Category: General Assembly
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Parole Board Bill: Minimal Benefit vs. Possible Harm
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Legislation to make the activities of the Parole Board a little more transparent has cleared one committee. The bill, SB 5 (Sutterlein, R-Roanoke) would require individual Parole Board member votes to be available to the public on request. I understand the motives behind this bill. The call for more transparency, to know…
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Damn the Constitution! Full Speed Ahead!
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Leaving aside the issue of whether masks should be required in schools, there is a larger issue in question in this legislative fight over masks. The plan now seems to be that each house will pass Sen. Petersen’s substitute for SB 739, which would prohibit any school district from requiring students to…
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VCEA Added Costs Exceed $2,000 per Household?
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. By 2050 Virginia’s transition to wind and solar power under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) could add almost $200 a month on average to a residential electric bill. Previous estimates of the consumer cost of dumping all fossil fuels…
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State Interest in the Operating Efficiency of Virginia’s Nonprofit Hospitals
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s nonprofit hospital systems are partially funded with taxpayer money, pay no taxes, and are protected from competition by the state. The state, having provided all of those advantages, needs to make sure its citizens reap as much benefit from them as the hospitals do. Yesterday I wrote that the…
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Virginia Should Regulate Healthcare Monopolies as Public Utilities
by James C. Sherlock I am a capitalist, but we haven’t had capitalism in the healthcare market in Virginia since the Certificate of Public Need (COPN) made its way into the Code of Virginia in 1968. If we repealed COPN today, we’d still be left with the monopolies it has created and protected. All that…
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Welcome to Reality, Governor!
by Dick Hall-Sizemore As reported in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Senate Democrats are pretty much making mincemeat of Governor Youngkin’s Day One agenda. The Governor’s reaction? “I’m disappointed at the partisan politics that I see being played in the Senate.” What? Did he actually expect the Democrats to roll over and go along with his proposals…
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COPN’s Regional Monopolies Helped Boost Virginia Hospitals’ Operating Margins to more than 3x National Median in 2020
by James C. Sherlock Virginians have been assured forever by the hospital lobby that the non-profit regional monopolies established and protected by COPN nearly everywhere but Richmond: are benign public servants with a charitable mission; certainly don’t drive up costs; that competition does not matter; that the State Medical Facilities Plan on which COPN is…
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Bills Reversing Green New Deal Advance, Stutter
by Steve Haner “To say that an electric stove is as good as a gas one is misunderstanding the art of cooking.” That line was used by a restaurant industry lobbyist February 3 in a House of Delegates committee debate on a bill seeking to protect the use of natural gas in Virginia homes and…
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Virginia is Facing a Citizen Revolt on Inflation-Driven Tax Increases
by James C. Sherlock Virginians must fund their local governments. It is not wise to chip away at local government revenue without an integrated plan to ensure they are funded to carry out the things we need them to do. However, two key ways in which we raise local revenue, property taxes and sales taxes,…
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More Morrissey! We Can’t Get Enough!
by James A. Bacon Love him or hate him, Senator Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, is hands down the most colorful politician in Virginia. The list of his transgressions against ethics and law is too long belabor here. I refer you to his Wikipedia biography, specifically the sections on “Reprimand, suspensions and first law license revocation,” “Conviction…
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A Lesson for Virginia Democrats in California’s Failed Universal Healthcare Bill
by James C. Sherlock California is one of the five bluest states in the Union. Democrats have supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature and a sometimes-masked Democratic governor. It can’t pass single-payer healthcare. It has not even been able to get a bill to the floor of the Assembly (lower house). It failed…
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School Choice Can Help Poor Parents Quickly Improve the Education of their Kids
by James C. Sherlock The excellent education reporter Laura Meckler has written a terrific article in The Washington Post titled “Public education is facing a crisis of epic proportions“. Indeed. Test scores are down, and violence is up. Parents are screaming at school boards, and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger…
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Energy Reform Bills Due for Decisions Soon
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The highest priority on a Virginia energy reform agenda proposed a few weeks ago was restoring State Corporation Commission oversight over decisions on massive renewable energy investments. Under current law, the General Assembly has basically dictated billions of dollars in such…
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HB 646 on Nursing Home Staffing Misses the Mark – So Does Its Fiscal Impact Statement
by James C. Sherlock There is a bill, HB 646, Nursing homes; standards of care and staff requirements, regulations in the General Assembly. I support its intent. As written it specifies minimum hours of direct care services for each resident per 24-hour period. In actuality, numbers of personnel required to provide the services depend upon the…
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The Games Have Begun
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Senate Democrats are up in arms over Governor Youngkin’s nomination of Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural Resources. Today, The Washington Post reports that Republicans have upped the stakes. It seems that a member of the State Corporation Commission is up for election. Angela Navarro was elected by the Democratically controlled 2021…