Tag: COVID-19
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Meters Keep Spinning On Unpaid Utility Bills
By Steve Haner During the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginians piled up $184 million or more in unpaid bills with several Virginia utilities, and that was before the worst of the heat arrived in July. The figure comes from a short letter from the State Corporation Commission to General Assembly leaders dated…
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Governor Northam, Crack Down on Nursing Homes, Not Restaurants
By Carol J. Bova Last week Julie Henderson, director of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) Office of Environmental Health Services, said her agency was going to request $6 million for 92 positions to educate the public and businesses about executive orders and how to enforce them. If there is $6 million available for enforcement…
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COVID Workers Comp On House Democrat Bill List
By Steve Haner The coming Special Session of the General Assembly will be narrowly focused but filled with controversy, based on the legislative wish list just released by House of Delegates Democrats. Only two bills listed fall outside of the major categories of “COVID-19 Relief” or “Criminal Justice and Police Reform.” Under the heading “COVID…
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A College-Student Bill of Rights
by James A. Bacon College students should be reimbursed if they don’t receive the full benefits they pay for in tuition, fees, room, and board, declares the Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust. “COVID-19 has illuminated the long over-due need for basic consumer protections for those who are struggling to pay for the cost…
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Closing the Digital Divide More Imperative than Ever
by James A. Bacon As K-12 schools, community colleges and universities shift ever more learning online, the so-called “digital divide” — disparate access to high-speed Internet access and computers — is looming as a bigger problem than ever before. A new analysis by the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) finds that more…
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Substandard Schooling for All!
by Kerry Dougherty File this under “You just can’t win.” Parents of Fairfax County school children have had enough. For decades these folks were accustomed to excellence in public education. They proudly sat atop the Virginia educational heap. Shoot, Fairfax is home to Thomas Jefferson High School, widely considered the best public high school in…
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Do Summer Camps Warrant Bail-out Funds?
by James A. Bacon A philosophical question to ponder: If the Commonwealth of Virginia shuts down an entire industry by executive order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, what moral obligation does it have to help the businesses survive the epidemic? Literally no industry in Virginia has been more impacted by the emergency…
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As COVID Looms, W&M the Latest to Cut Executive Compensation
by James A. Bacon We won’t know for another week or two, when kids show up on campus, what enrollments will be at Virginia’s colleges and universities. Due to massive uncertainties engendered by the COVID-19 epidemic, no one is sure how many students who committed to attend will appear when dormitories open in the next…
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Worthy Cause, Wrong Approach
by James A. Bacon Give Amanda Chase credit for one thing: She knows how to get into the news. Whether the resulting headlines help the Chesterfield state senator win the Republican Party nomination for governor is quite another matter. The latest brouhaha over her refusal to wear a mask in a Harrisonburg restaurant is not…
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A Constitutional Approach to Avoiding Evictions in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock There has been extensive discussion here about minimizing residential evictions in Virginia in the time of COVID. I will offer a constitutional approach to achieving that objective. A Broad Consensus The Governor and General Assembly want to avoid evictions of residential tenants who are unable to pay rent due to COVID-related…
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Pining for the Days of Hanging Chads
by James A. Bacon It’s been twenty years since the Bush-Gore presidential election that brought the term “hanging chads” into common parlance. But that controversy, which plunged the nation into intense partisan acrimony, was mere dress rehearsal for what could be coming. Thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, there likely will be an unprecedented volume of…
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Another Perspective on Evictions
By Dick Hall-Sizemore As has been reported on this blog, the Virginia Supreme Court granted Governor Northam’s request to extend the moratorium on evictions related to non-payment of rent. The court was closely divided, 4-3. The dissenting opinions are quite convincing. It is obvious that the majority, cognizant of the dilemma caused by thousands of…
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Renters Didn’t Make the Governor’s List
by James C. Sherlock I just completed a survey of the 50 states to see how many of their legislatures were in regular session or special sessions called to deal with COVID issues between April 1 and August 15, 2020. That 4.5-month period started when enough was known about COVID to start taking legislative action…
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Fool Me Once
By James C. Sherlock I want every tenant who cannot pay his rent because of COVID to be able to stay in his home. I want every landlord who supports them to be paid for their forbearance so they can pay their own bills. This post starts with both of those goals in mind. It…
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No Equal Justice for Landlords
The Virginia State Supreme Court extended yesterday the judicial moratorium on eviction proceedings for another 28 days. The split decision prompted a blistering rebuke from D. Arthur Kelsey, which L. Steven Emmert summarized yesterday in the post below, republished here from his blog, Virginia Appellate News & Analysis. — JAB Today the court responds to…