Category: Business and Economy
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VA to Examine Company Payrolls, Hunting Bias
By Steve Haner How bad is the climate for business in Virginia now? Just how much does this New Blue General Assembly detest and distrust evil capitalists? Let’s look at one little bill first noticed Monday in the long string of bills rushing toward Tuesday’s deadline for action. House Bill 624 won’t be the worst…
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Virginia Values Act: Trial Lawyers Win, Business Climate Loses
by Hans Bader Both houses of the Virginia legislature passed the Virginia Values Act yesterday. Media coverage of the bill has focused on the fact that it will add sexual orientation and gender identity (transgender status) to state laws against discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. As the media note, this is the first…
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Bill Broadens Definition of Sexual Harassment
by Hans Bader On January 30, a subcommittee in Virginia’s House of Delegates voted 5-to-2 to adopt a revised version of HB 1418, a bill to expand employers’ liability for sexual harassment. The bill originally applied to employers with six to 14 employees. Now it applies to all employers with more than five. Originally, while…
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How Democracy Dies in Darkness: “Posting in Progress”
by Hans Bader The Virginia legislature is moving toward passage of bills that could make state employment law far more hostile to employers. But the content of the legislation was hidden from voters for a critical period while it was working its way through the General Assembly. The amended text of the bills was not…
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Rural Broadband Projects Vary Widely in ROI
by James A. Bacon Last week Governor Ralph Northam announced $18.3 million in Virginia Telecommunication Initiative grants to support 12 projects across the state. Leveraging $35 million in local and private matching funds, the projects will connect about 36,000 households, including thousands of businesses and “community anchor” institutions — an average state subsidy of roughly…
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“Fair Share” Extracts Dues From 20,000 Workers
By Steve Haner Twenty thousand working families forced to pull $450 per year out of their tight family budgets may not think it “fair” that they are forced to “share” their earnings with a union they chose not to join. The debate over repealing Virginia’s Right to Work statute, or the more likely step of…
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Odd Bedfellows: Trump and Northam Administrations Combine to Protect Virginia’s Menhaden
By DJ Rippert Cats and dogs sleeping together. The long running saga of the General Assembly and Omega Protein vs. environmentalists and the Virginia Marine Fisheries Commission (VMFC) took a major turn recently. Our General Assembly (buoyed by campaign cash from Omega Protein) sought to use inaction to thwart the VMFC’s scientific management of a…
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No Basis for Governor’s Community College Claim
by James A. Bacon Last month Governor Ralph Northam announced a plan to spend $145 million to make community college tuition-free for low- and middle-income students pursuing jobs in high-demand fields. As justification for this massive entitlement expansion, he cited numbers from Reynolds Community College showing that students who dropped out before completing their degrees…
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Payoff Time for Construction Unions
by James A. Bacon Among economic special interest groups in Virginia, organized labor is consistently one of the top contributors to political campaigns. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Big Labor has contributed $46 million to candidates since 1996-97, almost all of it to Democrats. The construction unions, which are the biggest donors of…
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Virginia Likely to Avoid “Marijuana Legalization Trap” in 2020
By DJ Rippert Reefer madness. Virginia is notably lagging most other states in marijuana reform. Across America recreational marijuana is legal for adults in 11 states and legal for medical use in 33 states. Twenty-five states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. In Virginia marijuana is illegal, criminalized and unavailable for medical…
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Booming Telework Spurs Job Growth in Rural Virginia
by James A. Bacon The Internet, pundits long predicted, would emancipate people from the necessity of living near where they worked. The connectivity provided by cell phones, laptops and broadband would allow people to plug in at home…. or even while lounging by the pool or on the beach. It was a nice fantasy, but…
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Electoral College Vote, Carbon Tax, Labor’s Wants
By Steve Haner The End of the Electoral College Looms The legislature’s new ruling Democrats, having celebrated their adoption of the national Equal Rights Amendment, may continue their Constitutional aspirations next week and try to kill the federal Electoral College. Some believe the will of Virginia voters in choosing presidential electors should be overridden by…
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Two Hundred Pamunkeys, $200 Million Project
by James A. Bacon The population of the Pamunkey Indian tribe, which traces its lineage to Powhatan and Pocahontas, numbers about 200. Most members live on or near their 1,200-acre reservation north of the James River. Among other ways of making a living, they operate a shad hatchery, produce traditional pottery, and cater to visitors…
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Where’s the Voice of Business?
by James A. Bacon As the General Assembly considers a host of issues that could have devastating consequences for Virginia’s business climate — tax increases, $15 minimum wage, repeal of the right-to-work law, a death tax, trial lawyer-friendly anti-discrimination legislation, and the list goes on — the business community has been remarkably quiet. Once upon…
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HB 1200: Another Small Business Shakedown
by Hans Bader Right now, if you employ five or fewer workers in Virginia, you aren’t subject to most state restrictions on who you can hire. And if you have fewer than 15 employees, you usually can’t be forced to pay a worker’s lawyer much at all if the worker sues you. That would change…