Category: General Assembly
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How Not To Do Tax Reform. Again.
By Steve Haner According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration had its first formal discussion with Virginia’s local governments about eliminating their car tax collections two days after he announced it publicly. The General Assembly convenes Wednesday and if there is a plan to replace the $2.8 billion in local government revenue raised…
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Rent Control Bill Introduced in Virginia
by Hans Bader A just-introduced Virginia bill, HB 192, would limit rent increases to “one percent over the Consumer Price Index” in places where the rental vacancy rate is “less than 10 percent,” if the “Consumer Price Index … is greater than five percent.” Virginia has a rental vacancy rate of about 4%, well below…
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Not Every Teacher’s Salary Can Be Above Average
by Hans Bader In the mythical Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average. But in real life, half of all people have to be below average, by definition. Half of all people are paid below average, especially in counties with very low living costs, where the vast majority of people are paid below the…
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Let’s Make a Deal
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Gov. Glenn Youngkin earned his spurs (and his money) making deals in the private sector. He came into the governorship with no political experience. During his first two years in office, he showed little inclination to compromise or make deals. He bet big this fall on coming out of the November elections…
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Teacher Vacancies in Virginia Cities with a Majority of Black Students Continue to be Very High
by James C. Sherlock The statewide performance of Black kids on Virginia’s SOLs was horrible. Chronic absenteeism is a primary reason. But I continue to look for underlying reasons and solutions for both. This morning I checked the Staffing and Vacancy Dashboard. The teacher vacancy rate for Region 2, Tidewater and the Eastern Shore, is…
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A Brief Case for Giving Virginia Legislators a Raise
by Gordon C. Morse I thought it would be worthwhile to pursue further the subject of legislative compensation in Virginia. A report I’ve referenced before is dated December 1998 – 25 years ago – and offers the following rationale for increasing the amount paid to Virginia lawmakers holding these posts, attending the annual legislative sessions…
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Deja Vu, All Over Again
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Virginia is trying again to land a sports facility for a national professional sports team, The Washington Post reports. This time it is an arena for the Wizards of the National Basketball Association and the Capitals of the National Hockey League. Both teams have the same owner and are currently located in…
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Virginia’s Final (Maybe) RGGI Tax Grab: $97M
by Steve Haner Virginia has participated in its final (for a while anyway) Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction and the proceeds on the carbon tax set a new record, with Virginia collecting more than $97 million in one swoop. The total carbon tax take for the state is just under $828 million in three years.…
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Proposed Reproductive Freedom Amendment Could Eliminate Limits
by Emilio Jaksetic House Joint Resolution 1 (HJ 1) and Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJ 1) have been prefiled for consideration of the Virginia General Assembly to propose an amendment to the Virginia Constitution captioned “Article I, Bill of Rights, Section 11-A. Fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” A copy of HJ 1 is available at here…
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Governor’s Chronic Absenteeism Task Force – Part Three – Vital New State Roles
By James C. Sherlock I have found in 18 years of reporting on education in the Commonwealth that each school, each school division and each region is to some degree its own ecosystem. Taking the example of chronic absenteeism, an individualized assessment of causes could be attempted: if a single school‘s chronic absenteeism can be…
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Musical Chairs
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the most potent powers of the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates is the assigning of members to committees and designating the chair of each committee. He has sole prerogative over this important function. Speaker-designate Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) has broken a little with tradition (in addition to the other…
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Follow-up on Sen. Hashmi
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Kerry Doughtery has evinced a certain amount of outrage on this blog about state Sen. Ghazala Hashni (D-Chesterfield) not living in the district in which she ran and won re-election. (See here and here.) The recent redistricting had placed Sen. Hashmi’s long-time residence just outside the district which she represented. In order…
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Tough Question: What’s Going On at the Virginia General Assembly?
by Gordon C. Morse Forty years ago, I wrote an essay for the Richmond Times-Dispatch — “The Long and the Short of the Assembly” — that noted “a growing sense that the Virginia General Assembly is not performing satisfactorily,” that it had “devolved into an unhappy spectacle.” Revisiting that essay recently immediately gave me a…
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How Youngkin Can Avoid Lame Duck Status
by Scott Lingamfelter Elections produce clarity. One thing is noticeably clear after Republicans failed to achieve majorities in both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly. For the next two years, the prospects for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin‘s legislative agenda are bleak. That’s the bad news. Here is the good news: it doesn’t have to be…
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Democrats Introduce Gun-Grabbing Bill
from The Republican Standard Along with the attempt to codify abortion, there is another radical bill being proposed by Democrats in Virginia. An assault-weapons ban has been filed by Fairfax-area Delegate Dan Helmer in the House and Charlotteville-area Senator Craig Deeds. HB 2 seeks to “make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone to import,…