From the Archives - Privileges, immunities, gun rights: Charlottesville lawyer Buddy Weber discusses the 14th Amendment

Privileges, immunities, gun rights: Charlottesville lawyer Buddy Weber discusses the 14th Amendment
August 6, 2010 12:49 PM MST

In a recent post on the group blog, The League of Ordinary Gentleman, the Cato Institute’s Jason Kuznicki discusses the history and understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constition.

Kuznicki, a historian and assistant editor of the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, argues that “maybe we could make the Fourteenth Amendment apply to all people. Just one of those crazy ideas, you know, that I got from the text of the amendment itself.”

He further explains that “our constitution must absolutely be a set of general principles pointing at liberty, combined with a set of specific operating procedures for government. It needs to be a general grant of liberty, and a limited grant of power, because a limited grant of liberty very quickly begins to eat itself. General grants of liberty, however, must be expressed in general terms, and this necessarily leaves the working out of particulars to each subsequent generation.”

Fourteenth and Second Amendments
Kuznicki’s blog post fits in nicely with the argument made by Charlottesville attorney Charles “Buddy” Weber on WINA-AM’s The Schilling Show earlier this week, during a discussion of two recent Supreme Court decisions that addressed the right to keep and bear arms.

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on August 5, Weber summed up the two cases, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010).

Buddy Weber

Heller, he said, held that a Washington resident had the individual right under the Second Amendment to possess firearms within his own home in a federal enclave, the District of Columbia. McDonald, he explained, had essentially the same facts but was applied against a state (Illinois).

In Heller, Weber explained, “the interesting thing about the case, although it came out 5-4, was that all of the justices used originalism as the basis for their argument. I know we’ve always heard about the debate among the justices between originalism vs. the ‘living constitution’ concept. Those in favor of the living constitution have always critiqued originalism as a basis for interpreting the constitution.”

What this shows, Weber continued, is “that reasonable people can disagree as to what the history really was, but it boiled down to the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment. When it says ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ does ‘the people’ really mean the people, or does it mean ‘the government’?”

Weber was particularly impressed by the reasoning of Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion in McDonald.

Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
“The question is,” he said, “does the Fourteenth Amendment incorporate the entire body of the Bill of Rights and hold the states responsible for the content, the substance of those rights?”

That question is still relevant “because the Supreme Courts in the post-Civil War era just simply refused to acknowledge what was intended by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Weber explained. The court “issued a whole bunch of decisions that narrowed the meaning of it, specifically the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which came out of the Slaughterhouse Cases. They eviscerated that and [it] was dead-letter law for well over 100 years.”

Prior to the McDonald case, Weber said, “in order for the courts to backtrack and get some of those rights applied against the state, they’ve used the Due Process Clause.”

‘Absolute Clarity’
In McDonald, however, “Justice Thomas, in a moment of absolute clarity, has basically looked at that whole history and said, you know, this is all legal fiction. How can you possibly claim that a clause in the constitution that guarantees only a legal process guarantees any substantive rights whatsoever?”

Paraphrasing the Thomas opinion, Weber explained that “we need to go back and revisit that whole line of cases on the Privileges and Immunities Clause,” saying that “it ought to be held against the states because the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms as a privilege of citizenship in the United States and the Fourteenth Amendment specifically says no state shall abridge the Privileges and Immunities of citizens of the United States.”

‘Straightforward Reading’
Praising this “really straightforward reading of the words of the Constitution,” Weber exclaimed, “thank God, it’s about time! Maybe we’ll get back to that sort of legal interpretation in the future.”

Weber, who is also chairman of the Charlottesville Republican Committee, predicts that the remaining rights listed in the Constitution – to a grand jury indictment, to a jury trial in civil cases, against excessive fines, and against the quartering of soldiers during peacetime – will “all get incorporated in time. It’s a question of whether they get incorporated piecemeal” or whether, like Jason Kuznicki, “somebody just says ‘these are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States and they all ought to be incorporated.’”

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 6, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: April 15 Charlottesville Tea Party attracts protesters, onlookers, sunshine, and obscene reactions

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 16, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

April 15 Charlottesville Tea Party attracts protesters, onlookers, sunshine, and obscene reactions
April 16, 2010 2:47 AM MST

Tax Day – April 15 – was the day that the Jefferson Area Tea Party chose to organize a protest in favor of smaller government and against high taxes. The group attracted 150 to 200 people to a demonstration at the Post Office building on Route 29 north of Charlottesville.

Local radio talk show host Rob Schilling, whose weekday program appears on WINA-AM, said the program “started out with a bang,” when a counter-protester hurled obscenities at him. Police were called in to settle the situation, and the man was briefly detained. Schilling offered him the opportunity to apologize on videotape in return for dropping assault charges, which the man readily agreed to do. (The video can be seen on The Schilling Show blog.)

Ken Boyd, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and a candidate for Congress in the Fifth District of Virginia, said that the rally represented “a great showing of Americanism and people coming together who are not happy with what’s going on in Washington and they want to make their voices heard. There are people from all walks of life, as you look around. I just think it’s great, the enthusiasm and the passion are what it’s all about.”

Boyd described the protesters’ primary message as “they got the kind of change they don’t want from the Obama administration and they would like to change it to the way it was before.”

Bill Hay, one of the founders of the Jefferson Area Tea Party who is now affiliated with congressional candidate Laurence Verga’s Fifth District campaign, said he thought the message of the rally was “smaller government, cut taxes, and throw Tom Perriello out of office.” He added that drivers passing by on Route 29 were providing “a lot of horn beeping, a lot of thumbs up, maybe a few middle fingers.”

Former Albemarle County GOP chairman Keith Drake, who now serves as communications director for the Jefferson Area Tea Party, said “This is truly a revolution. Nobody’s shooting guns, nobody’s fighting in the streets. But other than that, there’s every bit of passion you would see in a revolution, and I’m very optimistic about the future direction of our country.”

Drake explained the purpose of a new organization he co-founded (with Schilling) called IMPACT (“I’m Paying Additional County Taxes”) as “an opportunity for people who don’t think they’re paying enough [in taxes] to actually pay more, to make a donation to local county government.”

So far IMPACT has received one donation in the amount of $25.

From the Archives: Author Charles Murray argues same-sex marriage is ‘not a big deal’

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 22, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Author Charles Murray argues same-sex marriage is ‘not a big deal’
February 22, 2012 8:15 PM MST

Appearing February 22 on “The Schilling Show,” a Charlottesville talk-radio program, conservative social scientist Charles Murray stated that the advocacy of gay marriage is “not a big deal” with regard to the general decline of marriage in American society. Murray also explained how his own attitude toward same-sex marriage has changed over time.

Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington is the author of What It Means to Be a Libertarian and the current release, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, which was the focus of the discussion with talk-show host Rob Schilling.


Collapse of an institution

In their on-air conversation, Murray noted that in 1960, for the age cohort from 30 to 49, the “white working class was married at well over 80 percent and the white upper-middle class was married at very high rates.” Fifty years later, however, among the white upper-middle class, “84 percent of those ages 30 to 49 are still married in 2010. In the white working class, that had dropped to 48 percent."

That, he said, is “essentially the collapse of a major social institution.”

Because married men and women are better able to participate in civil society – being Little League coaches, attending PTA meetings, running charity drives – Murray explained that “a breakdown of marriage” essentially becomes “a breakdown of community, and it’s focused on working class.”

Schilling asked Murray about the effect of the current debate over the definition of marriage, which differs from the cultural environment in 1960.

‘Not a big deal’

Murray replied that “the advent of the gay marriage movement and the rest of that, I’m inclined to think, is not a big deal.”

He pointed out that, “for one thing, a lot of the rhetoric surrounding the advocacy for gay marriage has been that here are people who want to make a solemn commitment to each other. Writers like Jonathan Rauch and others have made very compelling cases for [how] gays want to engage in this very important social institution.”

A person, he said, does not “have to agree with that to think that, in a way, the visibility of marriage has been raised by that movement, not necessarily denigrated.”

Calling in to “The Schilling Show,” the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner posed a question to Murray about a recent appearance he made on the Charlie Rose television show. In that TV interview, Murray had said how his own opinion about same-sex marriage had changed.

Midway during the interview with Charlie Rose, he explained, the host asked him about that issue.


‘Loving, faithful relationships’

“I have never,” he said, “made a public statement about that before, but the fact is this: My wife and I have maybe half a dozen friends who are gay and are in couples. I mean they’re marriage-like situations. Some of them are guys and some of them are gals. In all of those cases, they’re acting like married people. They appear to have loving, faithful relationships that they take very seriously.”

More than that, he added, “a couple of them have kids that they are as attentive [to] and loving of as any other parents, and so I say to myself, I still have real problems with using the word marriage for anything except a union which has as its main purpose child-bearing and so forth.”

Still, he explained, “on the other hand, it’s really made me rethink the nature of my opposition, because let’s face it: Heterosexuals have made a mess out of marriage in the last couple of decades -- the last half-century, actually -- in ways which leave us in a weak position to suddenly say, ‘Oh, this wonderful institution that we’ve done so well with, you’re trying to interfere with.’”

As a result, Murray said, “I have backed off from leading the fight against gay marriage or even participating in it, and I’m willing to say that this is one instance in which [a new idea is] working out better than I would have expected it to, as I see it.”

From the Archives: Gary Johnson reflects on his first visit to Jefferson's Monticello

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 5, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Examiner.com exclusive: Gary Johnson reflects on his first visit to Jefferson's Monticello

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson visited Charlottesville on Monday, May 3, to give a speech sponsored by the two local Republican unit committees and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia.

Johnson, a two-term Republican who served from 1995 to 2003, is now honorary chairman of OUR America Initiative, a public-policy advocacy group. Prior to becoming governor, he was a successful entrepreneur who took a one-person handyman operation and turned it into a 1,000-employee contracting and construction company by the time he sold it.

The former governor took advantage of his time in Charlottesville, appearing by telephone on the Joe Thomas morning drive-time radio show on WCHV and on Rob Schilling’s mid-afternoon radio program on WINA-AM.

He also strolled along Charlottesville’s downtown mall, where he wrote a message about “freedom” and “liberty” on the First Amendment Monument near City Hall, and he made his first visit to Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello.

The Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked Governor Johnson to reflect on his tour of Monticello.

Jefferson the Architect
The word he repeated in his answer was “fascinating” in reaction to the many elements of Jefferson’s home.

“I found it fascinating,” Johnson said about Jefferson’s design, “and I found it fascinating to see the quirks, if you will, in how it was built and all the fascinating elements”: the wind-direction indicator above the front porch, for instance, and the two-faced clock that Jefferson built for his entryway, a clock that tells just the hours on the outside but minutes, hours, and days of the week on the inside.

“What I found most interesting,” Johnson said, was that Jefferson was a self-taught architect “and that he built this home and that he took 40 years to do that.”

“That’s my background,” he continued. “My background is building and just recently I took two and a half years of my own life to build the home that I’m now living in.”

Contrasting himself with Jefferson, the architect, Johnson added that he “was in the trades long enough to know that I wasn’t going to be a part of that architectural component other than just [giving] advice.”

Jefferson the Politician
Asked about his reflections on Jefferson the man, the politician, and the Founding Father, Johnson replied that he learned on the tour that “having given 50 years of his life in public service, he enjoyed his time here [at Monticello] more than any of that. Yet he did give of himself and I, just in my own small way, felt like I could relate to that also.”

From the Archives: Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 4, 2015, following Virginia's general election.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Local radio hosts Rob Schilling and Joe Thomas proved they have followers by winning dozens of write-in votes on Election Day in Charlottesville. The two talkers got write-ins in all five contests that were on the ballot.

The November 3 election featured uncontested races for state Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates, five candidates competing for three seats the Charlottesville City Council, four candidates for four seats on the city's School Board, and three candidates for two open positions on the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

According to unofficial write-in totals released by the Charlottesville Electoral Board, WINA-AM's Schilling, a former City Council member who was elected as a Republican in 2002, got seven votes in that contest while WCHV-AM & FM's Thomas got nine. Schilling also got four votes for state Senate in the 25th District (which was won by incumbent R. Creigh Deeds with 90.5 percent of the vote) while Thomas got six. In the House of Delegates race won by House Minority Leader David Toscano (with 89.95 percent), Schilling had six votes and Thomas had three.

Thomas outpaced Schilling in the write-in votes for School Board by six votes to one. Schilling had two votes for Soil and Water District Director to Thomas' one vote.

Thomas Jefferson remembered
It is often said that in the Charlottesville area, founding father Thomas Jefferson is often spoken of “as if he just left the room,” and the Sage of Monticello was written in by voters in every contest on Tuesday: four votes for state Senate, four votes for his former seat in the House of Delegates, and one vote each for City Council, School Board, and -- in the district named for him -- Soil and Water District Director.

City Council member Dede Smith, who failed to win renomination by the local Democratic party in the June primary, received 121 votes from supporters who wanted to see her retain her seat. She also received three votes each for School Board and Soil and Water District Director.

Previous City Council candidates Brandon Collins, Mike Farruggio, and Charles “Buddy” Weber received four, three, and four votes, respectively, in that contest.

Weber and Farruggio both received one vote in the race for state Senate, as did T. J. Aldous, who was the Republican nominee for that office in 2011. Former Charlottesville City Council candidate Jon Bright got nine votes in that contest as well as two in the 57th District House of Delegates race. Tom McCrystal, who was the Republican nominee for that delegate seat in 2005, received two votes.

Sabato, Lark, and Parker
Local celebrities who received votes for state Senate included political scientist Larry J. Sabato , former national chairman of the Libertarian Party James W. Lark, former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate James Webb, 2016 Fifth District congressional candidate Jane Dittmar, and 2015 Republican City Council candidate Anson Parker. So did Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner Rick Sincere.

Former independent candidate for the House of Delegates Robert Brandon Smith III and local GOP activist James Neale both received votes in the 57th District delegate race.

Lena Seville, who ran for the Democratic City Council nomination in the June primary, received two votes in that contest, while Peter Kleeman, who ran for that office as an independent in 2007.

Willa Neale, who chose not to run for another term on the School Board, received two write-in votes.

South Park fans may be pleased to learn that Kyle Brofloski, Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick all received votes for School Board, as did PC Principal and “Mr. Garrison.”

Suggested Links

Charlottesville write-ins reflect voters' loyalty to Perriello, Hurt
Few though colorful write-in votes cast in Charlottesville in Election 2012
Charlottesville write-ins reveal voters’ allegiance, impishness
UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee
Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/charlottesville-write-voters-honor-former-candidates-south-park-characters

Gary Johnson on WINA's 'The Schilling Show'

As announced here on April 21, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson spoke in Charlottesville yesterday, at an event co-hosted by the Albemarle County Republican Committee, the Charlottesville Republican Committee, and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia.  (Governor Johnson also addressed an RLC gathering in Arlington on Saturday.)

Governor Johnson had a full day, starting at 7:08 a.m. when he spoke by telephone on WCHV radio with morning host Joe Thomas.  I missed that interview but it must have been good:  several people showed up at the governor's speech last night because they heard about it on WCHV.

During the late afternoon, we took Governor Johnson and his son, Erik,on a tour of downtown Charlottesville, where the governor was able to write a message about "freedom" and "liberty" on the chalkboard of the First Amendment Monument near City Hall.  Shortly thereafter, Gary and Erik Johnson took a tour of Monticello.  It was their first visit to Mr. Jefferson's home and both were impressed.

In between, Governor Johnson was an in-studio guest of Rob Schilling on "The Schilling Show" on WINA-AM.  Several listeners took the time to call in with substantive questions, and the host took the opportunity to promote the speech at the Northside Library and the web site of Governor Johnson's 501(c)(4) policy advocacy group, OUR America Initiative (that's www.ouramericainitiative.com).

Here is the video I took inside the WINA studios of Rob Schilling's interview with Gary Johnson.  There are three segments:

Part I:

Part II:

Part III (Conclusion):

I have more photos and videos from Governor Johnson's visit to Charlottesville, which I will post as they are ready.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

Fifth CD Candidates on the 10th Amendment

At the invitation of radio talk-show host Rob Schilling, six of the seven candidates for the GOP congressional nomination in the Fifth District of Virginia -- Ken Boyd being the exception -- have submitted short statements on their views on the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Rob lists the candidates in the order in which their responses were received, but I'll upend that by selectively quoting them in alphabetical order.  (Like Rob, I have not edited these sentences for spelling or grammar or syntax.)

Ron Ferrin:

Many have never read it before and had no idea that the REAL power of this country was placed by the constitution in the hands of the STATES. However, I believe that is about to change. For the first time, states have the motive and popular support to challenge a Federal Government action by the parameters of the 10 amendment.

Robert Hurt:

In Virginia, we are standing up for limited government and individual liberty. In fact, as a member of the Virginia General Assembly, I have cosponsored legislation that seeks to challenge the authority of the federal government to enact an unconstitutional federal takeover of our healthcare system. If elected to Congress, I pledge that I will continue to fight to reduce the size and influence of the federal government and to restore this country’s founding principles.

Jim McKelvey:

The tenth amendment to the Constitution is arguably the clearest statement in the bill of rights. There are powers and duties in the Constitution that spell out the scope of the federal government. The founders included the tenth amendment to help all of us understand where the power lies, powers that the Constitution did not impart on the government. It is clear and direct; it needs no interpretation, but it does need defending.

Mike McPadden:

...the Federal Government is only allowed to do what is actually written down in the Constitution saying what it is allowed to do. This was referred to by James Madison as the, “enumerated powers “, of the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn’t say that the Federal Government can institute universal health care, then it may not.

Feda Morton:

The Supreme Court has continued to turn its back on the 10th Amendment and given the Federal Government more power than strict Constitutionalists have deemed to be proper. With the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Clause, the courts have “discovered” all manner of permissions to elevate Washington and suppress state and individual rights.

Laurence Verga:

I am the only candidate who has signed a written pledge to uphold the 10th amendment. I challenge my opponents to do so as well if they want to take the amendment seriously.

It's clear that these six candidates are, to one extent or another, "Tenthers" -- a word not of opprobrium, but of pride.



Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter!

Bill of Rights Day 2009

Each December 15 since 1999, the Jefferson Area Libertarians have celebrated the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution with a gathering in downtown Charlottesville. Last year and this year, the gathering took place at the First Amendment Monument near City Hall, an appropriate place for such a commemorative ceremony.

Charlottesville libertarians were not the only people marking Bill of Rights Day today. Cato Institute legal scholar Timothy Lynch put a sadly dismal assessment of the current state of civil liberties on Cato's blog, Cato@Liberty (ending, however, with a brief optimistic note). A blog named Bungalow Bill's Conservative Wisdom asked its readers to "take the time to read the Bill of Rights" and courteously provided the entire text, including the seldom-read preamble. (The whole thing -- preamble, too -- was recited in Charlottesville today as part of the celebration. You can watch the video, below.)

In the course of my research for this post, by the way, I found a satirical article about a Third Amendment advocacy organization and a reference to the only Supreme Court case litigating that provision of the Bill of Rights, Engblom v. Carey. As it happens, there are a number of Facebook groups devoted to the Third Amendment, including one called the National Anti-Quartering Association and another called 1,000,000 People for the Third Amendment, which has 3 members.

And, lest we forget the broad and inclusive reach of the U.S. Constitution, a colleague forwarded me a link to an article with a reminder the the Bill of Rights applies to everyone, even gay and lesbian students in government schools. Freedom of speech and freedom of association are basic human rights.

The program that the Jefferson Area Libertarians began, as noted, with an acclamation of the Bill of Rights, led by JAL's James Curtis.

Curtis was followed by radio talk-show host Rob Schilling of WINA-AM. Rob, who is also a former Charlottesville city council member, talked about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, two elements of the First Amendment. He noted, in reference to free assembly issues, that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named local civil-liberties champion John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute as the "Worst Person in the World." The reason for this honor? Whitehead has asked Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA5) to move his office to a place where citizens can peaceably assemble in order to petition the government for redress of grievances, without also violating the rights of the owners of the property where the office is located. (Perriello's current office is on private property where Tea Party-like protests disrupt the business of his neighbors.) Olbermann's left-handed compliment to the protection of property rights can be found here, on YouTube.

Other speakers included Dr. James Lark, the former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, who noted that the Bill of Rights limits democracy while protecting individual liberties and human rights, and local entrepreneur Paul Perrone, who spoke about the importance of the Tenth Amendment.

The keynote speaker was Christopher Horner, a scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in energy and climate issues. Horner is the author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism). Given his field of expertise, naturally, he addressed how proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation -- whether Waxman-Markey, which passed the House of Representatives in June, or Kerry-Boxer, which is happily languishing in the U.S. Senate -- will adversely affect the civil liberties of Americans. As John Munchmeyer put it in his introduction of Mr. Horner, by regulating carbon dioxide as an evil pollutant, "I guess this bill is going to regulate life at its basic core," because CO2 is what humans exhale and what plants use to make oxygen.

Here are the speeches from today's Bill of Rights Day celebration in Charlottesville, divided into six segments:

Part I -- Reciting the Bill of Rights:

Part II - Remarks by Rob Schilling:

Part III -- Remarks by Rob Schilling (continued):

Part IV -- Remarks by Jim Lark:

Part V -- Remarks by Paul Perrone:

Part VI -- Remarks by Chris Horner:

You can see video of the Charlottesville Bill of Rights Day celebration of 2007 here, and Bill of Rights Day 2008 is here. (Update: I also found video from 2006, with further information about that year's event here.)

Update: The Daily Progress had a nice front-page photo of the event, featuring John Munchmeyer passing out copies of the Bill of Rights, in today's paper. It is not, of course, available on the Daily Progress web site. There is, however, a page one story about John Whitehead and Keith Olbermann.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter!

Choo-Choo Chugs Along

My post on October 2 about how Charlottesville-based travelers to Washington, D.C., have been flim-flammed by promoters of a new Amtrak train to the Nation's Capital has resulted in an invitation to be on the radio.

On Wednesday, October 28, from 12:05 to 1:00 p.m., I will be a guest on The Schilling Show on WINA-AM (1070 on the dial) in Charlottesville, to discuss passenger rail. John Pfaltz will also be on the show, to offer an alternate point of view.

I explained to the show's host, Rob Schilling, that I am not an expert on transportation policy and that I do not pretend to be such. But I'm willing to make my case that, as an individual, it is less expensive for me to travel to Washington by driving my own car than it is to purchase a round-trip ticket on Amtrak, the heavily-subsidized, federally-owned and -operated passenger rail company.

I may point out how British railroads improved markedly after Tony Blair's Labour government privatized them in the 1990s.

The show invites callers to ask questions and express their own points of view. I hope readers will take the opportunity to do that. Let Rob know you heard about the show on this blog, too!

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter!

Around the Blogosphere

Coinciding with his hosting of representatives of the Constitution Party, Libertarian Party, and Republican Party on his daily radio chat show on WINA-AM, Rob Schilling has posted a poll on The Schilling Show Blog asking:

With which political party philosophy do you most closely align?

Located on the right sidebar, the poll offers four choices -- the three parties mentioned above, plus the Democratic Party.

Over on Virginia Virtucon, Riley has uncovered a proposed piece of legislation sponsored by Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York (along with ten cosponsors) in the House and by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (and zero cosponsors) in the other chamber. The bill would incorporate "breastfeeding" into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a federally-protected civil right. It also includes quality control of breast pumps as a civil rights matter.

As Jack Paar might say, "I kid you not!" You can look up the bills on Thomas for proof: H.R. 2819 and S. 1244.

Norm Leahy asks at Tertium Quids whether charter schools could be the "big idea" that propels Bob McDonnell into the Governor's Mansion. Virginia has one of the weakest, most burdensome, and least expansive charter schools law in the country, so improving that situation would be a big boost for parents who want to choose better schools for their children, reducing bureaucratic red tape, and improving competition (and thus quality of output) in the government school system. Norm writes:

Could charters be the Big Idea? Possibly. If so, then we may be in for a campaign that actually engages in a wide-ranging debate on education reform -- a debate that Virginia has avoided for far too long.

At the Daily Beast, former President George W. Bush has a tribute to his father, former President George H.W. Bush, on the occasion of the latter's 85th birthday. (The tribute does not require any skydiving.) Bush 43 says about Bush 41:

I've lived with being "George Bush's son" all my life. Growing up, I probably didn't want to be like him. Today it's ironic that much of my career parallels his. He went to Yale. I went to Yale. He was a Navy pilot. I flew F-102s in the Texas Air National Guard. Now that I'm in political life, I like to say I've inherited half of his friends and all of his enemies. Of course, there will be some who will prejudge me, but that's OK: I don't expect to get all of the votes anyway. Being George Bush's son is a tremendous plus....

My dad and I continue to have an honest relationship, very straightforward. I considered him a mentor, not only as a young lad but also as an adult. And he's still a mentor today. I occasionally talk to him about policy matters. He has great judgment. I'm George Bush's son—and I think the world of him.

Warning: Many of the posted comments underneath the article are snarky and rude.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!

'Schilling Show' Host to Guest on 'Fox & Friends'

Local Charlottesville radio talk-show host Rob Schilling will be a guest on "Fox & Friends" later this morning on the Fox News Channel. The segment is set to air at 8:45 a.m. (Eastern Time).

Schilling, a former member of the Charlottesville City Council, is getting national attention for a post to his show's blog about an Albemarle County middle-school teacher who seems to be indoctrinating her students about politics, rather than teaching them about civics and government. Schilling's guest spot on "Fox & Friends" will anchor a discussion about the responsibilities of teachers to be evenhanded in their discussions of current issues.

His blogpost features photographs from Henley Middle School teacher Margie Shepherd's classroom and states:

Proudly promulgated in Mrs. Shepherd’s cultivation chamber, is a printed, bingo-like game piece mocking Republican Alaska Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. This derisive display, apparently acquired from the web site, Palin Bingo, ridicules Gov. Palin via association of her likeness with a number of traducing terms and by displaying a banner over her head, which reads, “AIR SPACE.”

How might this inappropriate and partisan political display affect the comfort level of any child in that classroom who happens to support Governor Palin and/or the Republican Party?

In addition to the insulting insinuation that Gov. Palin is an “airhead,” the same classroom is rife with “ecological,” “United Nations,” and “pacifist/peace” propaganda, all posted with no counterbalancing counsel for pupils’ perusal.

Quoting extensively from an Albemarle County school policy manual, Schilling concludes that Ms. Shepherd's teaching methods are at odds with the rules of the school division.

The story that Schilling broke on his blog (and that he has discussed briefly on his WINA-AM radio program) has already been covered by WCAV-TV in Charlottesville, not once, but twice.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!

Strict Scrutiny?

Local radio talk-show host Rob Schilling has an (intentionally) incendiary post on his recently launched blog, which asserts racially-based manipulation of Charlottesville's electoral system by the city's Democratic party establishment.

A supplement to a recent broadcast on WINA-AM on this issue, Schilling documents what he calls a "sordid" four-decade history of "engineered" nominations for City Council seats.

Schilling writes:

Since 1970, when the first African American was elected to Charlottesville City Council, whenever an African American was currently holding a City Council seat, Democrat African Americans who attempted to obtain a nomination from the Central Party leadership were denied. Recent examples of African Americans denied the Democratic Party leadership’s nomination during years when an African American either already was serving on Council or was running for re-election include David Simmons and Lelia Brown.

This strange pattern of succession does not appear to have happened by chance, and through the lens of statistical analysis, it seems engineered. In a March 12, 2004 discussion, a Democrat City Councilor stated that this curious pattern of succession was actually a designed “system of patronage,” wherein in 1980, after a two-year stretch of an all-white council, the local Democratic Party leadership made an agreement with the local African American community that assured one, guaranteed African American Council seat at all times.

Charlottesville Central Party Democrats’ partisan, at large elections scheme has made it easier for this “system of patronage” to occur as it enables white majority precincts to dominate and control electoral outcomes over the voting preferences of minority-majority precincts.

Schilling, himself a former City Council member (and one of only two Republicans elected to public office in Charlottesville in the past quarter-century) concludes:

The history delineated here should be a shame to all who have participated in and perpetuated racial manipulation in Charlottesville City Council elections. Sadly, iron-fisted, Byrd-inspired tactics continue to this day in Charlottesville.

The system can be righted rather easily, if not by ward-based elections, by non-partisan elections, which easily could be implemented by City Council through a change of the City charter.

The non-partisan election model, mandated for our Charlottesville School Board elections, has resulted in four African American candidates being elected in two election cycles, while only six African Americans ever have been elected to City Council in the nearly forty years since Charles Barbour first held office in 1970, under the (Democrat-favored) partisan nomination process.

The results of a non-partisan election process in Charlottesville would likely yield an all-Democrat City Council, but at least they would be the People’s Democrats, not the Party’s Democrats, unleashed from the fraud, corruption and racial manipulation that has characterized Charlottesville’s Central Party Democrats for decades.

Rob Schilling's blog entry includes a link to the podcast of the original "Schilling Show" exposition of these issues.

Read my blog on Kindle!

Charlottesville Election Official Training

With more than 28,000 registered voters this year (up from just over 21,000 four years ago), Charlottesville is gearing up for record turnout on Election Day, coming up in less than a fortnight.

As noted here previously, anticipating the higher number of voters and working to make voting as efficient and manageable as possible, the Electoral Board decided to buy new equipment to supplement the Hart Intercivic eSlate machines that have been used here since May 2002. The complementary eScan system uses paper ballots and a digital scanner to read and record the votes on them. Voters will have a choice whether to use the traditional electronic voting device (the eSlate) or the digitally-scanned paper ballot (the eScan).

In addition, we have purchased electronic pollbooks (EPBs) that promise to make the check-in process smoother than ever. With the entire citywide voter list on every laptop, we no longer have to divide the lines alphabetically -- no more "A-L" and "M-Z", because any voter can walk up to the first free position at what we call the "RVL table" ("RVL" means "registered voters list").

As a consequence of having the additional, new equipment and knowing that heavy turnout will bring with it new challenges, the Office of Voter Registration & Elections decided that it would be best to put a heavy emphasis on training of election officials (pollworkers) this year. Some level of training is required before every election, but this year we thought it best to assure as close to individual attention as possible.

Instead of one big session for all of the pollworkers from across the city, we divided them into four groups. In addition to the usual training for Chief Election Officers, Assistant Chiefs, and Closing Specialists, we also have had separate training sessions for election officers from (1) Recreation and Clark precincts, (2) Walker and Carver precincts, (3) Jefferson Park and Tonsler precincts, and (4) Venable and Alumni Hall precincts. (Venable is now our largest precinct, as measured by number of registered voters, with more than 5,600 and surpassing traditionally largest Recreation.) Moreover, new election officers have been required to attend special training sessions in the registrar's office.

Tonight was the training session for Jefferson Park and Tonsler, held at the Carter Family Life Center on Cherry Avenue, which also serves as the polling place for Jefferson Park precinct. I snapped a few photos with my cell phone to record the event for posterity.



















Update: I will be a guest on "The Schilling Show" on WINA radio (1070 AM) on Monday, October 27, to talk about what to expect on Election Day in Charlottesville -- not just the expected large turnout but also the new voting equipment and streamlined procedures for voter check-in with the EPBs. My segment will be on sometime during the 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. broadcast with host Rob Schilling. If you can't tune in, there will be a podcast available soon after the program has been aired.

Kiwi TV Focuses on Charlottesville

International interest in the U.S. presidential election is piqued, as anyone who has traveled abroad recently or who has read the foreign press knows.

Even in countries that have their own elections this year, people want to know what's going on in the United States.

This week, that interest focused on Charlottesville, when a crew from Television New Zealand came to our town to examine politics in a swing state that might help determine the outcome of the race between Barack Obama and John McCain.

In this video clip, New York-based correspondent Tim Wilson interviewed Albemarle County Supervisor David Slutzky and former Charlottesville City Councilor Rob Schilling, as well as Cordel Faulk of the UVA Center for Politics:

Of course, this isn't the first time that a foreign TV network has come to Charlottesville to gain insights on American politics.




Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!

Bill Redpath Visits Charlottesville - Part I

Bill Redpath, the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, made two appearances in Charlottesville on Thursday. The first appearance was as a guest of local talk-show host Rob Schilling on WINA-AM's "The Schilling Show" between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. Redpath used that as an opportunity to promote his speech that night at the University of Virginia, and to answer questions from Schilling -- a former member of the Charlottesville City Council -- and from the radio audience.

The night before, Redpath had been at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, participating in a forum with Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr (a former congressman from Georgia). For his part, Barr had also been a guest (by telephone) on "The Schilling Show" on Wednesday. (For a podcast of Rob Schilling's interview with Bob Barr, look here and scroll down.)

In his comments on the radio, Redpath noted that he had put about 4,000 miles on his car already this month, and that, when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2001, he traveled 7,000 miles during the last month of the campaign, without ever reading the Commonwealth.

The Cavalier Daily reported on Redpath's address at UVA, which was sponsored by the University Libertarians. CavDaily associate editor Emily Poe covered the event and wrote in today's edition:

The core of his platform, Redpath explained, focuses on reducing of the general scope of the federal government. He noted that for the nation to move forward successfully federal officials must reduce spending on a “long list of things.”

Scaled back federal involvement in areas like education, which Redpath said should be handled by state, local and private institutions, was also echoed in other aspects of Redpath’s platform, including national security.

Redpath said national security is — and will always be — one of the most vital issues facing the United States. Contrary to how some other politicians might address security concerns, however, Redpath said he believes the best way to secure the nation’s borders and take care of external military affairs is to practice “non-interventionist” foreign policy.

“I think that certainly getting the U.S. military out of Iraq is a no-brainer,” Redpath said.

Redpath said extending such a non-interventionist policy to more native concerns, such as the economy and pressing social concerns, is also needed.

“The U.S. should unilaterally drop its trade barriers, to bring other nations of the world into a great capitalist peace,” Redpath said, noting that he is a proponent of unrestrained free trade.

“Free trade is a pro-consumer policy and that’s the only thing we all are, we’re all consumers,” Redpath said.

What follows, in four segments, is Redpath's interview on "The Schilling Show" committed to video. (For an audio podcast, check out WINA's newly revamped web site.)

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

The second part of this short series on Bill Redpath's visit to Charlottesville will feature video from his speech at the University of Virginia, including about a half-hour of Q&A dialogue with audience members.