Category: Governance
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Louisiana Shows How Flood Control Can Work at Massive Scale
by James C. Sherlock Louisiana has half the population of Virginia. Virginia is ranked the 18th richest state in per capita income, Louisiana 48th. So, why has Louisiana been so phenomenally successful in flood control efforts since Katrina while Virginia writes its own framework for action that it is too expensive here? Primarily because Louisiana…
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Flood Control — Fatal flaws in Virginia’s Approach
by James C. Sherlock It is hurricane season, if you had not noticed. This is the first of a multi-part series of articles on flood control in Virginia. This first one will provide a brief overview of where we stand in flood control planning and construction in the Commonwealth with an emphasis on Hampton Roads.…
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Campaign Finance Reform in Virginia – the New Governor Must Lead
by James C. Sherlock I consider campaign finance reform the foremost issue facing representative government in Virginia. We are one of only a few states with no campaign donations limits at all. We pay for that in legislation enacted and not enacted because of the preferences of huge donors. And in the stink of legal…
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Maybe the Redistricting Commission is Working Out After All
In two recent articles in Bacon’s Rebellion, Dick Hall-Sizemore has thoroughly documented the sausage-making that has gone into the Virginia Redistricting Commission. It’s ugly, and it’s discouraging, and makes you wonder if there is any hope for humanity. But the release of two draft maps shows what the new districts could look like. The maps…
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The President Had Somewhere Important to Be
by James C. Sherlock The caption of the photo: “US President Joe Biden looks down alongside First Lady Jill Biden as they attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen service member at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, August, 29, 2021, one of the 13 members of the US military killed…
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What Does Northam’s Masking Order Mean for 70,000 School Kids with Disabilities? Does Northam Even Know?
by James C. Sherlock My own preferred policy for schools is mandatory vaccination for school staff, recommended vaccinations for the kids and voluntary masks for everyone. One of the advantages of that is that it is executable. One of the disadvantages is that I have no influence whatever over the governor or health commissioner. Pretty…
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Shots and Masks in Richmond Schools
by James C. Sherlock Belt and suspenders? Vaccinations and masks now are both mandatory in Richmond Public Schools. Vaccinations because the school board ordered it last night. Masks because the Governor ordered it last week. The vaccination order, though many oppose it, has science behind it. Vaccinations work. For the vaccinated, though, the mask wearing…
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Return to Autocracy in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock. Updated Aug 13, 12:15 PM It was so easy to predict that I can claim no special prescience. I wrote a week ago: “The Governor’s 15-month emergency powers expired June 30, and, God, does he miss them…. (H)ow long (will the) governor put up with the lack of emergency powers?” If…
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Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? Virginia’s 211 – Service or Crapshoot?
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes the government of Virginia just makes you want to scream, cry, stay under the covers, whatever. Navigating government and private social services agencies when you need help is hard, even more so a crisis. But it is way harder in Virginia than it needs to be. To streamline the navigation…
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Time to Rein in America’s Governors
by Kerry Dougherty Hey, I think I’ve found it. I’ve discovered the one good thing to come out of our national COVID nightmare: a horrifying awareness that we’ve given our governor too much power. Far too much. As the months ticked by and draconian emergency orders were extended over and over again, it was maddening…
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Northam Asks Good Questions About Amended Medicaid Budget
by James C. Sherlock Governor Ralph Northam has raised an important issue relative to the budget negotiations. He has asked that the final bill not include an extension of a 12.5% increase in rates for Medicaid home- and community-based services for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. The General Assembly put it in there anyway. …
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Coming to Virginia – a New State of Emergency?
by James C. Sherlock The Governor’s 15-month emergency powers expired June 30, and, God, does he miss them. From The Virginian-Pilot: “School districts that aren’t requiring masks, including several in Hampton Roads, are running afoul of state law, Gov. Ralph Northam said Thursday.” OK. The bigger questions are how long the governor will put up…
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The Mayor of Alexandria Anticipated my Column
by James C. Sherlock We scribblers at Bacon’s Rebellion pride ourselves on being leaders in the progressive thought process. In acknowledgment of the wisdom in my column that called out the observable inefficiency of government, I give you: The city of Alexandria, Virginia, is joining a growing number of cities across the U.S. that are sending money to…
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The Accelerating Scale of the Legislate-Regulate-Spend-and-Repeat Cycle Has Broken Government
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in Corruption and Scandals, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Mental illness and substance abuse, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlementsby James C. Sherlock Virginians – the state and individual citizens – have received over $81 billion in COVID-related federal funding. That comes to $9,507 for every man, woman and child in the Commonwealth. Big money. That was Virginia’s share of $5.3 trillion in federal spending just on the pandemic (so far). A trillion dollars…
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VDOE’s Plan to Impose Social Reconstructionist Dogma on School Children
by James C. Sherlock The 2020 General Assembly required the Virginia Department of Education to develop and publish standards for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) that start in Kindergarten and go through 12th grade. VDOE has done so, disregarding entirely hundreds of comments on Virginia Town Hall on the draft of those standards that had a 10-to-one…