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The American Legislative Exchange Council is an organization of state legislators that  promotes conservative and free market legislation throughout the 50 state legislatures. Its immediate past national chairman is Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (R-28, Fredericksbug). Its Virginia Chairmen are Delegate Chris Jones (R-76, Suffolk) and Senator Steve Martin (R-11, Chesterfield).

As a driving force for free market solutions to remedy health care, it provides model legislation to its state legislator membership, research and other tools, and tracks the progress of bills across the country. This year, health care freedom is one of ALEC’s  priorities as 30-plus states have introduced such legislation. It’s had a busy time in Virginia this session of the General Assembly as five bills protecting the health care freedom of Virginians have advanced rapidly through Mr. Jefferson’s capitol and Virginia races to become the first state to stand up to the federal government’s over reach into the health care decisions of individuals.

Recently, Christie Herrera, director of ALEC’s health and human services task force, spoke with World Net Daily Radio about the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, as the national media continues to pay attention to Virginia’s lead as the first state to define the limits of the federal government’s powers.

To hear the seven minute interview, click here.

In 2009, we achieved some of the biggest accomplishments since our inception. Winning Matters was a very successful voter education campaign, and we enjoyed the largest Gala attendance in Family Foundation history with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as our keynote speaker. But with a new year, a new administration and a new General Assembly — it starts tomorrow! — making 2009 a halcyon memory in the always fast paced world of politics, conservatives across the Old Dominion are focused on the now, motivated and active with the optimism new opportunities afford.

We certainly are at The Family Foundation. That it is to say, previous success should never slow future achievement. Instead, we want to build off of 2009’s momentum rather than reminisce, and make a bigger difference this year than ever before.

To do that, you have to strike fast and hard by capitalizing on your newfound gains and hold lawmakers’ feet to the fire. So, we are hosting our annual Family Foundation Day at the Capitol, Monday, January 18 — commonly known as “lobby day.” This is the way civic advocates and grassroots activists, like you, learn about what legislation, good and bad, will impact the lives of Virginia families in the 2010 General Assembly. Not only will you be educated on the issues by hearing great speakers, but you also will have the opportunity to speak directly to those delegates and senators that represent you in Richmond, and let them know of your desire to keep Virginia a great place to raise a family.

We’ve made it easier than ever to join us for lobby day with our first ever online registration. Simply click here.

On that site, please be sure to register each individual attending with you. We will then make appointments for you with your legislators. We have made room for greater attendance than we have ever experienced in past lobby days and we are already ahead of where we were with registrations last year at this time. So, don’t miss out — or get squeezed out. Reserve places for yourself, your family and your friends at this important event. You may also register by e-mailing John Smith at john@familyfoundation.org or by calling (804) 343-0010.

Family Foundation Day at the Capitol is Monday, January 18, from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (registration begins at 9 :00) at the newly restored Hilton Garden Inn, 501 East Broad Street, a few blocks from Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol and General Assembly Building. The whole family is invited. In fact, one of the reasons we schedule Family Foundation Day at the Capitol on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday is to give parents the opportunity to conduct their own field trip by bringing their children to Richmond to experience their commonwealth’s government at work. Now, there’s an education!

For the nearly 1 million people who live in the city of Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover, the alarm has sounded. Apparently, the business elites and their politician and government bureaucrat proxies have a bit of NOVA-envy. A panel of the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission has approved the Central Virginia Regional Transportation Authority. However, given the scope of taxes it would be empowered to levy, it is grossly misnamed. We’ll call it the Tax Authority.

It would be able, according to today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, to raise in taxes ”more than $108 million . . . annually to finance road-building and other projects.” (Not to mention the inevitable staff, offices, travel to conferences and other government extravagance.) It will have the power to take your money

“from seven new or increased taxes or fees, including a 2 percent increase in the gas tax, a 40-cent increase in the grantor’s tax on real-estate transactions and a 1 percent first-time vehicle registration fee.” (Emphasis added.) 

The Richmond area is a growing, dynamic area for sure, home to about 13 Fortune 1000 corporate headquarters, seven universities and colleges, and Mr. Jefferson’s capitol, among many other notable institutions that help it thrive. But who here is complaining about traffic? Metro Richmond is not NOVA, nor is it a wannabe. It isn’t even Hampton Roads (hold your jokes until after class). At least not its citizens. Maybe the politicians have NOVA-envy. However, there’s no clamor to emulate the megapolitan Northern Virginia’s failed idea of burdening hard-working families, with already stretched budgets, with another layer of government and another layer of taxers and spenders waiting to dip their hands into our bank accounts. Not when local spending is as wasteful as state spending (read this and this and this and this — and that’s just for starters and only for Richmond City). (Don’t laugh if you live in Goochland, New Kent, Powhatan or any of the other 16 localities in the planning district — you may be next. Your politicians will be allowed to petition their way into this Tax Authority, too.)

How tone deaf can these bureaucrats and politicians be? Are they that beholden to big business to do their bidding even now, when these authorities have been voted down in other regions? When these same fees are so unpopular, even Governor Tim Kaine couldn’t bully them through this summer’s Special Tax Session? When the Supreme Court ruled another version of them unconstitutional — unanimously? Especially in such slow economic times? Do they not know the three taxes listed above are extra burdens on the three most troubling sectors of the economy? Is big business that desperate to make us taxpayers subsidize roads for their malls, office parks and residential areas?

As of now, this scheme isn’t close to finalization. First, each governing body of the member jurisdictions must approve it, although some of the geniuses who created it are on those bodies. Then the General Assembly must approve it and the governor sign it.

The typical RINO suspects are behind the deal. One is Hanover County Supervisor John Gordon. Henrico County Manager Virgil Hazelett has about as much patience for your money as Dracula has for blood — he drafted the plan. (He also pushed a referendum for a $20 million meals tax in 2005 that was defeated.) What remains to be seen is whether Senator John Watkins (R-10, Powhatan) and Delegate Frank Hall (D-69, Richmond) will bring back their bills in the 2009 General Assembly session allowing the creation of the Tax Authority. They were tabled last session because the local governments had not studied them enough. Look what a little time has done.

You can contact Delegate Hall or Senator Watkins by clicking on their names at the links above. In the meantime, if you live in Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico or Hanover, click on the link to look-up your councilman or supervisor and tell them despite their inferiority complex, you have no NOVA-envy.