Is
There Punditry After the Budget?
Most
pundits appear to be taking a well-deserved rest after a
General Assembly session that went deep into overtime. After months of covering sausage making, there
apparently isn’t much of an appetite for analyzing the
resultant sausage.
Thankfully,
Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch has remained on duty.
He performed a useful service by crowning winners
and losers in the compromise budget deal,
concentrating on new spending in the districts of
powerful legislators.
There are doubtless many more analytical pieces
to be written on the fine print of the budget if the
pundits care to dig.
Schapiro
balanced his pork pointing to cover former Gov. Gerald
L. Baliles’ approval
of the General Assembly’s work. Baliles raised taxes
during his term after promising not to, just as current
Governor Warner did. Speaking to the Virginia Business Council,
Baliles offered the obligatory trashing of “anti-tax
orthodoxy” and called for non-partisan re-districting.
Hugh
Lessig and Kimball Payne of the Daily
Press recounted an ugly exchange between Sen. Tommy
Norment, R-James
City, and
Del. Tom Gear, R-Hampton. Norment criticized Gear for blocking a judgeship
and Gear, who claimed the blocked judge went light on
drunk drivers, alluded to Norment’s own DUI conviction
as the reason.
Look
for pundits to continue mining the story of splits
within the Republican Party, instead of digging into the
real details of the budget and the policy decisions it
reflects.
The
Oldest Favorite Son
Richmond
Times-Dispatch
editorial page editor Ross
McKenzie tried to start a City of
Richmond
mayoral boomlet for former Governor L. Douglas Wilder.
The downside? He’s
73 years old. The upside? The history-making Wilder is
the “ideal individual,” a “man for all seasons.”
McKenzie didn’t mention that the existing talent pool
for the position appears to be very thin.
Save
the Environment: Send Money
Secretary
of Natural Resources W.
Tayloe Murphy, Jr. turned a speech he delivered at a
conference into an op-ed in the Roanoke
Times. The good news is that employees are working
overtime. The bad news:
From
outdated equipment and insufficient staffing to unfunded
programs and constraints on regulatory authority, our
natural resource agencies are often unable to meet
public expectations and demands.
Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality estimates that 45 percent of all
streams in Virginia
fail to meet
the standards of the Clean Water Act and the State Water
Control Law. This report is a wake-up call, evidencing
our need to do more, and spend more, on protecting the
waters of Virginia.
When
considering the undisputed need for increased funding of
natural resource programs, I am disheartened by the
widespread indifference evidenced by many of our public
officials.
Murphy
said he and Gov. Warner wouldn’t pay “lip service”
to the Chesapeake 2000 Ageement that calls for a
reduction of nutrient pollution. They will look for new
sources of funding — but didn’t the state just
complete its budget? If the money isn’t there now, how
will they get it?
Brown
v. Board
There
were many excellent commentaries on the 50th
anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision,
along with extensive coverage of ground zero in the
aftermath, Prince Edward County, Va. One of the more
interesting was a short piece by veteran reporter Paul
Duke in the Washington
Post. Duke was covering the Virginia Capitol when
the decision was announced. He recalled the remarkably
temperate initial reaction of Gov. Thomas Stanley:
Stanley
did not condemn the court, threaten defiance or voice
any stirring call to arms. The decision, he said, called
for "cool heads, calm study and sound
judgment." He promised to consult with leaders of
both races to pursue a policy of adjustment
"acceptable to our citizens and in keeping with the
edict of the court."
Duke
wondered what might have been had the spirit of that
initial reaction prevailed.
A
more personal remembrance came from Shanna
Flowers of the Roanoke
Times. She presented the story of Brenda Hamilton,
Roanoke's circuit court clerk
In 1959, Hamilton
was
forced to attend school in
Roanoke
when
her native Prince
Edward
County
closed its schools in defiance of desegregation. The
searing experience was life changing:
As
terrible as the massive resistance experience was,
Hamilton
said it helped shape her character and make her a strong woman.
"I
just worked hard," Hamilton
said. "I've
been oppressed. Anything that is put before me, I know I
can overcome it."
Marriage
in Virginia,
Continued
In
our last column, we noted a Washington
Post op-ed by Tracy
Thorne, criticizing the Virginia Marriage
Affirmation Act and its impact on gays in the
Commonwealth. Thorne’s
piece achieved wide notice, including a prominent link
on Andrew Sullivan’s influential weblog.
Victoria
Cobb of The Family Foundation defended the act in the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. She called attacks on the Act “scare tactics,” and wrote:
In
reality, the new law is specific in its language, and
refers only to civil unions or similar acts
"purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations
of marriage." This new law will in no way affect
contracts that any two people in Virginia
can enter into, such
as wills and medical directives. Any homosexual, just
like any other Virginian, can write a will and leave his
or her estate to anyone. Any homosexual, just like any
other Virginian, can designate anyone to direct his or
her medical treatment.
Besides, 82 of 100 delegates supported it, so
there. Of
course, those majority votes that we disagree with are
aberrations
--
May 24, 2004
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