The following news release was received from the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia (LPNOVA). It was distributed by Reston resident Steve Resz.
The Board of the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia has passed the following Resolution: “The Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia (LPNOVA) supports passage of S. 446, H.R.38, and H.R. 2209, people with lawful concealed carry status from other states the same status as lawful in-state concealed carriers.”
On June 14, 2017, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three other people were wounded when a gunman opened fire on members of the Republican congressional baseball team as they were practicing on a field in Alexandria, Virginia. In a life and death situation where seconds count, Alexandria police officers arrived “only” three minutes after the first 911 call was received and logged. [1. NBC News]
Luckily for Scalise and the others, two Capitol Police from D.C. were present and quickly returned the gunman’s fire – one of whom was wounded in the firefight. [2. New York Times]
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told CNN shortly after the dramatic incident that, “Nobody [of the defenseless Congressman, Senators, and aides present] would have survived without the Capitol Hill police … it would have been a massacre without them." According to Senator Paul, “I probably heard 50 to 60 shots. Then, finally, we heard the response from the Capitol Hill police."[3. The Hill]
Many people have the impression that our Representatives and Senators are routinely protected by Capitol Police when they are away from the Capitol grounds. They are not. Only the Congressional “leadership” gets such personal, gun-carrying protection. If Majority Whip Scalise had not been a member of the baseball team, there would have been no Capitol Police present.
One might ask themselves: “Don’t important people like that – or their aides/bodyguards – routinely carry concealed weapons for their protection?” The answer is yes. Some do – but only in their home state. However, in this specific case they didn’t because that would have made them criminals. Why? Because the District of Columbia has some of the most restrictive “gun control” laws in the country – and has no reciprocity with any other jurisdiction anywhere in the nation.[4. D.C. Gun Law]
Therefore, if any of the Congresspeople at the baseball practice did have a concealed carry permit from their home state, and brought a self-defense weapon with them to D.C. they would be violating the law - or any of the Democrat team who had practiced earlier in the morning.
As Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) noted, “We had nothing but bats to defend ourselves.”
Therefore, the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia (LPNOVA) supports passage of H.R. 2209 which would guarantee reciprocity for concealed carry permits specifically in the District of Columbia [3. The Hill]
But why should only our elected representatives be able to protect themselves? What about the citizens who elect them? Don’t they also deserve the right to self-defense guaranteed by the second amendment when they travel to another state or the federal District of Columbia? Of course they do. That’s why LPNOVA also supports passage of S.446 and H.R.38 both of which would allow legal gun owners and concealed carry license holders nationwide to responsibly arm themselves no matter where they are. [3. The Hill][4. NRA-ILA]
Steve Resz, LPNOVA Chair, said, “Citizens shouldn’t lose their second amendment right to self-defense when they travel outside their home state. The U.S. Constitution says, ‘Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.’ Your marriage license doesn’t become invalid when you travel outside your home state, and neither should your concealed carry license.”
What is the DREAM Act, and why is it important? A conversation with Claire Gastañaga
September 5, 2010 9:05 PM MST
At Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s town hall meeting in Harrisonburg on August 26, one of the questions from the audience was posed by a young lady wearing an academic mortarboard.
According to the Harrisonburg Times, the questioner was Isabel Castillo, a magna cum laude graduate of Eastern Mennonite University. Castillo identified herself as an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the United States as a 6-year-old child. She asked McDonnell whether he supports the DREAM Act; he said he does not.
The DREAM Act (an acronym of the title of the Senate version of the bill, S. 729, the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act”) would help regularize the immigration status of undocumented students.
The day after McDonnell’s town hall, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner spoke with Claire Gastañaga, a Richmond-based attorney and self-described “immigrant advocate,” who was attending the weekly Fridays After Five concert at the Charlottesville Pavilion.
‘Expedited path’
“What the DREAM Act does,” she explained, is to allow “an expedited path for children who were brought here by their parents, who made no decision on their own to come here, to regularize their status, to become legal by becoming full participants in our society and preparing themselves to make a meaningful contribution.”
The legislation, she said, “would allow somebody who had been to public schools in the United States, who had grown up here for a period of time, but who was technically not here with [legal] authority, to make commitments and make certain pledges and then be able to go to college and become fully functioning parts of our community and our society by becoming legal permanent residents and ultimately opening the door to citizenship.”
The proposed law would not create “reverse-chain migration” that would permit the affected students to serve as an anchor for other members of their families seeking to immigrate to the United States.
‘Live the American dream’
Most of those for whom the law would apply “have been paying taxes because they’ve been in the community,” explained Gastañaga. “They have strong connections. Many of them came here when they were 2 or 3 years old. They speak English. They have no affinity for their prior country. They consider themselves Americans. What it does is allow them to actually become Americans and to live the American dream.”
Passage of the DREAM Act has been held up because both sides in the immigration debate – those who want stricter laws and those who want more liberalized laws – have deferred action on it in favor of the types of comprehensive immigration reform that they prefer.
‘Being held hostage’
The bill has been “caught up in this kind of all or nothing environment,” Gastañaga lamented. “It’s being held hostage because some people think it’s so attractive for bipartisan support that it’s somehow a carrot to bring people into the conversation who wouldn’t otherwise participate.”
Gastañaga thinks “that’s a mistake,” mentioning that the DREAM Act is falling between the cracks just like the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act (HR 1136) and a proposal for agricultural jobs.
Both sides are responsible for this delay, she said.
“The Hispanic Caucus won’t let anything go forward if it’s not comprehensive, and the folks on the other side won’t let anything go forward unless it includes their secure borders” features of comprehensive reform. “So everybody’s holding these things hostage,” she said.
Bipartisan support
Neither of Virginia’s senators (Jim Webb and Mark Warner) have cosponsored the DREAM Act. The House version of the bill (known as the American Dream Act, HR 1751) has only one cosponsor from Virginia, Representative Jim Moran (D-VA8). Both bills have bipartisan support.
GOP cosponsors in the House include Joseph Cao (R-LA2) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL18). Senate Republican cosponsors include Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Nicole Allan, writing for Atlantic.com, called the DREAM Act “An Immigration Measure Republicans Could Get Behind.”
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 3, 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.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 12, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was 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.
Virginia General Assembly passes bipartisan bills to legalize industrial hemp
“The United States is the largest consumer of hemp products in the world,” says Virginia libertarian activist Nicholas Cote, “but it is the only industrialized country that prohibits farmers from growing hemp.”
Despite this, Cote is optimistic that change is on the horizon. Last week, both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly approved bills to allow the licensed cultivation of industrial hemp, following the lead of legislatures in Kentucky and North Dakota. The bill in the House of Delegates (HB 1277), sponsored by Del. Joseph Yost (R-Blacksburg), passed on a vote of 98-0. The Senate bill (SB 955)sponsored by state Senator Roz Dance (D-Petersburg), passed on a vote of 32-5.
In a recent interview, Cote -- who heads up the advocacy group, Right Way Forward Virginia -- told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner that the bipartisan nature of the support for these bills is heartening, but he is disappointed that Virginia's congressional delegation has not stepped up to the plate.
Currently, he explained, the federal government permits the growing of hemp only on a limited basis – largely for research purposes. Last month, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) introduced the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2015” which would exempt industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The bill has 52 cosponsors but none of them are from Virginia.
During World War II, growing hemp on American farms was encouraged by the government as part of the national war effort, Cote said. “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, and it was one of the first crops planted by the colonists at Jamestown.”
Hemp production is prohibited as a result of the nationwide, multi-decade war on drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) opposes widespread growing of hemp because, as part of the cannabis family, it can be mistaken for marijuana, even though it cannot be smoked or used as a narcotic.
Broad support
The Virginia legislature's action has found a broad range of support.
In a press release, Chase Milner of the Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition, said that Yost's and Dance's bills had bridged the partisan divide in favor of “common sense cannabis policy reform.” He added that “not only will cultivating hemp greatly benefit America’s economy, it will also bring with it real, tangible environmental benefits.”
Virginia farmer and agricultural activist Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm has said that he is "a huge fan of hemp. I think we should quit calling it hemp and just call it the best plant ever."
In an editorial, the Charlottesville Daily Progress noted that advocates of the Virginia bills “have made compelling arguments that hemp is a useful plant and that its cultivation could allow Virginia to further diversify its agricultural base,” and concluded that “barring equally compelling arguments — which have yet to emerge — against the proposal, we’re inclined to let the commonwealth launch its research on the plant and prepare for the day when commercial cultivation can commence.”
Cote said that there may be minor adjustments necessary before one of the industrial hemp bills reaches Governor Terry McAuliffe's desk, but he is confident that Virginia's governor will sign it and make it law.
SUGGESTED LINKS
Ken Cuccinelli clarifies remarks on marijuana legalization as federalism issue
GOP lieutenant governor candidate E. W. Jackson 'certainly used marijuana'
Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith clarifies aim of his medical marijuana bill
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring highlights opposition to drug-law reform
Drug-law reformer Lennice Werth reacts to Charlottesville marijuana vote Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-general-assembly-passes-bipartisan-bills-to-legalize-industrial-hemp
An article in the print edition of the Washington Post on Sunday, July 27 (p. C5), includes three glaring errors that would have resulted in a failing grade on an elementary school history test, yet only one of them has been subsequently corrected on the newspaper's web site.
The article, written by Ileana Najarro with a print-edition headline "Wolf is making his last push for holiday," explains how retiring U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA10) is advancing legislation that would make Washington's Birthday a federal holiday celebrated on the actual date of his birth, February 22, rather than floating each year on the third Monday in February.
One of Najarro's errors relates to how the holiday came to be celebrated on a date other than February 22:
President Rutherford B. Hayes established Washington’s birthday in 1879 as a holiday for the District’s federal workers, Wolf said. The holiday was extended to all federal workers six years later, but it wasn’t until 1971 that it was moved to the third Monday of February as part of President Gerald Ford’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act.
Gerald Ford did not become President until August 1974. The law was passed when Lyndon Johnson was President. Johnson signed it on June 28, 1968, and it took effect January 1, 1971, when Richard Nixon was President. Ford did sign a bill in 1975 that amended the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to restore Veterans' Day commemorations to November 11, regardless of its day of the week.
A second error, also not corrected, misplaces the origins of George Washington:
Sitting in his office, [Wolf] spoke of his geographical connection to the first president: Both were originally from Philadelphia, and both have held office in Winchester.
It used to be said that "every schoolboy knows" some fact about U.S. history. One such fact is that George Washington came from Virginia. He was born in the Northern Neck, in Westmoreland County near Fredericksburg. In later years, Washington made his home at Mount Vernon, just down the Potomac River from the city that bears his name. As a military officer, Washington did maintain an office in Winchester during the 1750s in a building that still stands near Cork and Braddock Streets.
Washington also served his country in Philadelphia, presiding over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and moving there from New York as President before the capital was established in its present location.
The sole error that was corrected reads, in the print edition, like this:
Although the holiday is still recognized as Washington's Birthday, it's come to be known as Presidents' Day, with several states honoring all presidents at once. Wolf said he abhors this "hijacking" because Washington's birthday is honored equally with that of President Richard M. Nixon, who was impeached.
The Post's correction of this error appears at the top of the page on its web site:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that President Nixon was impeached. He resigned before he could be impeached. This version has been corrected.
The "corrected" paragraph says that Nixon "resigned in disgrace."
So... Where were the copy editors? How did sloppiness like this make it through the Metro section's editorial process? Will the other errors also merit corrections in print or on the Post's web site?
In 2006, Virginia voters approved an addition to the state's constitution intended to prohibit same-sex marriage and anything similar to it within the Commonwealth, including marriages that were legally contracted in other states or foreign countries.
Known as the "Marshall-Newman Amendment" after its two principal patrons, Delegate Bob Marshall and state Senator Steve Newman, the ballot measure became Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution, reading:
That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.
(Section 15 is entitled, "Qualities necessary to preservation of free government." If you're puzzled as to how a ban on gay marriage fits into that category, you're not alone.)
One of the big issues under consideration by the General Assembly in its 2014 session is ethics reform, sparked by last year's revelations about questionable and large gifts made to former Governor Bob McDonnell and his family by former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams.
It happens that Delegate Bob Marshall -- the same Bob Marshall who sponsored the anti-marriage provision of the Virginia Constitution -- has introduced a bill that expands the categories of familial relationships that should be affected by ethics rules. Basically, if a person falls within one of these categories, that person is subject to limits on gifts based upon the individual's relationship to an officeholder.
In HB 15, Marshall proposes this new clause amending § 2.2-3117, § 30-111, of the Code of Virginia:
For purposes of reporting gifts pursuant to Item 5 and Schedule E, "immediate family" also includes (a) the officer's or employee's or his spouse's parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, and sister and (b) any person with whom the officer or employee has been habitually cohabiting in a relationship analogous to a marriage.
The Marshall-Newman Amendment, now part of the Virginia Constitution, states clearly that the Commonwealth "shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage."
Rick Sincere (left) and Bob Marshall, April 2012
Yet Marshall wants to extend ethics law to cover people "in a relationship analogous to a marriage."
Relationships "analogous to a marriage" have no standing under Virginia law, in large part because Bob Marshall wanted them to have no such standing.
Now Bob Marshall wants to give such relationships legal status for purpose of ethics legislation.
Does Marshall want to have it both ways? Either relationships "analogous to a marriage" exist under Virginia law, or they don't.
If individuals are subject to equal treatment under the law in one case -- that is, limiting their ability to accept gifts because they are in a relationship with a public servant -- shouldn't they also be treated equally in all cases?
If Delegate Marshall is trying to set a precedent that will upend his own amendment to the Constitution, we should welcome it. If he wants to recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships among gay couples, he should say so clearly and persuade the General Assembly to change the laws restricting such relationships across the board.
Of course, it could be that Delegate Marshall is oblivious to how HB 15 contravenes Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution, though I doubt it. He's far too intelligent and clever for that to be the case.
Here's a reminder of Marshall's stance on gay marriage, when he was running for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2012, answering a question about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) along with George Allen, E.W. Jackson, and Jamie Radtke:
So here's the question: Has Bob Marshall had a change of heart? Is he now open to gay relationships being recognized under the law but too shy to say so?
What do you think? Leave comments below or tweet your thoughts to me at @rick_sincere.
This was not my only recent encounter with elected officials. In the past two weeks or so, I have had the opportunity to conduct interviews with several other Virginia policymakers, including Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, State Senator Mark Obenshain, Delegate Harvey Morgan, and Delegate David Toscano.
My interview with Attorney General Cuccinelli resulted in at least four articles on Examiner.com.
The first addressed what, at the time, was Topic A in the national conversation, the shooting of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and several others in Tucson. Six people were killed by alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner in that incident.
Cuccinelli said that he has “been watching the information that’s rolled out about” Saturday’s events and that it is natural to ask, “What else could we have done?”
That question, he continued, “walks me right into a lot of the mental health work that I’ve done over the years. I’m still looking at Loughner’s history to see what sort of parallels there are to experiences we’ve had in Virginia, tragically” – referring to the Virginia Tech shootings of April 2007 – “and what sort of systems that, if in place, might have caught and treated this guy.”
In what turned out to be a supplement to an earlier interview I conducted with Maria Everett, executive director of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, Cuccinelli spoke to me about his support for a strong FOIA statute and system in Virginia. He expressed concern about proposals to eliminate the FOIA Council.
In "Va. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli talks about Freedom of Information," published on January 14, Cuccinelli responded to the recommendation of Governor Bob McDonnell's government reform commission that the FOIA Council -- which only has two staff members yet processes upwards of 1,800 inquiries each year -- be cut:
“Obviously,” he said, “I think that to have a robust FOIA you need some central clearinghouse, so if there’s going to be a substitute, which I don’t really see right now, I think their notion is that every agency will just handle its own.”
The commission suggested that the Office of the Attorney General could handle inquiries and disputes about FOIA matters, but Cuccinelli ruled that out as a realistic possibility.
“That’s a natural fallback,” he conceded, “because everybody would then turn to us and say, ‘Do I have to do a, b, or c?’ That’s got its problems.”
Cuccinelli also talked about government transparency more generally, and the need to provide access to budget information to citizens on a ready basis.
It turns out that state Senator Ralph Smith has proposed a rule to make the state budget available on line for scrutiny by both legislators and citizens for at least 72 hours before either chamber of the General Assembly may vote on it.
“I learned doing the transparency work” in the General Assembly, Cuccinelli said, that “there’s a logistical hurdle to the kind of transparency I’d like to see, which is immediate, on-line, from your desk, in your office” access to government information.
“Half our state government,” the Attorney General explained, “is still not on what you and I would call anything approaching modern databases.”
As a consequence, he said, Virginia citizens “can’t plug into the databases and make available that information on the web, because -- I jokingly say -- they’re still using punch cards.”
Joking aside, he said, about half of state agencies are actually “just above that level. I’m sure they’re not happy about it either.”
In the final excerpt from our lengthy interview, "Va. Att'y Gen'l Ken Cuccinelli endorses curbs on eminent domain in constitution," published on January 20, Cuccinelli noted his support for an amendment that will enshrine protections for private property owners in the Virginia Constitution. (The constitutional amendment has been patroned by both Delegate Rob Bell [R-Albemarle] and Delegate Johnny Joannou [D-Portsmouth], with a bipartisan list of copatrons.)
The Virginia Attorney General addressed how the Bell-Joannou amendment -- which has to pass two sessions of the General Assembly with an intervening election before being put to the voters as a referendum for their approval -- strengthens protections against eminent domain abuse:
Cuccinelli went on to explain that he and his colleagues have “been working for months on good language that will address four different issues.”
The first issue is “proper damages to people whose property is taken.”
The second is “requiring the government entities taking property to prove that it’s going to be put to a public use.”
The third is limiting those entities “to take no more than is absolutely necessary for the achievement of the public use.”
The fourth issue is “not treating such things that we typically refer to as the ‘Kelo elements’” – such as “economic development, increasing tax base, those kinds of things" -- as rationale for a taking.
The proposed amendments, Cuccinelli said, “eliminate those constitutionally as possibilities for legitimate – by ‘legitimate.’ I mean legally allowable by a court – explanations for a taking for a public use."
Speaking of eminent domain abuse, I spoke to two members of the General Assembly about that issue: my own representative, Delegate David Toscano (D-57), and state Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg). Obenshain has his own proposal for a constitutional amendment, and Toscano opposes putting these protections in the constitution.
“We did a lot on eminent domain three or four years ago,” he said, when a bill “that ultimately I didn’t feel all that good about” was approved. Despite his own misgivings, he added, “it’s what the legislature wanted and so it got passed.”
This year, he noted, “we hear renewed efforts to make it a constitutional amendment. I’m very leery about that. I’m not going to support it.”
Not just the eminent domain proposals, he said, “I’m very leery about amending the constitution, anyway.”
In the same interview, Toscano spoke about his own efforts to improve government transparency through two bills that he has introduced.
For his part, Senator Obenshain -- whom I interviewed last year on the topic of ABC privatization -- talked about his strong support for including property rights in the Virginia Constitution.
Senator Obenshain went on the record with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner and spelled out what his constitutional amendment would do.
The resolution “basically codifies the statutory language that we adopted two years ago” in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. City of New London (2005). “It prevents the economic development/employment-type of eminent domain exercises that have been subject to abuse across the commonwealth of Virginia. It gives us the opportunity to memorialize that [language] in the Constitution so that it can’t just be undermined by efforts of the General Assembly in years to come.”
Finally, I should note that last Monday I spoke to the criminal law subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice Committee in favor of HB 1443, Delegate Harvey Morgan's bill to decriminalize simple possession of marijuana. Nobody spoke against the bill but the subcommittee, chaired by Delegate Rob Bell, killed it on a voice vote without raising an argument one way or the other.
After the vote, I spoke with Delegate Morgan, an elfin octogenarian, conservative Republican, and retired pharmacist who last year endured ridicule over his marijuana-reform proposals, yet persevered this year. He told me, in "Disappointment as Va. House subcommittee votes to keep pot possession a crime," also published on January 17 (which happened to be Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, a federal and state holiday):
“The bill I introduced,” Morgan explained, “would have made the simple possession of marijuana [subject to] a civil penalty and not a criminal penalty.”
Saying he was not advocating marijuana usage “at all,” Morgan went on to say ruefully that today, if a person is arrested – “even if it’s set aside” under the first offender law in Virginia -- the arrest and conviction are “always on your record as an arrest for a drug offense.”
As a result, he said, “anyone who has that on a record finds that it is an absolute barrier to employment for a commercial driver’s license, to work in a health care profession, to be a teacher.” In many jobs that require security clearances, he added, “they do a background check and up pops a drug offense and they just cannot hire you.”
Weather permitting -- forecasters indicate there may be a big storm coming up the East Coast on Tuesday and Wednesday -- I will be in Richmond next week, with opportunities to speak to other legislators. Stay tuned.
Under the circumstances, it seems both odd and wrong to chide Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell for being two-faced, especially given that I like the result.
Today Governor McDonnell reversed his long-held position that only the General Assembly possesses the authority to add "sexual orientation" to the list of categories protected against discrimination in state government employment. After having, as Virginia's Attorney General, advised his predecessor that an executive order extending employment protections to gay and lesbian Virginians with state jobs was not permitted under the law, McDonnell today issued a similar -- if not stronger -- executive order doing precisely that.
McDonnell's order comes on the heels of a widely-criticized letter sent by the new attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, which told state colleges and universities that they could not include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies -- neither formal nor informal policies.
I'm divided on this issue because, as far as Virginia statutes go, Attorney General McDonnell was right on the law and wrong on policy. Now Governor McDonnell is wrong on the law and right on policy. I believe, as Attorney General McDonnell did, that the General Assembly had to act in order to expand Virginia's employment non-discrimination protections.
It's a mixed bag, to say the least.
A few weeks ago, I testified before the state Senate's Committee on General Laws and Technology in favor of SB66, a bill introduced by Senator Donald McEachin that would have added sexual orientation to the protected categories. I noted then that "there is no rational justification" for excluding sexual orientation from a broad anti-discrimination policy. Indeed, the committee members who voted "nay" offered no argument to explain their votes.
That bill later passed the state Senate -- a historic first for this type of legislation -- but it was killed in a House subcommittee, again with no Delegates offering an argument against it.
Just before that House vote, I spoke at a news conference at the State Capitol, along with Senator McEachin, Delegate Adam Ebbin (D-49), and other supporters of the bill. You can see the complete event below. (My remarks come in the second segment.)
In Part I, Jon Blair of Equality Virginia introduces the first speaker, former Secretary of Administration Viola Baskerville and offers some remarks of his own. This segment also includes remarks by Glen Pond of the Virginia Governmental Employees Association and Patricia W. Cummins of the American Association of University Professors.
My remarks (representing the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia) open the second segment (Part II), which also includes comments by Andres Tobar of the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations; Irving Taylor of AARP Virginia; Ben Greenberg of the Virginia Organizing Project; Falls Church city council member Lawrence Webb; and Delegate Adam Ebbin. Note that I make clear that, if SB66 applied to the private sector as well as the public sector, I would oppose it -- as would the RLC-Virginia.
In Part III, State Senator Donald McEachin (D-9), chief patron of Senate Bill 66, speaks to a gathering of journalists and activists to explain why the bill is needed. McEachin answers questions from the Associated Press, Virginian-Pilot, and other news organizations. The news conference ends with a few announcements by Jon Blair of Equality Virginia.
In his answer to a question, McEachin took a cheap shot at Governor McDonnell, suggesting that he had created an atmosphere conducive to protests by the virulently anti-gay (and clearly insane) members of the Westboro Baptist Church (the people behind godhatesfags.com). This was uncalled for, since the Phelps clan also held protests in Virginia during the administrations of Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, often demonstrating at the funerals of soldiers who lost their lives in service to our country.
Getting back to today's announcement by Governor McDonnell, it's noteworthy that he asserts in his executive directive that the rights of lesbian and gay people are protected by the U.S. Constitution. He says:
The Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution prohibits discrimination without a rational basis against any class of persons.
(Andrew Sullivan may have been the first to point this out, but others may have mentioned it, as well.)
Bearing Drift -- which first reported the story about the new McDonnell administration policy -- has posted excerpts of a news release from Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who as Virginia's new "job creation czar" has a particular concern for issues like this. Bolling said:
“While various federal and state statutes set forth certain classifications in which employment related discrimination is prohibited as a matter of law, our policy and practice will be much broader than this. All state employees should take comfort in knowing that we will not tolerate employment related discrimination in any form or for any reason, including sexual orientation.”
What is troubling is the terse response by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who -- if you read between the lines -- seems to have no intention of enforcing the governor's executive directive. Here is the complete comment by Cuccinelli:
I applaud Governor McDonnell for the tone he is setting for the Commonwealth of Virginia. I will remain in contact with the Governor and continue to work with him on issues important to Virginians. I expect Virginia’s state employees to follow all state and federal anti-discrimination laws and will enforce Virginia’s laws to the fullest extent.
Since neither state nor federal law recognizes "sexual orientation" as a category subject to employment non-discrimination protection, then Cuccinelli can "enforce Virginia's laws to the fullest extent" without including gay and lesbian employees in that protective umbrella. His words sound expansive but, in fact, they offer nothing more than his -- and the previous Bob McDonnell's -- insistence that only the General Assembly can add sexual orientation as an anti-discrimination category.
As I noted before his election as governor, Bob McDonnell has matured on issues regarding gay and lesbian Virginians since his notorious reply to a reporter that he could "not recall" whether he had ever engaged in oral sex (or any violation of Section 18.2-361 of the Code of Virginia -- still on the books despite Lawrence v. Texas).
Although I agree that Virginia statutes do not currently allow an expansive sort of non-discrimination policy for Virginia state employees, I believe this is a quirk in the law that should be scrutinized and reversed. For me, the legal standard should not be "unless it is permitted, it is prohibited." Notwithstanding the General Assembly's pride of place in the making of policy, the standard should be: "Anything not prohibited is permitted."
In his new executive order, Governor McDonnell acknowledges that latter, and better, standard. Let's hope his legal judgment -- as Governor, not as Attorney General -- holds up in both the court of public opinion and the courts of law.
Update: There is a distinction between an "executive directive," which is what Governor McDonnell issued with regard to sexual-orientation non-discrimination policy, and an "executive order." An "executive directive," first used by Governor (now Senator) Mark Warner is a statement of policy without the force of law. An "executive order" has the force of law. The difference between the two provides McDonnell with the wiggle-room he needs to deny that he has reversed the position he held as Attorney General. Reporter Rosalind Helderman has a more complete explanation in Friday's Washington Post.
Also, it is noteworthy that McDonnell's decision is coming under attack from the religious right, including the Virginia Family Foundation, Delegate Bob Marshall, and one-time lieutenant governor candidate Michael Farris. This suggests that McDonnell issued his directive cognizant of the political risk of alienating part of his base, something for which he deserves credit.
Side note: Victoria Cobb of the Family Foundation coins a new word in her news release: "unimmutable." Kind of like non-unchanging, I suppose. Here's the quotation, which was distributed by email in a FF "Information Alert" yesterday but does not appear to have been posted on the Family Foundation's web site:
We absolutely agree with one statement in Governor McDonnell’s directive – that state employment should be based on “qualifications, merit and performance,” regardless of one’s immutable or unimmutable characteristics.
We hear a lot of complaints that legislators -- whether Members of Congress or representatives in state houses from Juneau to Tallahassee -- are more partisan today than in the past, that politics is more polarized than it has ever been before.
Those who complain point to the lack of action in Congress on big-ticket issues like health care or climate change legislation ("cap and trade"). Liberal Democrats accuse conservative Republicans of obstructionism today, just as Harry Truman did in 1948 when he criticized the "Do-Nothing" Congress of blocking his plans for nationalizing the health care system. (Plus ça change...)
Personally, I think these back-and-forth accusations about renewed or worsened partisanship are off the mark. For one thing, policy differences between the major political parties go back to the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. Why else would Americans split up into two parties? (Or more, of course: there are as many differences between the Libertarians and the Greens as there are between Libertarians and Republicans, or Libertarians and Democrats, or Greens and Republicans, ad permutatium.)
So much of the cloud of partisanship is based on heated rhetoric (more heat, less light, in most cases) that it is difficult to discern how accurate and justified the grousing about it actually is.
Now some movement toward a more-or-less objective measurement of partisanship has emerged on the excellently useful web site, Richmond Sunlight, which tracks legislation in the Virginia General Assembly. (It does much more than that, but legislative tracking is its major service.)
Richmond Sunlight's founder and designer, Waldo Jaquith, has devised a tool that shows how partisan Virginia Delegates and Senators are, based upon the co-sponsors ("co-patrons" in Virginia legislative parlance) of the bills they introduce and/or co-patron.
While the measurement isn't on a conservative-to-liberal scale, and while it has its own constraints, it offers a picture of which legislators reach across the aisle to seek cooperation in arguing for bills they care about, and which ones stick mostly to their own party. It asks the question, Do Republican and Democratic birds of a feather flock together? The answer, while necessarily incomplete, comes pretty close to being ... yes and no.
You can see Waldo's tool here: http://www.richmondsunlight.com/legislators/detailed/. Click the box for "partisanship" and you'll see blue-to-purple-to-red graphs that indicate how "Republican" or "Democrat" each Delegate or Senator is. Click on the word "Partisanship" at the top of the column and the graphs will rearrange themselves into blue-to-red order.
The data used to produce these graphs goes back to 2006 (the launch of Richmond Sunlight), so newly elected legislators have their partisanship judged on a much smaller database than the veterans.
You'll discover some interesting and unexpected results.
For instance, the newest Democrat (Kaye Kory) and one of the newest Republicans (John Cox) are the most partisan members of the House of Delegates.
It may be no surprise that two veteran legislators from Arlington, Delegate Adam Ebbin and Senator Mary Margaret Whipple, are the most partisan Democrats in their respective chambers (besides the aforementioned freshman, Kaye Kory).
Waldo, one of Virginia's most experienced political bloggers, deserves commendation for compiling this data and creating a graphic presentation that is easily comprehensible. This will be a useful tool for years to come.
Congressman Flake Releases Statement Regarding His Vote Against Honoring the 2560th Birthday of Confucius
Washington, D.C., Oct 28 - Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today released the following statement regarding his vote against H.Res.784, a bill “honoring the 2560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius and recognizing his invaluable contributions to philosophy and social and political thought.”
“He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill,” said Flake.
Today is the anniversary of the day in 1787 that the Framers of the United States Constitution signed the document and sent it on to the states for ratification.
On Monday, September 14, the House of Representatives passed a resolution (H.Res. 686) urging that:
(1) all high school seniors across the country should spend at least one week learning about the United States Constitution in September of their senior year, as knowledge of this historic document, which constitutes the very foundation of our country, is critical to being an effective citizen; and
(2) upon reaching voting age, high school seniors should engage in civic learning activities on an issue of importance to them to demonstrate their understanding of their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the United States.
Ironically, the resolution, introduced by Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL8) and cosponsored by 222 others, itself contains a glaring error of historical fact. Can you catch it in this "whereas" clause?
Whereas a 1998 survey revealed that more teenagers knew who the `Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' was than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, more knew the star of the motion picture `Titanic' than who was the vice president of the United States, and more can name the Three Stooges and the 3 American Idol judges than can name the 3 branches of government;
(I'll fill you in: A "1998 survey" could not have included information about the three American Idol judges because American Idol did not premiere on U.S. television until June 2002.)
As well-intentioned as H.Res. 686 may be, a far more important bill, H.R. 450 (and its companion bill in the Senate, S. 1319), has been languishing with no action in either chamber.
Introduced by Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ3) and cosponsored by 51 others, H.R. 450 would "require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws." Specifically, it says:
`Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. The availability of this point of order does not affect any other available relief.'
The Senate version, introduced by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and cosponsored by 21 others, is slightly different. It says:
Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise explanation of the specific constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. The availability of this point of order does not affect any other available relief.
S. 1319 also includes a provision for limiting debate according to Senate rules.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate on June 23, Senator Coburn explained the rationale of the Enumerated Powers Act:
The whole purpose behind this bill is to say when you write a bill in this Congress and any Congress that follows it, you have to know in that bill where you get the authority in the Constitution to spend this money or to authorize this program. You can still introduce a bill without it, but it creates a point of order that says a Senator can challenge that bill on the basis of what the Constitution says because you have not clearly stated in this new piece of legislation where you get the authority as a Member of the Senate to author it when, in fact, it is outside the authority given to us under the Constitution. The bill then sets up a debate on which the Senate will have to vote. I am not so naive as to believe I will win a whole lot of those, but I know I will win something, because the American people want to hear that debate, and that debate is something they are not hearing today.
They are not hearing our justifications why we can take freedom away and we can make a bigger, more powerful Federal Government that is going to borrow more money from their children to spend on things we don't need, money we don't have. The American people are entitled to hear the reasoning behind why we know so much better than they do, and to hear the reasoning why we can ignore the wisdom of our Founders in terms of our ability to grow the Federal Government.
The Federal Government is far too big and far too removed from people's lives today. That is why we are feeling this rumble out in the country....
This bill, S. 1319, requires that each act of Congress shall contain a concise explanation of the authority, the specific constitutional authority under which this bill would be enacted. What it does is makes Congress go to the Constitution, and particularly article I, section 8, and say, here is where I get the authority. We won't win many of those arguments, even though many of the bills will be outside of the authority granted us under the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson thought such an exercise was vitally important--we have ignored his advice--he thought it was important for Congress to undertake in order to study what those who ratified the Constitution had in mind. In a letter in 1823, he said this:
On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
There is no question what the context and the meaning was of our Founders when they wrote out the enumerated powers section. We have prostituted it to our own demise. The words of Benjamin Franklin ring true today: Can we keep it. If we can keep it.
S. 1319 is a little exercise in self-discipline for the Senate that maybe we ought to be explaining to the American people where we think we get the authority to trample on the 10th amendment, to tell them what to do, how to do it, and by the way, we need some money to tell you how to do that. The whole goal of the Enumerated Powers Act is to make us accountable. My whole goal in the Senate has been transparency. We ought to be transparent about how we get or where we get or from where we get the authority to grow the size of this government even further and to make it less effective.
Bills such as S. 1319 and H.R. 450 should be non-controversial, yet certain Members of Congress refuse to commit to endorsing this legislation. For instance, according to a letter to the editor published in the Charlottesville Daily Progress on June 22:
On May 8th, a group of local citizens from the Jefferson Area Tea Party met with Congressman Tom Perriello, D-Albemarle, at his office. He was presented with a petition signed by over a thousand people who had attended the April Tax Day Tea Party. At this meeting we were able to speak with Mr. Perriello about our various concerns.
One question that we asked concerned the congressman’s views on HR 450, the Enumerated Powers Act. This is a very simple piece of legislation: “To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes.” Mr. Perriello at the time was not familiar with the bill, but after it was explained to him stated that he did not see any problem with the legislation. He promised to check into it and get back to us....
After a month I was able to finally get an answer from the congressman’s office: He would not sign on as a co-sponsor to the bill. According to his office, he felt that any legislation that currently was being passed was constitutional, and if it were not the courts could settle any questions. This bill according to him was an unneeded redundancy.
Three members of the Virginia delegation, J. Randy Forbes (R-VA4), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6), and Rob Wittman (R-VA1) are cosponsors of H.R. 450, as are South Carolina's Joe Wilson (R-SC2), Arizona's Jeff Flake (R-AZ6), and former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX14). One has to ask why House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA7) and the other Republican from Virginia, Frank Wolf (R-VA10), have not cosponsored this simple piece of legislation. (None of Virginia's Democratic Members of Congress, including Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb, have cosponsored either H.R. 450 or S. 1319.)
As a tribute to the U.S. Constitution, let's turn to the rising generation, those who are the focus of H.Res. 686.
I captured this short video at the Jefferson Area Tea Party that was held in Charlottesville on Independence Day. In it, singer/songwriter Lisa Mei Norton's son, Joshua, recites the Preamble to the Constitution to a musical accompaniment. His effort was met with warm applause.
For those who may not be able to make out all of the words as recited, here's the text from the U.S. Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I remember being required to memorize the Preamble in fourth or fifth grade. Is that still an expectation of pupils in our elementary schools?
By 1618, martial law was abolished and a legislative assembly was created. In April 1619, Governor George Yeardley arrived from London and recommended that two burgesses from each settlement be elected to represent the citizens. The first meeting of the 22-member assembly met on July 30 - Aug. 3, 1619 at a church in Jamestown.
Most of the laws passed during that first session involved tobacco and taxes and measures against drunkenness, idleness and gambling. They even approved legislation regulating relations with the Powhatans and mandatory church attendance.
On the last day of assembly, they approved the "greate Charter of 1618" that became the first Constitution of Virginia.
What is now the Virginia General Assembly is a direct descendant of the original House of Burgesses.
Let's raise a tankard in a toast to representative democracy!
Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, thinks it's ludicrous to expect members of Congress to read legislation before voting.
"I love these members, they get up and say, 'Read the bill,' " Mr. Conyers said at a National Press Club luncheon last week.
"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" he asked.
Conyers, who has served in Congress since 1965, inadvertently reveals the core of the problem: Congress writes laws that are too complex for even Congressmen to understand.
The answer to this is not "read the bill," however useful this might seem. (And I do not disagree with those who propose that Members of Congress must swear under oath that they have read a bill before they can vote on it.)
The answer is to make legislation simpler and easier to understand.
Rather than introducing, considering, and voting on a bill of 1,000 pages or more, it should be divided into its constituent parts, with each of those parts judged on its own merits.
As Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is very easy enough to ruin it by bad laws."
Complex laws are by their nature "bad" laws. If "two days and two lawyers" are not sufficient to understand them, they should be rejected flatly.
In an article that purports to analyze the political situation in New Hampshire in the wake of the state legislature's approval of a bill that creates marriage equality for all the citizens of that state (and the governor's signature on that bill), National Review Online's Mark Hemingway makes this curious statement:
Of the recent states that have legalized same-sex marriage — Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire — none has done so through democratic means...
Granted, Iowans now have marriage equality due to a decision by the least democratic branch, the state supreme court. Even so, Iowa supreme court justices are held accountable through retention elections held one year after their appointments, and they serve limited terms of eight years, rather than lifetime terms. So that judicial decision-making body is not entirely undemocratic.
In the cases of Maine and New Hampshire, however, the decision to open up marriage to consenting adults regardless of sexual orientation was made by what one might call the most democratic branches: the legislature and the governor.
Hemingway fails to mention the other states that have marriage equality. A same-sex marriage law was passed by the legislature in Vermont years after that state first created "civil unions" through the legislative process. In Massachusetts the state legislature deliberated over and ultimately rejected an effort to overturn the state supreme court's ruling that a prohibition on same-sex marriage violated the commonwealth's constitution. In Connecticut, the state legislature approved civil unions but the state supreme court ruled that this was discriminatory and that marriage must be available to all citizens regardless of gender.
I might add that both chambers of the California legislature approved a bill to provide marriage equality, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. California's domestic partnership law gives all the responsibilities and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, except for the name "marriage."
Hemingway has an odd definition about what is "democratic." If lawmaking by elected legislative bodies is not democratic, then what is?
It may be that Hemingway thinks that this sort of legislative action is made through "republican" means and that "democratic" lawmaking is limited to voter-approved (if not voter-initiated) referenda.
If so, Hemingway's view of legislative legitimacy is sorely at odds with the views of the Founders. It may be time for him to read The Federalist Papers. His understanding of "democratic" lawmaking is also at odds with common parlance.
"One of the smarter blogs is the libertarian-leaning collection of Charlottesville posts put up by Rick Sincere..." -- Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2005
It used to be said that "every schoolboy knows" some fact about U.S. history. One such fact is that George Washington came from Virginia. He was 
judges because 
did not premiere on U.S. television 
. His understanding of "democratic" lawmaking is also at odds with common parlance.
