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Is it possible for a bill to create more buzz in death than in life? That’s a pretty tall order, especially with an important bill such as HB 570. But we caused quite an uproar yesterday and today with the post about its missing PBI vote.

Delegate Sal Iaquinto’s (R-84, Virginia Beach) bill wold have made the burden of proof an equal share between homeowners and assessors in assessment appeal cases. Several blogs picked up on it, including our friends Norman Leahy and Lynn Mitchell at Tertium Quids and SWAC Girl, respectively. Even though the vote was taken a couple weeks ago, the bill’s home page yesterday reflected a “Left In Committee” inaction by the Senate Finance Committee, even though the world knew it got plenty of action as committee liberals sunk it on a straight party line vote (a motion to “Pass By Indefinitely”). We reported the whole affair here along with the video of the entire committee debate and vote, yet the vote was taken down as if the world wouldn’t find out.

“Left In Committee” has a totally different meaning than PBI. It means that the bill was never given a hearing and the patron never had the opportunity to introduce the bill. There’s a big difference between a committee shirking its responsibility by not voting and in hiding its vote (that its members sought office to cast and for which they get paid to make). Not that one is worse than the other, there’s just a big difference between the two.

Just a few minutes ago, however, I received an update on HB 570 from the Legislative Information System. An unexpected update yesterday verified another twist in this dead bill’s life. Sure enough, voila! Just like David Copperfield (again) it appeared! So, if seeing the (video) isn’t believing, it’s now official with the vote listed here. Our disinfectant (this blog) did a little good as it turns out.

Earlier today, it must be said, at a meeting with another conservative organization, an ally relayed what she was told by someone either at LIS or from the Finance Committee staff: That since a vote to PBI doesn’t technically kill a bill, it was still alive, thus the vote was not posted online until it was past time upon which official action could be taken. But this explanation still doesn’t make sense.

A PBI vote kills a bill. If it is to be resurrected, it must be done so with a motion to reconsider. For that, the public needs to know how the vote went because only a member from the prevailing side can ask for such a motion. Either the bill was killed, and the people have a right to know who voted which way, or it was technically still alive and citizens need to know who to approach to try to save it. Furthermore, yesterday was the last day for committee action on bills. No matter the rationalization, the committee vote should have been posted within 24 hours of the meeting and not taken down. Just more games politicians used to get away with.

Another major bill had a less thrilling outcome today, setting the stage for a showdown in Senate Finance Wednesday. The Senate Courts of Justice Committee referred HB 652, the property rights bill, to the Senate Finance Committee on a 15-0 vote. It will be heard there Wednesday morning.

Ever since the middle of last week when COJ yanked the bill from its Civil sub-committee for a full hearing committee hearing, rumors have bounced off every wall and ceiling on every floor of the GAB: It’s going to pass because of this. It’s going to die, because of that. These guys are for it. Those guys are against it. Who’s to know what’s true? Oh, if I could say what I know.

Here’s what we do know: Big government forces continue to lobby against it and pressure senators (see video here). Their lobbyists have been in every committee room HB 652 has been heard in, waiting to ounce. In fact, the lobbyist for the Virginia Association of Counties and the Virginia Municipal League, begged Committee Chairman Henry Marsh (D-16, Richmond) to let him and other opponents to speak today. Senator marsh told him to save it for Finance.

Think this is all stuff of a conspiracy? Check out the case of the mystery memo posted on Tertium Quids: A set of unattributed talking points opposed to the bill was found, apparently being dropped off at certain senators’ offices. Lobbying information is supposed to be identified, sort of like campaign mailers. Hmmmmmmm.

On the other hand, the good guys have an expanding coalition for the bill and three major editorial pages, of different political philosophies, have endorsed it since Thursday: The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

In the meantime, do your part to protect property rights. Contact members of the Senate Finance Committee and ask them to pass HB 652 Wednesday morning.

Thursday afternoon in the Senate Courts of Justice Civil Sub-committee, a bill to allow people to receive just compensation when their property is taken by the government in eminent domain cases will be heard. The bill, HB 652, is supported by a broad coalition including The Family Foundation, the Farm Bureau, Tertium Quids (see comment here) and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.  The bill passed the House of Delegates 98-1, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything to the Senate.

The patron of the bill is House Democrat Leader Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville) and is co-patroned by several Republicans.  It faces the forces of big government — VDOT and local governments who use our tax money to hire lobbyists to work against our interests — who forced the bill while in the House from the Courts of Justice Committee to the Appropriations Committee with a tactic designed to kill it. There is no doubt they will pull out all the stops in the Senate as well.

But we can beat them in the Senate, too: In the House Appropriations Transportation Sub-committee, Delegate Bob Tata (R-85, Virginia Beach), a senior member of the committee, said he HB 652 came to his attention after he received more e-mail on it than any other bill this session. It shows that actively engaged citizens truly have power!

The bill simply allows property owners to present evidence to juries that they deserve just compensation for land not taken in eminent domain cases, but rendered useless because of the taking of adjacent land.  Right now, people are compensated only for the land taken, not additional land that the taking has rendered unusable. The bill is a complement to the landmark 2007 eminent domain reform law that limits government abuse of people’s property rights.

This is a very fair, very needed and very just bill for families who own homes, small businesses and farms.  If government really needs your land, they should buy only what they need and not try to get more of it on the cheap. This bill costs government nothing — it only provides for a fair hearing as to what property owners are entitled to. Government agencies will retain their right to make their case as well. It’s about fairness! As Delegate Armstrong has said, ‘The worst thing the government can do is take your life; the second worst thing it can do is take your property.”

If you who think the 2007 law solved all eminent domain problems, a case in Roanoke from two years ago is still in the news (see From On High), where the Burkholder family is losing its small business to the city who wants its land, even though it has no plans for it! So, click here to contact members of the Senate Courts of Justice Civil Sub-committee and ask them to vote for HB 652 in sub-committee this Thursday afternoon.

Okay, here’s one that defines strange political bedfellows. The Family Foundation, the Farm Bureau, Tertium Quids and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, are backing a HB 562, patroned by House Democrat Leader Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville). The bill provides just compensation to those who have land rendered useless because of an eminent domain taking. Right now, people are compensated only for the land taken, not additional land that the taking has rendered unusable. The bill is a complement to the landmark 2007 eminent domain reform law which limits government abuse of people’s property rights. 

In other words, condemners want to take the land they need but not pay for all of it. This bill will allow the addition of the unusable land to be factored into the price of the compensation for the eminent domain taking. Very fair. Very needed. (For those who think the 2007 law solved all our problems, see this about the Burkholder’s — a Roanoke couple and its small business, via FromOnHigh.)

The bill comes before the House Courts of Justice Civil Sub-committee (click here for members)tomorrow afternoon. Contact the members and ask them to support property rights in Virginia. This bill will go a long way to restoring the rights of farmers, small businesses and home owners who work very hard for their property, only for government agencies to take it, or worse, play games with it with no fair compensation.

Session hasn’t started yet and already we have a Quote of the Day. However, it comes as no surprise as today is the second Tuesday of the month which means it’s Tuesday Morning Group Coalition meeting day. TMG President and dear friend John Taylor supplies it, and it wins not only for its self-deprecating humor, but because it mentions . . . us!

At downtown Richmond’s Bull & Bear Club, high atop the James Center in the capital’s financial district, Taylor, whose sense of humor is matched only by his assured and ready opinions on constitutional government (see his Tea Party speech), recounted a story relevant to a recent cabinet appointment by Governor-elect Bob McDonnell. But first, the punchline:

Years ago the Family Foundation sponsored a conference on education. … They asked me to moderate a panel — mainly because they didn’t want me to speak!

Now, about that story: On the panel that Taylor moderated was none other than Senator Henry Marsh (D-16, Richmond), one of the General Assembly’s most obstinate liberal reform obstructionists on education as well as other issues. Marsh, who is black, outrageously said that after all the hardships to desegregate public schools, the school choice and charter school movement was the effort to re-segregate public schools. After he finished his demagoguery, a young black man on the panel, of whom Taylor was not familiar, stood up and said, (from Tertium Quids):

Where once George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse doorway to keep black kids out, some politicians (like Marsh) were now standing in the doorway to keep them from leaving.

Marsh left the meeting very soon afterwards.

That young man was Gerard Robinson, nominated yesterday by Governor-elect McDonnell to be Secretary of Education (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot). Come to think of it, even though it was years ago, Secretary Robinson’s remark to Senator Marsh, makes a dynamite QOD. Sorry, John.

As mentioned here (and according to the AP), 13 attorneys general are preparing to file suit on behalf of their states to block any eventual nationalization of America’s health care system — or at least leave their states free to choose whether to participate. Virginia Attorney General Bill Mims is one of the 13.

Law suits have been known to work. It is, after all, the states which have the right and obligation to defend themselves from participation in any federal scheme not enumerated in the constitution as a federal responsibility — also known as the 10th Amendment. Of course, the 10th Amendment, nor anything about the constitution, has stopped the federales from increasing its size and scope over our lives throughout recent decades.

But law suits aside, what else can the states do? Apart from the attorney general, who else is in the game? What about legislatures? If Delegate Bob Marshall (R-13, Prince William) has anything to do with it, Virginia’s General Assembly will have a lot to do with it. Last month, he made a presentation to the Tuesday Morning Group Coalition about HB 10, The Health Care Freedom Act, a bill he has already filed. Other patrons thus far are John O’Bannon (R-73, Henrico), Scott Lingamfelter (R-31, Prince William), Harvey Morgan (R-98, Gloucester) and Bob Tata (R-85, Virginia Beach). HB 10 reads, in its entirety, thus:

No law shall restrict a person’s natural right and power of contract to secure the blessings of liberty to choose private health care systems or private plans. No law shall interfere with the right of a person or entity to pay for lawful medical services to preserve life or health, nor shall any law impose a penalty, tax, fee, or fine, of any type, to decline or to contract for health care coverage or to participate in any particular health care system or plan, except as required by a court where an individual or entity is a named party in a judicial dispute. Nothing herein shall be construed to expand, limit or otherwise modify any determination of law regarding what constitutes lawful medical services within the Commonwealth.

Marshall, as ever, is sure of its legislative cure as well as its constitutionality, as we are reminded by Norm Leahy at Tertium Quids. In fact, as Leahy points out, Delegate Marshall offers a Q&A on Dr. Bob Hollsworth’s Virginia Tomorrow blog, asking and answering questions himself, a FAQ tutorial on state legislative prerogative on federal issues, if you will. At least as far as it concerns the federal takeover of the health care industry and individuals’ constitutional rights to be forced into it. 

So, the 10th Amendment lives? We’ll see what Virginia’s General Assembly says — about its own authority. Virginia could make hay as the bulwark against the largest federal power grab in history. That would really give the lawyers something to fight about.

Annotations & Elucidations

Built From Scratch

The communications department threw in the towel today, not providing its share of material for the News Stand. What to do? Build one from scratch. Go to traditional sources for national news and for the state stuff — raid blogs! You know what? I think this is one of the best News Stands, ever. Please read it all as most are short, but with loads of enlightening info. The Post’s Virginia Politics Blog provides self-explanatory headlines. Tertium Quids was a source of much to note, including a free-market health care plan that will be introduced at this year’s General Assembly. It’s about two pages compared to the 2,000-page PelosiCare federal version. The Shad Plank connected the links in a compelling post about a possible challenger to Representative Bobby Scott (D-3rd District), which is rare. 

Elsewhere, the T-D contributes one article — about Representative Tom Perriello’s tele-townhall on his health care vote, while TQ reports on a different type of meeting in Danville between Tea Partiers and the congressman. It looks like Representative Glenn Nye committed a mortal leftist sin. We also have reports on Governor Kaine’s out-of-state fundraising while Virginia gets flooded. A VDOT land grab is chronicled in TQ. Nationally, the ACLU is trying to force a high school into allowing a same-sex prom date and the RNC is dropping staff health insurance plans that cover elective abortions. In Analysis, Bernie Quigley of The Hill’s Pundits Blog debuts here with a look at the Dems and the South, while AFA looks at naughty and nice retailers (which ones say “Merry Christmas” and which don’t).

Finally, our friends at TQ provide something we don’t know how to describe, but it has to do with Glenn Beck, so we created our first ever Feature category. Look it over for a good laugh.

News:

Perriello telephone town hall draws 8,000 (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Burning Perriello Effigy (Tertium Quids)

Nye Targeted From the Left (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

A challenger for Bobby Scott? (The Shad Plank)

McDonnell heads to Austin a GOP star (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Only 9th Street astir on quiet holiday (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

McDonnell, House Dems to meet (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

GOP criticizes Kaine for absence during storm (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

VDOT’s costly attempt at a land grab (Tertium Quids)

Health Care Freedom for VA? (Tertium Quids)

National News:

GOP chairman ends abortion insurance for employees (AP/OneNewsNow.com)

ACLU defends lesbian student on prom issue (OneNewsNow.com) 

Evangelist gets 175 years for sex convictions (AP/OneNewsNow.com)

Analysis:

The South has won (Bernie Quigley/The Hill’s Pundits Blog)

Retailers can be naughty or nice, too (OneNewsNow.com)

Governor’s Travels (Tertium Quids) 

Feature: 

South Park does Glenn Beck (Tertium Quids)

The DNC Chairman, Governor Tim Kaine (contact here) sounded off last night in the attorney general’s campaign. Literally. He voiced a “robo call” on behalf of Democrat AG candidate Steve Shannon. Unfortunately, he really didn’t have much to say about Delegate Shannon’s qualifications.

Instead, he launched into a vicious attack on Republican attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli, using a Washington Post editorial as cover for calling him “bigoted” (see Norm’s Leahy’s first-hand account at Tertium Quids). I, myself, got a call from an African-American friend immediately after he received the call. He reasoned the calls were going into African-American neighborhoods to pump the fear of Satan into otherwise disinterested black voters. But they also went into upper income, socially conscious (i.e., “moderate”) white neighborhoods, too, the areas that the GOP seems to be gaining back this campaign. Which makes sense: with a double digit lead, the only way to defeat Senator Cuccinelli is to expand the voter universe and flip some votes (or get them to skip the AG ballot).

What is interesting is why the DNC chairman and his hacks think they can pick off Senator Cuccinelli. In the SurveyUSA poll, out today, he has the largest lead of the three (20 points!) — and even the Democrat Public Policy Poll says he leads in all regions of the commonwealth, including the liberal bastion of Northern Virginia. (How can that be?) The answer? Trashing the constitution and our founding principles. By parodying Senator Cuccinelli’s principled stands and record of adhering strictly to the constitution, liberals think they can caricature him into something abominable because adhering to Life and Liberty aren’t nearly so important as doling out government-style happiness.

No matter whether one interprets “bigotry” to be the racial kind or the “intolerant of other lifestyles” kind (the call left that open to your interpretation), it’s interesting to note that it was Senator Cuccinelli who accepted, attended, spoke and stayed late to meet people at the Virginia NAACP’s recent forum and Delegate Shannon who accepted — but stood them up. It’s also strange that Governor Kaine thought highly enough of Senator Cuccinelli to work with him on this summer’s special session to remedy the impact on Virginia from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz decision. (You remember . . .the session Shannon called a “political stunt.”)

Even stranger is Delegate Shannon’s previous dinner engagements at the home of Senator Cuccinelli. Guess he was an okay guy before he went up double digits, huh? 

Ever since he took the DNC job, Governor Kaine has not been able to decide whether he is governor or desperate partisan in chief. His level of campaigning is beneath the dignity of the office Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson once occupied.

In the category of original thought, here’s Virginia’s very own Congressman Jim Moran:

I mean, if the Republicans were running in Afghanistan, they’d be running on the Taliban ticket as far as I can see.

The desperation grows. Norm over at Tertium Quids has some fun analysis here.

Annotations & Elucidations 

The Late And Washington Post Poll Edition

The big news was from the Washington Post this afternoon, when it releases its latest poll showing all three Republicans — Bob McDonnell, Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Senator Ken Cuccinelli — leading their respective races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general by nine points. The other big news today concerning the statewide races is that Cuccinelli’s opponent for attorney general, Democrat Delegate Steve Shannon, tried to emulate his gubernatorial ticket mate Creigh Deeds in question dodging (see Tertium Quids below). Who does it better? You watch. You decide.

Other than that, the debt is at third world levels, the CBO says BaucusCare is nearly as expensive, the Supreme Court hears a religious liberty case, and a more ineffective “jobs programs” is on its way. The good news is that we have some superior insights from Larry Kudlow, Michelle Malkin, Bobby Eberle, Michael Barone and Lisa Fabrizio on ObamaCare, his Olympic flame-out and political weakness, and how to create real and plenty jobs.  

News:

McDonnell Widens Lead in Virginia Governor’s Race (Washington Post)

WaPo Poll: McDonnell, Bolling, Cuccinelli all +9 (Tertium Quids Blog)

Explicit ‘Banned Book’ Infuriates Virginia Father, Leads to School Review (FoxNews.com)

Democrats beg Deeds for positive message (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Democrats vowing to hold strong in fight for governor (Northern Virginia Daily)

Deeds avoids Obama, embraces Warner (Washington Times)

Videos Highlight Dueling Images (Washington Post)

Meanwhile, at the AG Debate . . . (Tertium Quids Blog)

Delegates candidates speak at Henrico forum (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Contrasting Candidates Enter Final Month In Race For House Of Delegates (Harrisonburg Daily News-Record)

Hurt will seek GOP nomination to challenge Perriello (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

National News:

Sharp debate at high court over cross on US land (AP/GOPUSA.com)

CBO: Budget deficit triples to record $1.4T in 2009 (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Health bill would cost $829B, cover 94 percent (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Bill increases spending on food stamps, nutrition (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Lawmaker: Cost of presidential copter tripled (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Obama huddles with Democratic leaders over jobs (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Commentary:

The Mundell-Laffer Solution (Larry Kudlow/GOPUSA.com)

Weak Himself, Obama Draws Strength From Bush (Michael Barone/GOPUSA.com)

O-lympics (Lisa Fabrizio/GOPUSA.com)

Couldn’t the ‘Men in White Coats’ Just Take Obama Away? (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

Spin Doctors For Obamacare (Michelle Malkin/GOPUSA.com)

Obama’s ‘No I in Team Syndrome (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)