [Warner]said, “and some of the public-private approaches out there need some gap financing to jump-start them.”

He will also propose giving cities and counties greater authority and some funding to fix their own transportation problems rather than wait for the overbooked and underfunded Virginia Department of Transportation to do it.

“There are certain local jurisdictions that have been saying, ‘Hey, we’ve been waiting for years for VDOT to fix this intersection. Give us the money, VDOT, and let us try to manage the project and not go through all the bureaucracy.’ Well, we’d like to try that,” Warner said.

He said his initiative will greatly expand the state’s focus on rail travel and bus systems. A task force that has studied Virginia’s needs for passenger train service last month recommended greater access to rails, including lines that extend from northern Virginia and Richmond across the state through Lynchburg, Roanoke and far southwestern Virginia. The group also recommended a dedicated source of funding for rail transportation.

The Daily Press describes how a private partnership might work there.

Columnist Patrick McSweeney says Virginia private funding can provide “efficient transportation.”

First, we should recognize that government policies contributed significantly to our automobile-dependent system and that those policies should be reconsidered. Second, we should hesitate before we adopt any new government policies because they, too, may become inflexible and self-perpetuating, and could have hidden harmful effects of their own.

The better course is for government at the federal and state levels to do less, not more. Government transportation policies have produced a highly inefficient transportation system and encouraged development that can’t pay its own way.

Political pressures make it virtually impossible for government officials to make policy choices that would lead to a truly efficient transportation system. Only in a market-based, private enterprise system will the difficult decisions be made that produce real efficiency. There are signs that some of our leaders are awakening to that reality.

Earlier this month, the Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted a state transportation plan that turns away from automobile dependency. The plan concludes that paying for all of our transportation needs through the year 2025 will cost more than $203 billion, which undoubtedly will not be generated by higher taxes. The board also wisely called on the General Assembly to resolve the longstanding problem of leaving land-use decisions to local governments without giving them responsibility and power to provide or pay for necessary transportation infrastructure.

The fundamental flaw in the board’s approach is that it assumes government itself can produce an efficient transportation system through top-down master planning. We need more investment in transportation, but we will see true efficiency only if that investment is made by the free enterprise system, not the government.

Exactly how, neither the governor nor McSweeney say, of course. Why private money is more efficient than public money isn’t clear. Figuring there’s got to be profit for the private sector to get involved, the question is will their profit margin be greater than the “inefficiency margin” of VDOT?

The group that takes credit for leading the charge to pass last year’s tax hike was told at a forum it sponsored that they can’t expect any new taxes for transportation, which was expected to top the Foundation for Virginia’s agenda this year. But the group hired a smart guy in Mike Edwards from the Municipal League to be its director.

If there is really any extra funds next year, state workers want them.

“An across-the-board salary increase of at least 6 percent is needed to help close the growing gap … between the commonwealth and the private sector, and federal and local governments,” says the 18,000-member Virginia Governmental Employees’ Association.

Trust me
Del. Chris Saxman (R-Staunton) said he doesn’t want any budget surplus to go to the transportation trust fund.There are very few trust funds in Richmond that Chris Saxman feels like he can trust.

“Off the top of my head, actually, I can’t think of one,” said Del. Saxman, R-Staunton.

Saxman is among a growing number of elected officials across the Commonwealth who have made it clear that they don’t want to see surplus monies generated as a result of tax increases approved by the General Assembly earlier this year put into any kind of trust fund.

“We have to be able to tell constituents that we didn’t do the right thing, or that some of us didn’t do the right thing, on taxes, and we should give some of it back. We should give them back a rebate,” Saxman told The Augusta Free Press.

Former governors Jim Gilmore and Doug Wilder have led the bipartisan effort calling for rebates to be paid to taxpayers in the wake of the news that the state could see somewhere in the area of a $1 billion surplus by the end of the current fiscal year in June 2005.

Gubernatorial candidates Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore, for their part, have said that they would support earmarking at least some of the monies for transportation projects and economic-development initiatives.
Saxman offered another possible state spending item – related to increasing pay for key state employees.

Can’t say I blame Saxman re the trust funds. Legislators raid them regularly.

Show Me the Money
Meanwhile, different groups are calling for tax hikes for transportation. In No. Va., they want a sales tax. In Hampton Roads and in Fredericksburg, they want a gas tax.

Steve D. Haner, of the state chamber of commerce, who gets apoplectic when someone suggests taxing businesses, thinks taxing workers is OK.

[Haner] acknowledged that there is little political will for tax increases but said that cannot stop the debate. “There are no signs of a major transportation revenue package this year,” he said. “But we are getting a consensus that probably was not there a year ago that something has to be done. That is significant progress.”

Here, Take the Money
Lt. Gov and presumptive Democratic candidate for governor Tim Kaine and his likely opponent Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore pandered to farmers, while saner Dems and a Republican criticized Kilgore as living in la-la land.

The Roanoke Times sees estate taxes differently.

Never mind that with higher thresholds, advance planning and the services of a competent lawyer, most Americans of even comfortable means are unaffected by the estate tax.

Never mind that among the minority affected by estate taxes at all, the impact is considerable only on the wealthiest handful.

But just as the propagandists have managed to transform the estate tax into a “death tax” (as if the deceased, rather than their heirs, pay it), so have the propagandists managed to raise false fears among millions who are not among the richest 2 percent of Americans whose estates are even subject to the tax at all.

Though estate taxes produce government revenue (in Virginia, the state tax yields $150 million annually), they did not arise mainly for that purpose. Rather, they arose as a way to place some limits on the amassing of private fortunes so immense they could harm the health of the republic. Estate taxes reflected wise fears about the dangers of excessive concentrations of wealth, and they reflected an ethic that prized work and its rewards over inherited riches.

Phasing them out isn’t really about keeping farms in the family. It’s about ensuring that those to whom much is given get to keep it all, generation unto generation.

Your Right to Break the Law in Privacy
Let’s make sure we respect the privacy of red light runners. If the arguments for such privacy are “thin,” maybe we should just call slender people “dumb.”

Education
At Gov. Mark Warner’s latest higher education forum in Annandale many talked about the need to get more kids into college and not much about the charter school plan for Virginia’s top three universities. One observer thought that Democrats there seem to think they can fix schools by throwing more money at the problem without an underlying philosophy about the goal. What will more money bring us except more seats and is that enough? Regarding the charter school plan, Bob Gibson of the Charlottesville Daily Progress columns asks, “If decentralization is good for some schools, why not all?”

And here’s something scary.

The dropout rate varies from locality to locality and school to school, but overall, across Virginia and the nation, it’s one in four – an astounding number. One in four young people fails to earn a high school diploma. One in four is unprepared for the kind of jobs available in the economy of today and tomorrow. One in four enters adulthood without the knowledge and skills the state considers minimal. One in four will likely, at some point, have to depend on other, more gainfully employed citizens for support.

Drug Store
The Washington Post thinks prescribed marijuana is a bad idea.

The Roanoke Times thinks the case reveals conservatives’ hypocrisy about “activist judges.”

At first glance, the case of a far Southwest Virginia woman in jail for violating terms of her Tazewell County Circuit Court probation may seem to have little in common with the medical marijuana cases from California argued Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court. But there is this shared thread: The cases have undone, or threaten to undo, the notion that social conservatism opposes judicial activism and is reluctant to use dubious jurisprudence to achieve desired outcomes.

Flip-Flop
No sooner did the Virginian-Pilot laud

Political courage seems to be a dwindling commodity in Washington these days. That’s why Republican U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis deserves commendation.

Davis, whose district stretches from the Peninsula to Fredricksburg, was one of only 51 House members to vote against the 1,000-page, 14-inch-tall omnibus spending bill, a monument to government misspending and poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

…than she had to explain herself.

The news release says Rep. Jo Ann Davis “was successful in securing” several hundred thousand dollars in federal money for a Caroline County sewer project and a Fredericksburg anti-gang and drug task force.

What the release doesn’t say is that Davis voted against the omnibus bill that contains that funding.

Davis, who represents the Fredericksburg area, said she voted against the $388 billion spending plan because it was rushed through the House and lawmakers didn’t have time to read what was in it. The 1st District Republican was one of 51 House members to vote against the bill.

“My ‘no’ vote is against the process. There was a foot-and-a-half-thick bill that we had to vote on that we had roughly two hours to review,” Davis said. “No way could you review that bill in that time period.”

The omnibus bill was an amalgamation of nine different spending bills Congress hadn’t acted on. Somewhere in one of those was $300,000 for the new sewer system in the Dawn community of Caroline County, and $250,000 to establish the regional drug and gang task force.

“Those projects wouldn’t have existed had we not put them in,” Davis said. “I sent letters to the chairman, pushed the bills from Day One. I voted against the omnibus bill, I did not vote against the projects.”

Davis faced a common problem. Call it her own little flip-flop, and no fairer a criticism than that of Kerry was.

Elections
The special election to replace Thelma Drake as Norfolk delegate is heating up…while some pundits – one might call them die-hards – see Bush’s Virginia victory differently.

The election did not change the 8-3 GOP dominance of the state’s U.S. House delegation. And the Old Dominion, in awarding its 13 electoral votes to George W. Bush, continued a pattern of support for Republican presidential candidates unbroken since 1964. Meanwhile, both U.S. senators (neither of whom was up for election this year) are Republicans, and legislative elections a year ago returned solid GOP majorities to both houses of the General Assembly.

Yet beneath the placid surface, and with a gubernatorial election coming up next year, the political waters in Virginia are – well, if not exactly roiling, at least showing signs of life.

Others see rural folks as the key.

Warner Waxes Politically

Marshal Madness
While our favorite delegate, Bob Marshall (R-Prince William), waxes idiotically.

Deborah Vaughan’s ancestors came to Jamestown hundreds of years ago to escape discrimination, she said at a town hall meeting Tuesday night.

But purchasing a house and living in Virginia has made Vaughan and her partner Jennifer Randolph wonder if they have to face a similar fate.

A bill passed last year by the General Assembly discriminated against gays, Vaughan said. The bill denied gay couples any marriage rights afforded to straight couples.

“We would just like to have the same rights as everyone else,” she said at the town hall meeting held by the Prince William County area General Assembly delegation.

Vaughan spoke directly to the bill’s sponsor, Delegate Robert Marshall, R-13th District. Marshall disputed her charge.

“Homosexuals can get married,” Marshall said. “They just have to marry someone of the opposite sex. It’s a requirement of nature.”

Marshall likened gay marriage to using fake money.

“Same sex marriage is a counterfeit,” Marshall said.

Not content to restrict gay marriages and abortions, now he’s aiming for contraceptives.

Marshall supports laws allowing for differences of opinion between pharmacists and doctors in providing certain medications to patients. Marshall specifically mentioned some companies’ and organizations’ decisions to not distribute birth control pills, which he applauded.

And although Shaw has passed the stage in a her life where she would take such pills, she said she still wants Marshall to back off.

“You’re not a pharmacist, you’re not my mother, you’re not my father … you’re not God,” Shaw said.

“Not yet I’m not,” Marshall joked in response.

I don’t think he was joking.

But he’s gaining ground.

So it’s galling that a state advisory panel has sided with health insurers who refuse to pay for fundamental care for 50 percent of the population.

The General Assembly’s Special Advisory Commission on Mandated Health Insurance Benefits has voted against recommending a bill that would require insurers in Virginia to cover contraception.

Other lawmakers are planning to get Virginia on the gay-bashing bandwagon.

And candidate for Lt. Guv Sean T. Connaughton is pandering to anti-abortionists.

Sean T. Connaughton officially launched his campaign for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor yesterday, casting himself as an “effective conservative” who can get the job done.

Connaughton, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, first announced his bid at a morning news conference at the State Capitol and planned to make similar appearances during a three-day statewide tour.

“It’s time for new, effective conservative leadership at the highest levels of our state government,” he said.

Connaughton outlined a platform that includes reforming Virginia’s “broken” transportation program, the “Byzantine” state budgeting process and local government structure.

In an appeal to the party’s social conservatives, he drew applause from supporters when he referred to his opposition to “partial-birth abortion” and said the state needs to strengthen its commitment to President Bush’s faith-based initiative.