Yearly Archives: 2014
Thanks to Raving Homophobe Eugene Delgaudio for Some Serious LMAO Laughs as 2014 Winds...
Dozen Virginia Voters File Suit Over House of Delegates Districts They Call “racial gerrymanders”
Check out this lawsuit, filed by a dozen Virginia voters in the U.S. District Court (Eastern District; Richmond Division). Key points:
*"Plaintiffs bring this action to challenge the constitutionality of Virginia House ofDelegates Districts 63, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80, 89, 90,92, and 95 (the "Challenged Districts") as racial gerrymanders in violation ofthe Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
*"During the2010-2011 redistricting cycle, the Virginia General Assembly adopted a House of Delegates Redistricting Plan (the "2011 Plan") pursuant towhich each ofthe Challenged Districts was purposefully drawn to have an African-American voting age population that met or exceeded a pre-determined 55% threshold. As a result, African American voters were illegally packed into the Challenged Districts, thereby diminishing their influence in the surrounding districts."
*"The General Assembly adopted the 55% racial threshold without justification, including any determination that the threshold was reasonably necessary to avoid retrogression ineach ofthe Challenged Districts orotherwise comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
*"Drawn with race as their predominant purpose, without compelling justification or narrow tailoring, the Challenged Districts cannot pass constitutional muster."
*"Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the Challenged Districts are invalid and an injunction prohibiting the Defendants from calling, holding, supervising, or taking any action with respect to House of Delegates elections based on the Challenged Districts as they currently stand."
Note that this lawsuit is for the Virginia House of Delegates, and comes following the October 2014 federal court decision that "Virginia's congressional maps unconstitutional because they concentrate African American voters into a single district at the expense of their influence elsewhere."
Yet again, these lawsuits point to the need for reform in the way districts are drawn, such as by a neutral, nonpartisan redistricting commission. What are the chances of that happening through the political process? Not good, to put it mildly. We'll see whether the judicial system turns out to be a more effective option.
P.S. What's truly sad is that most Dems (Del. Patrick Hope being one notable exception) voted for this monstrosity. WHY?
Virginia News Headlines: Wednesday Morning
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, December 31. Happy New Year! Also, gotta love President Obama hitting his highest approval ratings in a long time, just as we head into 2015.
*Pope Francis splits with GOP ("Pope Francis is increasingly driving a wedge between conservatives and the Catholic Church.
" LOL)
*House Republicans move to contain fallout from Scalise, Grimm controversies (Yeah, if you define "contain fallout" as "backing someone who spoke to white supremacists!")
*Grim AirAsia search for bodies hampered by storms
*At least 7.1M signed up for 2015 Obamacare plans so far (So much for Obamacare failing, dragging down the economy, or anything else Republicans predicted. Wrong as usual!)
*Republicans Try to Fix Damage Scalise's 2002 Speech Could Do in 2016 ("The controversy erupted as Republicans were making a renewed effort to reach out to black voters. It threatened to cloud their agenda after capturing control of the Senate and adding to their House majority in last month's election")
*When New York City Police Walk Off the Job ("Data published by The New York Post suggest that police officers are taking their bitterness toward Mayor Bill de Blasio to a new level.")
*Public hearings set on McAuliffe's Va. budget proposals
*Jim Webb digging a deeper hole with defense of PAC spending ("What we're being told here is that websites that cost $13,500 to build also somehow cost $90,000+ to manage. Taking a look at the sites, and their limited content, that's a stretch")
*The good, bad and ugly of 2014 ("From Bob McDonnell's downfall to Pharrell Williams' success, Virginia certainly saw highs and lows in 2014.")
*Webb faces scrutiny over PAC payments to family membe
*Schapiro: All the McDonnells were in on the feed ("One of the more dramatic moments of the Bob and Maureen McDonnell corruption trial was the testimony of an FBI agent who was asked by a prosecutor to identify item-by-item the Rolex wristwatch, golf equipment, designer clothes, shoes and handbags that Jonnie Williams Sr. showered on the former first family.")
*Brat appointed to House Budget Committee ("The only economist in Congress, Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, has been appointed to the U.S. House Budget Committee." Not good.)
*Democrat Murphy leads fundraising in Va. delegate race (We'll see if money makes the difference in this one.)
*2014 deadliest in years for Virginia's unregulated day cares (Wait, don't Republicans always tell us that regulation is bad and deregulation is good? Hmmm.)
*Virginia insurance enrollment nears 165,000
*Gov. McAuliffe expected to deliver 'good news' at Canon facility in Newport News
*Joe Morrissey starts campaign on stronger footing than opponents
*34th District candidates share their histories, policy positions (Parisot apparently has no policy positions which deviate from his party's standard line. A cookie-cutter right winger, it would appear.)
*Cathcart: Free market will doom natural gas
*Bright, breezy and chilly to close out 2014 and ring in the New Year
Mayor Jones’s New Church Mouse Losing Its House
Tis the season for miraculous financial initiatives. The man who didn't clearly outline Richmond's obligations for his NFL football summer training facility or find backing for burying hallowed historical ground under a minor league stadium is now preparing to make the Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) homeless.
All the get rich land development schemes that characterize Richmond City high finance remind one of the common flights of fancy on The Honeymooners. One difference, though: Mayor Jones is banking with other people's money and trust. After making an effort to gain clarity on the DPVA's financial health, there is nothing to show but despair. Appropriate since Jones and his recent predecessors as Chair have all left the political party borrowing against time while concealing the bottom line. Requests for financial statements have been ignored, so the depth of the hole remains closely held. Miraculously, during six years with a Democrat in the White House and in a state with two Democratic United States Senators plus the election of Democrats to all three statewide executive offices in the past year, time has run out on the Party's mortgage.
A big portion of the DPVA party leadership's responsibility is to provide the hired staff with sufficient resources to run a statewide political party. But Jones, who fought through charges that he doesn't represent the party's principles of equality and equal rights to gain the position of Chair, has been an absentee landlord. The infrastructure, physical and fiscal, has continued to decay since his ascension to the post. He has consistently missed meetings and party conference calls. E-mails go unanswered. The excuse is always that his responsibilities as a pastor and Mayor consume his time. Those responsibilities did not preclude him from interfering in an intra-party state Senate primary race (his influence proved ineffective). Now he's on the verge of missing the payment on the DPVA's "digs" on Franklin Street in Richmond.
Virginia’s amazing year in energy: gas rises, coal falls, and solar shines
Nobody laughed a few years ago when former governor Bob McDonnell dubbed Virginia the "Energy Capital of the East Coast"; we were all too astounded. And today, even "Energy Suburb" still seems like a stretch. Yet, if you measure achievement by the sheer level of activity, Virginia is making a play for importance. The year's top energy stories show us fully engaged in the worldwide battle between fossil fuels and renewable energy. Of course, while the smart money says renewables will dominate by mid-century, Virginia seems determined to drown rather than give up its fossil fuel addiction.
Coal falls hard; observers disagree on whether it bounces or goes splat. Nationwide, 2014 was a bad year for the coal industry. Coal stocks fell precipitously; mining jobs continued to decline; and the one thing electric utilities and the public found to agree on is that no one likes coal. Even in Virginia, with its long history of mining, coal had to play defense for what may have been the first time ever. So when Governor McAuliffe released the state's latest energy plan in October, what was otherwise a paean to "All of the Above" omitted the stanza on coal. And this month, the governor proposed a rollback of the subsidies coal companies pocket by mining Virginia coal.
Of course, coal is not going quietly; Senator Charles Carrico (himself heavily subsidized by Alpha Natural Resources) has already responded with a bill to extend the subsidies to 2022.
EPA opens a door to a cleaner future, and Republicans try to brick it up. Speaking of hard times for coal, in June the EPA unveiled its proposal to lower carbon emissions from existing power plants 30% nationwide by 2030. Instead of targeting plants one-by-one, EPA proposed a systemic approach, offering a suite of options for states to reach their individualized targets.
The proposal drew widespread support from the public, but Virginia's 38% reduction target set off howls of protest from defenders of the status quo. The staff of the State Corporation Commission claimed the rule was illegal and would cost ratepayers $6 billion. Republicans convened a special meeting of the House and Senate Energy and Commerce Committees, where they tried out a number of arguments, not all of which proved ready for prime time. The rule, they said, threatens Virginia with a loss of business to more favored states like-and I am not making this up-West Virginia. Also, Virginia should have received more credit for lowering its carbon emissions by building nuclear plants back in the 1970s when no one was thinking about carbon emissions.
Virginia News Headlines: Tuesday Morning
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, December 30. The image is from CenLamar.com, and specifically its story, "House Majority Whip Steve Scalise Was Reportedly an Honored Guest at 2002 International White Supremacist Convention."
*Bodies recovered in search for missing plane
*Rep. Scalise confirms he spoke to white nationalists ("A spokeswoman for the House majority whip says the Republican was unaware of the group's ideology in 2002.")
*Former KKK leader says his political adviser was 'friendly' with Rep. Scalise (Ah, Republicans...what a party!)
*Michael Grimm resigning from Congress (Ah, Republicans...what a party!)
*NY Times Editorial Board: Police Respect Squandered in Attacks on de Blasio ("With these acts of passive-aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the department's credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding its hard-earned respect. They have taken the most grave and solemn of civic moments - a funeral of a fallen colleague - and hijacked it for their own petty look-at-us gesture."With these acts of passive-aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the department's credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding its hard-earned respect. They have taken the most grave and solemn of civic moments - a funeral of a fallen colleague - and hijacked it for their own petty look-at-us gesture." Bingo.)
*Economic facts get in the way ("Uh-oh. Now that the economy is doing well, what are Republicans - especially those running for president - going to complain about? And what are Democrats willing to celebrate?")
*The Pope Thinks Climate Change Is a Major Threat. So Do American Catholics. ("Most Catholics say global warming is a 'crisis' or a 'major problem.'")
*The 10 Worst Civil Liberties Violations of 2014 (When "The great torture shrug" only clocks in at #7, you know it was a horrible year.)
*Thomas Piketty Won 2014 (Definitely one of the most interesting books I read in 2014, along with Francis Fukuyama's "Origins of Political Order/Political Order and Political Decay")
*Potential Hillary Challenger Paid Nearly $100,000 In Campaign Donations To His Family ("Jim Webb's family has made quite a bit of money from his political career." Yikes.)
*Virginia House Democrats hope to 'create dilemmas' for Republicans (Politics 101, what else is new? I'm sure Republicans are similarly strategizing, which is 100% to be expected.)
*Maureen McDonnell's daughter trashes her mother to help her father ("So, Maureen McDonnell wrestled the Rolex on him? Muscled him into Willams's private jet? Held him at wife-point until he drove the Ferrari and smiled for the camera? Frog-marched him into the fancy country clubs?")
*Gilmore raises national profile, won't rule out presidential bid (Hahahahahahahahahaha.)
*What's Driving Jim Webb's Potential Bid for President in 2016? ("Since his exploratory launch Nov. 19, Webb has appeared only once before the media in Richmond, Virginia, and hasn't traveled to an early primary state. His private outreach to potential supporters is mostly being steered by himself and a couple of trusted aides from his Senate tenure. He has not been in personal touch with the state party head in any of the three early nominating states. A spokeswoman told U.S. News he was not available for an interview for this story.")
How Does a Dem Get Only 9% in a 3-Way Race with Two “R”s...
Keep in mind that this district, while certainly a "red" one, still saw Democrat Mark Herring getting 45% of the vote in 2013 (14,418 votes for Herring). That's not a win, but obviously it's a whole lot better (five times better to be exact) than 9%!
Also in that same November 2013 general election, the Democratic House of Delegates candidates (Atif Qarni, Reed Heddleston, Richard Cabellos) with precincts in Brentsville received a combined 43% of the vote (14,414 total votes for the Democratic candidates). So, again, how does a Democrat only get 346 votes (9% of the vote) in a special election in those same precincts, 13 months later? I mean, I "get it" that Democrats have more trouble than Republicans do in getting out their voters for these types of non-presidential, non-gubernatorial, special elections, but still.
Any thoughts? Was it the Democratic candidate (who I'd never heard of prior to these results) or something else going on? Keep in mind that the winner, Jeanine Lawson, is a Tea Partier extraordinaire, so it seems like we could have at least motivated our "base" to come out and vote against her. Or am I missing something here?
Virginia News Headlines: Monday Morning
*Missing jet likely at bottom of sea, officials say
*Pope Francis Expected To Instruct One Billion Catholics To Act On Climate Change (I'm liking this Pope more and more all the time!)
*Pakistan intensifies the crackdown on militants
*Poll finds Clinton up 57 points on Warren ("There is more good news for Clinton in the general election, where she leads all the possible Republican opponents that were polled. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush comes closest, down 54 percent to 41 percent to Clinton.")
*Obama warns GOP he plans to use veto pen in 2015
*Oops: Chuck Todd slips, admits he can't do tough interviews because 'no one will come on' my show (Uhhhhh...)
*Krugman: The Obama Recovery ("What's the important lesson from this late Obama bounce? Mainly, I'd suggest, that everything you've heard about President Obama's economic policies is wrong.")
*Numbers betray politicians' tight grasp ("Allowing legislators (delegates and senators) to pick their own districts, as Virginia does today, guarantees that lawmakers will always pick voters, rather than vice versa.")
*Today's Top Opinion: Fix it ("Gov. Terry McAuliffe asked his ethics reform panel to consider redistricting as well as the culture of gift-giving in Richmond. He was right to do so, because gerrymandering constitutes a corruption of the political system every bit as corrosive to democracy as influence-peddling.")
*Same-sex marriage defines Mark Herring's first year as attorney general (Yep, great stuff. And for 2015? Is there anything the AG can do to reverse the "capture" of our regulatory agencies and legislature by companies like Dominion Power?)
*Editorial: Gov. McAuliffe chooses to go against the political head winds ("Now, as the 2015 General Assembly nears, the Democratic governor apparently feels that he has the momentum to become politically aggressive in the face of fierce Republican opposition. The strategy may well prove foolhardy. But then what is he supposed to do, bury his convictions and wait for a more hospitable political climate? He's already a year into his four-year term.")
*Richmond won Stone Brewing -- and got a bit of drama, too
*Virginia toll lanes offer drivers convenience, but raise privacy concerns
*2015's finale will be on the cold side
Another Losing Season Notched in that “Tradition”
Among the dumbest arguments against changing the Washington team's mascot has been that that would mean Oklahoma would have to change its name. Idiots. But a simple epiphany revealed on a Harrisonburg radio talk show captures the kind of lightbulb moments that will lead to the inevitable outcome.
One morning a fellow on WSVA 550 who had been on the fence about the controversy announced he had changed his opinion about the team name. The conversion came while watching a rerun of an old Daniel Boone television series episode. The story centered on a Native American child that was being enrolled in the frontier school. The telling scene was when the youth approached and was peppered by his classmates with clearly derogatorily intended pejoratives including the "R" word. In context and told by a series that originally aired in an era when we were much more embarrassed by our prejudices, the true message and meanness of the term rang out.
"...it has ties to a time when bounties were paid for the scalps of American Indians...it is a racial slur like any other racial slur that we wouldn't print in the pages of a family newspaper." - The Oklahoman Online
At about the same time, those "insensitive" Oklahomans in one school district were deciding to remove that nickname from the teams at Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City despite "tradition." You see Oklahomans, in a state named for the red people, can distinguish the difference.
Will Nonpartisan Redistricting Ever Happen?
About a year ago a small group convened to investigate the possibility of revitalizing the issue of redistricting. They believe that the in-state legislative districts belong to the citizens of the Commonwealth; not to any legislator, political party, or special interest. They are fighting for an independent commission on redistricting.
The core issue that underlies the dysfunction, gridlock, and disrespect in Richmond is the current redistricting process where the Party in power, Democratic or Republican, goes behind closed doors, chooses its own criteria, and draws maps where they actually choose their voters rather than allowing citizens to choose their elected officials. It is the deliberate manipulation of district lines for political power. As a result, we live the fifth most gerrymandered state in the Union.
"Look at the last General Election. The difference separating Ed Gillespie and Senator Warner was less than one percentage point. We arguably live in a purple state. But the closest Congressional District in the state was 16 points. There is no doubt to the outcomes. At the local level that means there is a disincentive for state legislators to debate ideas to find solutions and work together on the issues." - former Delegate Shannon Valentine
81 seats in the House of Delegates are completely safe; the remaining 19 are considered somewhat competitive but rarely feature an opposing major party candidate. There might be 10 races where there is a doubt about the outcome and maybe two seats change out each election.
59 localities in the House districts are divided. 46 of 40 in the state Senate are divided meaning they are divided more than once. Culpepper residents, for instance, are represented by three different Senators. In Lynchburg there are 72,000 households and there are four different ballots required.
Since the February 2014 launch of One Virginia 2021; Virginians for Fair Redistricting the group has built an organization with a foundation and a public policy council. They are committed to being multi-partisan. 40% of Virginians consider themselves independent. There is a member of the Tea Party Executive Committee on the policy council. All of them know what is at stake with redistricting. Shannon Valentine is one of many disciples crisscrossing the state encouraging redistricting reform.
