Monthly Archives: January 2014

LaRock Undermines Transportation

Since being elected to the General Assembly in November, Delegate David “Tax Pig” LaRock has been doing exactly what we would have expected of the man opposed to Rail to Dulles: Proposing bills to kill off badly needed transportation projects in Loudoun and Northern Virginia. LaRockBills-2014 Though couched as legislation to correct funding injustices (“injustices,” it must be noted, that were discussed, debated, legislated, and adjudicated through proper small “d” democratic processes over the course of many years), the practical impact of these bills would be to kill all the life that has been breathed in to transportation fixes in Loudoun over the past few years. Life only made possible by the painstaking, difficult, bi-partisan, efforts of leaders like Mark Herring.

Perhaps most egregious are his bills to arbitrarily reduce the allocation of funding to mass transit in favor of more roads. (Bacon’s Rebellion has a right-leaning, but generally evenhanded analysis of these bills.) That’s right, roads over transit, because conservative.

It had been my plan to try to compose a few more paragraphs of analysis of the bills in question. But really, the impracticality and obstinacy of the philosophy underpinning them can only be summarized thusly:
Facepalm

It is equally exasperating to note the only other bills LaRock has sponsored are to codify a tax credit (not a deduction, a credit) for home and private schooling, which serves to gut public education funding, and bills to simplify the process of transferring ownership of guns from one person to another.

Notably absent from Mr. LaRock’s list of sponsored bills? Any bill helping maintain open space in his District. Or helping farmers. Or addressing the unique needs of small school communities in the west. Or dealing with the water issues his constituents in Raspberry Falls have faced. Or, frankly, any bill not directly birthed by some narrow-minded, right-wing talking point.

Because conservative.

Here Come the Social Issues

Question: Does Victoria Cobb have dementia, or does she just believe that other Virginians do?

In an email she sent us this week, with the actual subject line “Here Come the Social Issues,” the Virginia Family (not yours) Foundation president tells us that, because there is now a Democratic majority* in the state senate, “Senator Democrats [sic] will elevate their abortion and sex agenda** to their top priority,” and “there is little doubt that ‘social issues’ will dominate their agenda in the coming days.”

I will pause here so that anyone who has been living in Virginia for the last decade or two can finish laughing.

There certainly has been quite a bit of forgetfulness lately on the part of individuals who have made an “abortion and sex agenda” their top priority, hasn’t there? And Victoria’s forgetfulness about her own organization’s mission has just shot to the top of the hit parade, as further down in the very same email she mentions the 2011 TRAP*** law that she and her allies in the General Assembly engineered by adding anti-abortion provisions to an unrelated law. And you might think that Victoria would want to present the means by which this law was passed as a legitimate process driven by evidence and debate. You would be wrong.

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Systemic Dodging of Accountibility, the Delgaudio Loophole (UPDATED)

The big news of the week is the filing of the recall trial petition against Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio. (Well, the big news unless you’re Leesburg Councilmember, and perennial Mayoral candidate, Tom Dunn.) The filing triggers a process clearly outlined by statute, and ably explained by the ever-cogent blogger at Real Loudoun. One thing that has been lost in the shuffle of this week’s machinations, however, is the fact that the recall action was largely made necessary because of something that happened in Richmond earlier this month.

You may recall that the only reason Supervisor Delgaudio was not indicted by the grand jury is that he qualifies as a “part-time” elected official, and as such can – apparently – do whatever he wants with public time and assets without any legal penalties. GrandJuryRecc1The grand jury at the time took the remarkable step of calling upon the Virginia General Assembly to change the law removing the Delgaudio “part-time” Loophole as soon as possible. Indeed, that recommendation was the very first recommendation in the Grand Jury’s report.

If you’re wondering whatever happened to that recommendation, here’s your answer.

At the beginning of this year’s General Assembly session Delegate Randy Minchew dutifully introduced HB 420, a bill specifically designed to close the Delgaudio Loophole. The Grand Jury’s recommendation was on its way to being implemented. Loudoun and Virginia could breath a sigh of relief that while Supervisor Delgaudio got through the loophole, others would not be so lucky.HB420-Sunlight

But a funny thing happened on the way to ethics, transparency and accountability. Namely, Republican control of the House of Delegates. In an all-too-common move, the Mr. Minchew’s bill to close the Delgaudio Loophole and implement the Grand Jury recommendation was quietly killed in his own Courts of Justice committee. That’s what “laid on the table” means in the language of parliamentary procedure.

Now, there is another bill that would do the same thing in the House of Delegates, HB252. McDonnell,_Schmidt_and_Minchew_thumb This one introduced by Democratic Delegate, Scott Surovell. Del. Surovell is not confident of his bill’s chances of surviving the subcommittee to which it has been assigned within Courts of Justice because, “they already killed Randy’s bill and Randy is a Republican.” (UPDATE – Del. Surovell’s bill was quietly killed by Republicans on Friday, January 31st.)

That is an important point. Randy is an influential Republican legislator, recall he got his start as a “Counselor” to Gov. Rolex – I mean McDonnell. Either he has a lot less influence then he tells his constituents in the 10th Delegate District, or he really didn’t want his bill, HB420, to proceed.

Either way, Republicans have, once again, talked a lot of hot air about accountability and reform, but when put in a position to actually affect meaningful change that would curb the abuses of the past few years, they delay and quietly destroy important reforms. From the Board of Supervisors, which issued a six-month finger-wagging to Eugene Delgaudio before fully reinstating him to his privileges on the Board, to legislators in Richmond, who see nothing wrong with Gov. McDonnell accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from major campaign donors seeking governmental imprimatur for their questionably-effective sovereign tonics, the political system here in Virginia seems to intrinsically dodge accountability when Republicans are in charge.

And so, in spite of a year of bombshell revelations in the press, a damning grand jury report, promises of action, and censure by the Board of Supervisors, Eugene Delgaudio remains a Supervisor with the full faith and confidence of his Republican colleagues. And the legal loophole that allows him to continue to misuse public assets (if he chooses to do so, and why wouldn’t he, given the complete lack of real consequences he’s faced from his fellow Republicans) remains wide open.

So, for those who ask why Sterling Citizens filed their recall petition against Eugene Delgaudio this week, I humbly suggest that it was the one path to accountability remaining to the people of Sterling who have been ignored and mis-represented by their Supervisor for long enough.

Birth Control Is Pro-Life

Population_explosion_birth_controlBirth control is pro-life.

Birth control means we have the children we want, that we can afford to raise and care for, and that we are bearing those children we can sustain.

There is an impulse in this nation to reproduce children without regard for whether the children are wanted or sustainable.

That’s why we have 400,000 children in this nation in foster and state homes. Half of these children in foster care have chronic medical problems. Those who age out of foster care endure homelessness, poor health, unemployment, incarceration and worse.

In response to a question online, “Should pro-life activists be morally obligated to adopt, love and provide for a ‘saved child’ currently living in state care,” 71% responded that they feel no obligation to adopt any unwanted child themselves.

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“Provocative Views”

Public Advocate celebrates Randall Terry's Oklahoma delegate scam.

Public Advocate celebrates Randall Terry’s Oklahoma delegate scam.

On Monday, the citizen group Sterling Deserves Better filed its petition with the Loudoun Circuit Court to have censured Supervisor and hate group leader Eugene Delgaudio removed from office. Real Loudoun has put together a good explanation of the legal proceedings and the case against him.

Delgaudio’s lawyer Charlie King responded to the petition yesterday, not by addressing any of the charges against his client, but with this:

“As President of Public Advocate, Supervisor Delgaudio takes clearly provocative views on national social and family issues.”

Indeed he does. His views are so provocative, in fact, that they even provoked him to remove his own promotion of a stunt by extremist Randall Terry from his Public Advocate website.

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No, they don’t really care about legal authority.

Attorney General Mark Herring gently points out the obvious in an op-ed published in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

It is completely within the power of the attorney general to refuse to defend in court a law that he has determined to be unconstitutional after an independent, rigorous analysis. This was the position of former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who said “I will not defend what I, in my judgment, deem to be an unconstitutional law.” In fact, just last year, Cuccinelli declined to defend Gov. Bob McDonnell’s Opportunity Educational Institution after he determined it to be unconstitutional. It should be noted that some of the loudest critical voices today were silent then.

This understanding of the attorney general’s role has not been controversial until I applied it to Virginia’s marriage ban. Two of the past three elected attorneys general declined to defend state laws, and conservative jurists such as John Roberts, Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia have affirmed this role of attorneys general. This tells me that critics are not actually opposed to this long-established power of the attorney general, but are in fact opposed to its application to marriage equality.

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Having a woman deliver a lie doesn’t magically make it true

republicansinyourvaginaLast night the “official” Republican response to the State of the Union address was delivered by Washington representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who didn’t engage in any distracting large motor activities.

Rodgers made the encouraging assertion that the current Republican Party “trusts people to make their own decisions, not a government that decides for you,” and then a bit later that “Republicans believe health care choices should be yours, not the government’s. And that whether you’re a boy with Down syndrome or a woman with breast cancer … you can find coverage and a doctor who will treat you.”

But obviously that is not at all what Republicans believe, as earlier in the day nearly all of them had voted to prevent women from choosing to access abortion care, and they regularly endorse efforts that would allow health care providers, in the guise of “religious freedom,” to refuse to treat people on the basis of their personal beliefs about those people. Most notably this “freedom” to selectively do one’s job has involved pharmacists who don’t believe that people should use birth control, but it can just as easily be invoked to refuse all kinds of medical care to all kinds of people, care like hormone replacement therapy, fertility and prenatal care, and cancer treatment.

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“Bob Marshall is not, and never has been, an attorney.”

I continue to be reminded, sometimes several times in one day, of the comment in which anti-gay and anti-labor activist lawyer James Young informed me that “Bob Marshall is not, and never has been, an attorney.”

It explained a lot, and for that I thank him. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the following:

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, said today that he is working with lawyers to file a complaint with the Virginia State Bar against Attorney General Mark R. Herring over his refusal to defend Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban in federal court this week.

Marshall sponsored the 2006 amendment to the state constitution.

“I want the same discipline meted out against him that would be meted out against any attorney similarly situated,” Marshall said in an interview Monday afternoon.

“If after a pleading has been filed an attorney decided that his client is guilty, what would the bar do with that attorney? And they better not go soft because he is the attorney general,” he said.

I suppose that never having been an attorney could explain Marshall being unaware that the legal obligations of a private attorney and a public one, such as an attorney general, are quite different (although that hasn’t prevented me from being aware of it – and I don’t sit on a legislative body). Surely Marshall has some attorney friends in the House of Delegates who could have explained this to him:

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Bob Marshall’s marriage meltdown

bob_marshallBob Marshall has said some dumb things over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him embarrass himself more than he did yesterday on the Kojo Nnamdi show.

Marshall was interviewed for a segment about Attorney General Mark Herring’s determination that Virginia’s anti-marriage amendment and statutes are unconstitutional. His remarks start out calmly enough, if poorly reasoned. Then the wheels come off. The entire segment starts at the 9:20 mark; the interview with Marshall is introduced at the 10:56 mark.

Marshall begins this rhetorical circus by asking whether Tim Kaine, governor in 2006-7 when the Marshall-Newman Amendment was enacted, “consciously signed a bill that violated the Fourteenth Amendment.” This is simply a stupid question on its face. Of course he did. How would any unconstitutional law ever become law if this didn’t happen? Every governor in every state that enacted similar amendments signed a bill that violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Does Marshall believe that it’s impossible, by definition, for anything enacted by a legislature or popular vote to be unconstitutional? Because that seems like a problem.

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Taxes, Schools, and Sidewalks

Kids went to school one day this week. This marks the second week this winter where the Loudoun Schools have only been in session for one day. Many members of the community are incensed at the fact that our kids have been kept home so often this year. They complain that it is “just a little snow and cold,” and where they’re from originally, this kind of “wussiness” in the face of winter wouldn’t be tolerated.IcySidewalkTweet

Funny thing about that, though: Where they’re from originally, there is a long-standing local commitment to the public’s responsibility to take care of public infrastructure, like schools and transportation infrastructure, at the public’s expense. Here in Loudoun County, Republicans who run the Board of Supervisors and the School Board, not to mention those in the House of Delegates, have no such commitment. On the contrary, there is an attitude of “Starving the Beast” when it comes to public services and investment. As if our children’s education were a Beast of some sort.

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