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Yesterday, HB 652, the property rights reform bill, was referred by the Senate Courts of Justice Committee to the Senate Finance Committee because of an alleged “fiscal impact” to the state. The bill will be heard tomorrow morning in Finance. The impact simply is hypothetical, conjecture and/or assumption. Take your pick. Fiscal Impact Statements are supposed to identify the cost of bills that require certain new expenses, not something VDOT says “might happen.” This is nothing more than big government bureaucracy trying to kill a bill that would have them rightly compensate people whose property they take.

Yesterday, in Courts of Justice, when committee Chairman Henry Marsh (D-16, Richmond) said he was bringing up a motion to refer the bill to Finance, Senator Creigh Deeds (D-25, Bath) was rightly surprised. He asked if the bill had a Fiscal Impact Statement. The reply from a senator opposed to the bill was, “Yes, a big one. One that will affect future budgets.” Oh, how the big government lobby has them fooled. There was some discussion, but the bill had its course set — not much anyone could do at that point. The vote was taken and it was sent to Finance unanimously.

But facts won’t die. When the House Appropriations Committee thoroughly vetted this bill, it found no fiscal impact! There is no more of a fine tooth comb in the General Assembly than the House Appropriations Committee. But the forces of big government, such as lobbyists for the counties and cities, as well as VDOT, will do everything they can to prevent liberty and scuttle property rights that affect families, small businesses and farms.

Were HB 652 to become law, it would go a long way toward making whole families whose businesses, homes and farms are horribly affected by eminent domain. The bill, patroned by Delegate Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville) and co-patroned by several Republicans, passed the House 98-1. It would allow property owners a chance to present evidence that a government property taking has rendered other property useless, and therefore receive adequate compensation. It is a fairness bill — it guarantees nothing — only that such evidence can be presented to a jury in eminent domain cases. The government can still make its case and if it has a good argument it will win. Fair is fair.

But the big government types — who use your tax money to lobby against you — are trying hard to kill this bill. They say it is “too expensive” even though all alleged “costs” are speculative. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey Putney (I-19, Bedford) said it best: “I don’t know how VDOT can arrive at an impact. It’s like they’re predicting juries!” We agree and if VDOT and other agencies say they’ll have to pay more money, it’s an admission that they have been ripping off landowners in Virginia for decades. Enough of that! Let them take only the land they need and pay a fair price for it or don’t take it at all — then they won’t have to worry about a “fiscal impact.”

According to our property rights expert witnesses, this is the biggest eminent domain reform law in Virginia in decades, apart from the 2007 law that defines public use. It would be a shame for it to get this far only for a Senate committee to rule against the people in favor of big government interests whose appetite for your tax money never abates.

The Finance Committee meets at 9:00 tomorrow morning. It has a short docket, so a lot of attention will be focused on this bill. Do you part to ensure constitutional protections of property rights. Please contact members (click here) of the Senate Finance Committee now and ask them to pass HB 652.

You may remember last year one of our priority areas of legislation was government spending transparency. After two years of persistence, Virginia now is in the process of creating more windows and letting in more sunshine to the way it spends the hard earned money we send them, thanks to bills patroned by Delegate Ben Cline (R-24, Amherst) and then-Senator Ken Cuccinelli.

But the issue hasn’t gone away because to have true government by the people and for the people, the people must be given every tool to monitor its own government’s operations. This session, two very good bills were introduced. One, HB 62, patroned by Delegate David Toscano (D-57, Charlottesville), would have added transparency to the budget making process. Unfortunately, it was left in the House Appropriations Committee where it died, having never received a hearing.

The other bill, SB 431, patroned by Senator Mark Herring (D-33, Leesburg), would fill in some gaps in the laws written by Cline and Cuccinelli. Although the bill as originally crafted had a lot more to it — it was pared down due to the inevitable Fiscal Impact Statement — it retains two important provisions: That each agency post online all checks and credit card purchases it makes, including the vendor name, date of purchase and purchase description. It also stipulates that each agency install an icon on its Web site that links directly to a page on Commonwealth DataPoint, the state’s window on government spending and accountability. In an editorial yesterday in the Loudon Independent, called “Checking the Checkbook,” the paper wrote:

A bill is being reviewed by the House of Delegates that could shed light on the age-old question, “Why does government spend so much?” For those with a bit more innate trust in government, the question could also be, “Where are my tax dollars going?”

We agree. Making it easier to find and locate government spending has numerous benefits, among them that the more eyes looking into how bureaucrats spend out money, the more chances we have of saving it by catching waste and eliminating it. That’s something lawmakers should embrace anytime, not to mention these challenging times. Currently, the bill sits in the Appropriations Technology Oversight and Government Activities Sub-committee, although a hearing date is not scheduled. However, we are hopeful one is in the works and look forward to supporting it once it’s scheduled.

Yesterday, we posted an update on HB 652, a bill that would allow property owners to present certain evidence to juries in eminent domain just compensation cases. The bill, patroned by Delegate Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville), will be up tomorrow for a key vote at a 4:00 hearing in the Senate Courts of Justice Civil Sub-committee.

We don’t know yet if the big government lobby will try to make a last stand to block or water down this important legislation in the Senate. Their attempt in the House failed. We and several allies are working hard to ensure the bill gets reported unamended. But, to give you a taste of what has happened in the past — and what may happen still — here is video of the hearing in the House Appropriations Sub-committee on Transportation. You will see a VDOT representative try to defend a speculative Fiscal Impact Statement designed to sink the bill because of alleged costs to the Commonwealth. Notice his nervousness. He knows the numbers don’t fly (as we explained here).

The sub-committee didn’t buy it either. It unanimously reported it to the full committee — which deals with all money bills and knows a red herring when it sees one — and which also reported it without a dissenting vote, thanks in large part to Chairman Lacey Putney (I-19, Bedford) who spoke some plain common sense during its final vetting. Then it passed the full House 98-1. But overwhelming numbers in one body has never stopped determined opposition from trying in the other chamber. Remember: Contacting committee members (see here) never hurts.

Constitutional property rights upheld in the House. Will the Senate follow tomorrow?

Today, the news making the biggest waves throughout Capitol Square isn’t the budget, or liberals’ reaction to Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposed cuts. It’s not the speculation on the budget the House Appropriations Committee will produce Sunday or whether the Senate Finance Committee will even meet its budget deadline at all (apparently, it will, Sunday afternoon). It’s not conservatives’ outrage toward Speaker Bill Howell and the governor over letting HB 119 die in Appropriations. It’s not concern over any bill or policy making headlines in the Mainstream Media.

The big conversation is about the closing of Richbrau Brewery, a hometown institution that brewed a locally made beer; a microbrewery and not a bad restaurant either, and a fun nightspot. Owner Michael Beirne is something of a city father, serving on the Wilder-Bliley Commission that led to the total scrapping of Richmond’s old form of government in favor of the full-time, strong mayor format. He also has served on other boards and commissions and has been a visible and constant booster of the city, especially downtown and the historic riverside neighborhoods of Shockoe Slip, Shockoe Bottom, Tobacco Row and environs.

Richbrau also was the host of the weekly Thursday Night Caucus, where lobbyists, staff and legislators get to know each other a little better away from the business confines and battles within the GAB and the aura of the capitol, while playing pool, drinking an adult beverage, even dancing. It’s also where the session-ending Sine Die Party is. Talk about a blast. Despite two months of haggling and outright legislative war, Sine Die is like a college reunion, where liberals and conservatives, lobbyists and lawmakers, this side and that, get together and reminisce, tell war stories and even let the other side in on secrets not dared to slip upon penalty of losing major clients and/or bills going down in flames. . .

You knew what? If you had told me that then I would have voted . . . !

You gotta hear this — remember that blight bill? You know what I told my deskmate before the vote? 

Each Thursday (and one Friday) for about eight weeks, Richbrau is where informal strategy sessions and favor promising took place. Now, it’s consigned to the sign of Richmond’s times. Fortune 500 companies Circuit City and LandAmerica went belly up last year, not to mention S&K and a number of local prides and joys. Adding insult to injury was the recent news that local grocery giant Ukrop’s, which had expanded into the Petersburg area, Fredericksburg, Williamsburg and Roanoke, was selling to a Dutch company. Now, Richbrau, which had remodeled two historic buildings in Shockoe Slip and prompted a microbrewing industry in Richmond that now boasts regional favorite brand Legend’s.

It’s another blow to the capital if not the capitol as downtown Richmond has no shortage of remarkable places for our two-month visitors to eat, drink and unwind. Surely, as of right now, the Sine Die commitee is scrambling for a new venue. But just as every two years, the General Assembly has different legislators, it remains intrinsically the same. In the end, this, too, will be the same. But it will be different, as well.

House Majority Whip and Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Delegate Kirk Cox (R-66, Colonial Heights) appeared on Richmond’s Morning News with Jimmy Barrett this morning on WRVA-AM, with the Lee Brothers substituting for Barrett. Most of their questions focused on the budget and some of the myths promulgated by the left and certain media types.

Delegate Cox was refreshingly candid and said he was tired of the whine coming from certain local government officials, especially when it comes to education funding. Thus, the Stat of the Day:

In Virginia, since 2000, while student enrollment in Virginia K-12 public schools has grown by 7.2 percent, state spending on same has increased 60 percent!

Okay. You know me by now. I can’t stop there. Get this:

Two-thirds of the Virginia budget goes to K-12 public education and health and human services.

So much for the liberal charge about those mean conservatives in the House of Delegates who cut, cut, cut education whenever they can. The fact that Virginia has cut public education spending is a myth, plain and simple. There’s about as much truth to the fact that public education funding has been cut as there was that we were in a deficit when Mark Warner shoved through the largest tax increase in Virginia history.

But the education establishment (the educrats) use every opportunity to kick, scream and cry about a lack of funding to block any type of reform possible. Worse, they try to block discussion of reform with General Assembly lobbyists paid for by taxpayers and teachers’ dues. Thus, Virginia’s worst-in-the-country-charter-school-law, which has been on the books more than a decade and resulted in a meager three charter schools (with a fourth on the way).

Now, after eight years, there’s a new team in charge. Hopefully, that will be the catalyst for the truth finally to get equal billing with the myths — and for something positive to get done.

Click Here To Listen To The Entire Interview With Delegate Kirk Cox (5:45)

In what amounted to a sweep of a day-night double header today, HB 652, patroned by Delegate Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville), a bill that would allow property owners to make a case to juries in just compensation hearings for damages incurred by land no longer accessible though not taken, swept by VDOT’s objections and its speculative Fiscal Impact Statement in the House Appropriations Transportation Sub-committee by a 7-0 vote. It then swept through the full committee early this evening by a 22-0 vote and should now go on the uncontested calendar on the House floor early next week. This is a huge win in the effort to reform eminent domain laws in Virginia. We’ll have more details on this, including video of VDOT’s arguments, Monday.

Of all places and of all people. … Today at the monthly Tuesday Morning Group meeting a polite older woman approached me about helping out on a bill I mentioned in a short presentation. She asked, “Could Clarke Hogan help?”

Hogan is a former member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and House budget conferee who did not seek re-election last year. So I replied that the thought was hypothetical since he’s no longer a delegate. She replied:

But I’m his mom. Maybe he can call someone.

Ohhhhhhh kay! Boy could he. So, yes, mom, let him call away! It’s not like Mary asking Jesus for a favor at Canaan, but it might help.

I gave her the bill number and the pertinent information. Man, it’s great when moms show up at grassroots activist meetings.

Speaking of Virginia’s budget process and Governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s idea to reform the process whereby the lame duck, outgoing governor proposes the next two-year budget, more is needed to be done. For one, zero-based budgeting. Even Creigh Deeds supports that. As it is now, agency budgets are based on the previous year’s budget. They normally get an increase, however small (and usually not small), despite its performance (see the Department of Education).

Zero-based budgeting starts from scratch each year and determines what money is needed to achieve that year’s objectives. But even with zero-based budgeting some unnecessary government programs remain intact. So, instead of reducing some agency budgets, some should be merged (as the House tried to do two years ago) or, better yet, eliminated. Still, zero-based budgeting would be a nice starting point for reform. Two planks out of the McDonnell-Bolling budget and spending reform platform released in September are along these lines: agency performance audit reviews and evidence based budgeting. We hope this at least moves us toward reducing the scope of spending in Richmond, if not actually significantly limiting state government’s ever expanding reach (and we haven’t even touched on SOQ reform).

While the budget cycle and agency appropriation formulas are the headline grabbers, there are many needed common sense reforms. Some have been proposed form time to time in the General Assembly only to be shot down for reasons serious and not. For example, one bill last year from Senator Tommy Norment (R-3, Williamsburg), oddly enough, would bring more transparency and probably scare off lawmakers from voting in pork. It would have required that anything budget conferees stuck in their final budget report — which the two chambers must vote up or down — that was a non-state appropriation, an item not included in either chamber’s budget, or an item that represents legislation that failed during session, would have to be announced as such in letters to all 140 members by the chairmen of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees.

Another idea last year came from Senator Ralph Smith (R-22, Botetourt) which would require at least a day pause for reading the budget before it could be voted on. That, too, went nowhere fast.

Getting ourselves into a fiscal mess was pretty simple — the legislature and the executive over the years simply saying yes to every plea for help and imaginary solution that supposedly only money can provide. Getting ourselves out of it is pretty simple, too. But it’s amazing how many simple, time tested ideas there are that can save taxpayer money and provide efficiency that never get anywhere (not to mention just saying “no”).  

Many of these ideas have been studied or have worked elsewhere. There’s no need for delay. The need is great to reform. The moment, with newly elected officials and a teetering economy, is now. Delay, for any reason, no longer is necessary. No that it ever was.

Annotations & Elucidations

Breaking News: Next Budget Shortfall $3.5 Billion!

Breaking news this evening: Senate Finance Committee analysts told that committee’s members this afternoon that the next two-year budget will be $3.5 billion short, not to mention the current budget lacking another $209 million.

In other news, Governor Tim Kaine told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he has concerns with some of Governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s positions. He is afraid the new governor will sign certain bills he vetoed, not continue his executive order banning “sexual orientation discrimination” in state government hiring, and fears meat ax budget cuts (apparently only Mr. Kaine knows how to cut spending correctly). He also said he’s not afraid of being unpopular. Good thing. 

Speaking of cuts, one state budget analyst told the House Appropriations and Finance Committees yesterday the commonwealth of overbuilt for prisons and that perhaps construction and maintenance costs could be pared for the time being. A harmless cut, manna for pols!

In national news, the Senate showdown on health care approaches and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tries to put out a fire by now saying, of course the administration wants women to get mammograms by age 40. Uh-huh, right. Meanwhile, the public embraces common sense proposals, such as tort reform, but no one’s listening, and the president has hired another tax cheat at the Treasury Department.

In Commentary, Larry Kudlow, Michael Barone and Michelle Malkin take on different aspects of President Obama’s bowing and tripping Asia excursion, Walter E. Williams excoriates the horrendous moral relativism taught to our students, and Christopher Adamo explains the GOP-Palin disconnect.

News:

State facing $3.5 billion shortfall in next budget (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Virginia’s road budget slashed another $851.5M (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

State transit plan faces $851.5 million cut (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Analyst proposes putting corrections projects in Va. on hold (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Gov. Kaine cites concerns on Virginia’s budget, roads (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Gov. Kaine wants ethics probe of ex-delegate Hamilton to continue (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Federal grand jury subpoenas Hamilton documents (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Study highlights tax burden disparity (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

The GOP: Luddites or high tech? (Washington Post Politics and Policy Blog)

National News:

Senate girds for historic debate on health bill (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Thousands cheer Palin in Mich. for book tour (AP/GOPUSA.com)

AP Poll: Support for curbs on malpractice lawsuits (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Another Obama (Treasury) nominee runs into tax problems (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Sebelius: Women should get mammograms by age 40 (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Commentary:

President Zero Sum Goes to Asia(Larry Kudlow/GOPUSA.com)

Obama Bows, but the World Refuses to Bow Back(Michael Barone/GOPUSA.com)

Excused Horrors (Walter E. Williams/GOPUSA.com)

Obama’s Doubletalk On Political Dissent(Michelle Malkin/GOPUSA.com)

Palin, Conservatism, And The Disconnected GOP (Christopher Adamo/GOPUSA.com)

The Senate earlier this afternoon passed by a vote of 38-0 SB 936, by agreeing to the House’s amendments, thus avoiding a conference committee and sending the spending transparency bill to Governor Tim Kaine (contact here). The bill, patroned by Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R-37, Fairfax), did not receive a single negative vote in two Senate committees, one House sub-committee, two House Committees, one House floor vote and two Senate floor votes, three bill versions and three fiscal impact statements.

Within the last few minutes, on the House floor, the House agreed to the Senate substitute of HB 2285, patroned by Delegate Ben Cline (R-24, Rockbridge). Then, by a vote of 93-3, it rejected the Senate floor amendment which would have added legislative transparency to the budget writing process, but had nothing to do with the posting of actual state spending online. It was rejected because the same basic idea of the amendment was rejected by the House Appropriations Committee earlier this session as a free-standing bill. Lawmakers are hesitant to approve policy on the floor as bill amendments when previously rejected in committee where the pros and cons were aired out.

This action makes the bill conform to SB 936. It goes back to the Senate to accept or reject the House’s action, probably tomorrow. If it accepts it, it will go to the governor as an identical bill as SB 936. If not, there will be a committee of conference at which point the amendment will be accepted, rejected or negotiations will fall apart and the bill will die. Either way, SB 936 is a baseline, and there is the slimmest of chances — if the amendment is included — HB 2285 can be made a bit stronger. At the very least, SB 936 will go to the governor!