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When the General Assembly session closed Sunday, Planned Parenthood ended up one of the session’s biggest winners. Despite efforts in the House of Delegates to deny it from benefiting financially from a “pro-choice” license plate, a conference committee recommended that it should, and the legislation easily passed both chambers Saturday. While license plates usually pass the assembly with few “no” votes, there were several members in each chamber who simply would not vote for a bill that benefited Planned Parenthood. Now this omnibus license plate bill goes to Governor Bob McDonnell for his signature, veto or amendments.

In addition, the General Assembly yesterday sent a state budget to the governor’s desk that does not prohibit taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. It also does not include prohibitions on taxpayer funding of failed embryonic stem cell research and low-income elective abortions. All in all, a good weekend for the nation’s billion-dollar abortion behemoth.

On the license plate, according to media reports, it appears that some in the legislature were intimidated by the ACLU’s threat to sue if Planned Parenthood didn’t get the money from the plate. Courts have ruled that if one viewpoint is allowed on a license plate (i.e., “Choose Life”) than the opposite viewpoint must be allowed (in this case, “Trust Women, Respect Choice”). Courts have not, however, ruled on the issue of funding from the license plates. Nowhere in this session’s legislative process was the message of Planned Parenthood’s plate an issue — except for some members who weren’t going to vote for the plate regardless of the courts! Instead, it always, as ever with Planned Parenthood, was about the money.

Unfortunately, once the Planned Parenthood plate was attached to legislation that included several other license plates, it was going to pass. Planned Parenthood and its cronies in the legislature were willing to allow every other license plate (including one that would fund a program that helps feed children) to be defeated in order to get their way. If pro-life legislators had held out, you can imagine the headlines: Anti-abortion legislators kill funding for children.

On the other hand, the General Assembly passed its FY 2011-2012 state budget. Considering the weeping and gnashing of teeth we’ve heard for the past several months over the growing “budget deficit,” it was amazing that the legislature finished its work just one day late. According to media reports, the two-year $70 billion budget takes the state back to 2006 spending levels. While we are pleased that the budget does not include any direct tax increases on Virginia’s families, we are disappointed that simple language protecting the taxpayer from funding unethical activities was not included.

Once again, Senate Democrats such as Dick Saslaw (D-35, Springfield) and Janet Howell (D-32, Reston) were willing to put the entire commonwealth at risk by blocking a budget that included those protections. Just waiting for it to happen were headline writers and editorial page editors who would have ripped those legislators willing to stand on a pro-life principle.

But the battle isn’t over. These bills now await action by the governor. Over the next several days we will put together a comprehensive action plan for how you can make sure that your voice is heard — and heard loudly — during the veto process concerning the continued taxpayer funding of unethical activities by your state government.

The Senate Education and Health Committee richly deserves its “Committee of Death” moniker — it has been the graveyard for pro-life legislation for most of the decade. No pro-life bill has survived this committee regardless of its simplicity or common sense. As usual, a valuable bill that would have improved the safety regulations of the Commonwealth’s abortion centers was defeated there yesterday on a vote of 11-4 — a party line vote, with the exception of Senator Fred Quayle (R-13, Suffolk), who voted against the bill as he did last year. Patroned by Delegate Matt Lohr (R-26, Harrisonburg), HB 393 would require that these unregulated surgical facilities that perform abortions to be inspected, have emergency life-saving equipment, and be overseen by a state regulatory agency just as any other outpatient surgical center. This legislation has long been a pro-life priority.

Delegate Lohr eloquently pointed out to the committee the disparity between how these unregulated surgical abortion centers are treated compared to other medical facilities. As inexplicable as it is, 11 members of the committee believe that incredibly less invasive procedures such as lasik surgery, blood donation, face lifts, colonoscopies and oral surgery should be held to higher standards than abortion procedures.

Perhaps most alarming was Dr. Wendy Klein, from the VCU School of Medicine, who claimed, “Abortion is the safest medical procedure you can have!” The opposition to HB 393 cited the National Abortion Federation, an association that oversees seven abortion centers in Virginia, as a reliable self-regulatory organization. However, as I clarified in my testimony, this is far from reassuring. For example, NAF requires only a midlevel clinician (not necessarily a physician) to perform an abortion procedure. Fortunately, Virginia Code protects against this, but clearly NAF guidelines, as exemplified in this one standard, cannot be assumed sufficient!

Countering these arguments, in addition to Delegate Lohr and The Family Foundation, were a number of organizations that clearly outnumbered the pro-abortion forces, including representatives from the Governor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, Virginia Society For Human Life and the Virginia Catholic Conference.

Dr. Klein was at it again on HB 334, patroned by Delegate Bob Marshall (R-13, Manassas). This bill, also defeated yesterday on the exact same 11-4 vote, would bolster Virginia’s informed consent law by making available to women seeking abortions statistics that show the difficulties of future pregnancies and births to women who previously had abortions (as much as eight times higher). She said that bill presumes women can’t figure out things for themselves. So, she admits there are risks!

Even more shocking was Senator Dick Saslaw’s (D-35, Springfield) response to the citation of the House of Delegates vote on this bill (95-2). He said a member told him it got that many votes because many who voted for it knew “we’d kill it over here.” Aside from the crass cynicism and joy he seemed to take in those seemingly vindictive words, if Senator Saslaw is correct, it shows that an overwhelmingly large amount of Virginians favor this type of legislation and that their representatives are afraid to vote against their constituents’ interests. The pro-abortion crowd can’t have it both ways.

While it is difficult to stand before this committee year in and year out with such reasonable legislation only to see it killed, we appreciate the legislators who are willing to continue to force lawmakers to go on record opposing this legislation. The Family Foundation remains committed to fighting for pro-life and pro-family issues.

Today, in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, the anticipated fireworks didn’t materialize. But it sure did have some strange twists and turns.

Although there wasn’t as much hype concerning HB 10, The Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, there was due to be some suspense. The patron, Delegate Bob Marshall (R-13, Manassas), had reason to be confident since three similar Senate bills escaped Commerce and Labor earlier in session, albeit by 8-7 votes, due to the brave votes of Democrats Charles Colgan (D-29, Manassas) and Phil Puckett (D-38, Tazewell). But HB 10 is worded slightly different. One difference from the Senate bills is that it clearly limits exemptions on insurance purchase mandates in divorce settlements, an omission Senate liberals objected to in SB 417, SB 311 and SB 283. On the other hand, its protections from the federal government are a little more expansive.

Stage set, here’s what happened: Delegate Marshall barely was into the introduction of the bill when he got a few questions, including one from committee chairman and Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-35, Springfield), who asked, “Do you think we have the power to tell Congress what to do?”

Of course, the bill won’t tell Congress what to do. Only that Virginia won’t participate in a certain action (health care insurance mandates) that it may pass. In fact, Delegate Marshall cited a 1994 Congressional Budget Office memo during the HillaryCare debate, that stated never before had Congress mandate Americans to buy any good or service, and that doing so would open the door for other mandated purchases and a command economy. (Hopefully, our public schools still teach what political system uses a command economy.) He reasoned, that if Congress has never required an individual mandate before, it must not be legal, or it would have done so already in more than 200 years. He also cited New York v. United States where a federal court ruled in New York’s favor over a federal mandate. Seemingly anxious to just get it over with, it was about here where Senator Creigh Deeds (D-25, Bath) asked if there was any difference between HB 10 and the Senate bills, which Delegate Marshall already had volunteered that there was. He amended his bill to preserve divorce settlements in which insurance coverage may be a part, something on which committee liberals hammered the Senate bills’ patrons. On the other hand, his bill, in a macro constitutional sense (I love creating new phrases) was a bit broader and probably more protective of the feds than the Senate bills.

Before the committee’s legal counsel and Delegate Marshall could complete their responses, motions and comments started flying all over the place. Senator Saslaw, confident that the differences were huge and that the bills were not the same, motioned that HB 10 be passed by for the year. Senator Frank Wagner (R-7, Virginia Beach) made a substitute motion to report. Senator Steve Newman (R-23, Forest) made a parliamentary inquiry if the bill could be conformed into one of the Senate bills. He was told no because the bills are in different sections of the code.

That struck me as odd right away because bills are conformed all the time. In fact, “conforming” is changing legislative language to the exact same language as another bill — in other words, that’s the point! Change it and put it in any code section you want! So the motion to report was voted upon with Senators Puckett and Colgan upholding their part, but the bill failed 8-7. How could this be when the others passed? Senator Tommy Norment (R-3, Williamsburg) voted no.

As supporters gathered outside to plan a next step — primarily, to get Senator Norment to offer a motion to reconsider at the next meeting — word came out of the committee room to head back in: That’s what indeed he was doing! So the bill was brought right back up, interrupting the introduction of the next bill. After the motion to reconsider passed, a motion to — believe it or not — conform it to SB 417 was made and passed on a 8-7 vote. So, HB 10 survives, amended to the same language as SB 417. You like unintended consequences (something liberals are always warning us about)? Good, because now the protections for divorce orders is gone!

It should now pass the Senate floor, where it will go back to the House. It remains to be seen if Delegate Marshall will then insist on his original language when it returns there and force a conference committee, or if he’ll take what he has. Does he want pride of authorship? Or, knowing the other bill will become law, does he want to roll the dice and try to get the additional protections in HB 10 to become the law of the Commonwealth?

Today on the floor of the House of Delegates, SB 18, legislation that creates a pro-abortion license plate, was amended so that money raised from the plate will not go to Planned Parenthood. The identical amendment was placed on the House version of similar legislation earlier in session.

The action by the House to divert the money from Planned Parenthood to the Virginia Pregnant Woman Fund has caused a verbal hissy fit from the pro-abortion lobby. It claims that the House is being “unfair” and is not treating Planned Parenthood the same as other organization’s that receive money from license plates.

The reasons for the House different treatment of the Planned Parenthood bill, patroned by Senator Louise Lucas (D-18, Portsmouth), are numerous. Of course, one reason is its pro-abortion agenda and its opposition to nearly every public policy in Virginia that relates to abortion, from our ban on partial birth infanticide to parental consent. There also is opposition because Planned Parenthood is the largest private provider of abortions in the Commonwealth. Planned Parenthood has “promised” that money raised by the plate will not fund abortion, but all we have is its word.

If those aren’t reasons enough, another explanation we have shared in the past was reinforced recently in a television interview I did on a local news broadcast regarding the license plate controversy. While interviewing the lead lobbyist for Planned Parenthood in her office, where she was arguing that Planned Parenthood is a health care organization, the camera caught an interesting sign in the background. Please watch the following brief video clip from that interview:

The camera doesn’t blink on partisan Planned Parenthood.

Clearly, as I said in the interview, Planned Parenthood is a blatantly partisan political group masquerading as a health care organization. If the video isn’t enough, you can go to its  Web site and blog and see its endorsements of political candidates, nearly all of which are from one particular political party. Regardless of its claims to be all about women’s health, it really is about winning elections and making money — much of it off of the taxpayer. Isn’t it interesting that the candidates it supports are advocates of taxpayer funding of its organization.

In the next few days, the Senate will reject the amendment, reverting the money from the license plates back to Planned Parenthood. The House is likely to insist on the change, forcing the bills into a conference committee for a “compromise” to be worked out. At the same time, the budget conference committee will be debating the budget amendment that prohibits taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. It is simply unacceptable that taxpayers continue to be forced to fund a partisan organization that does not support the laws of Virginia.

The evidence is abundant. It is time to put a stop to this funding.

No issue has galvanized Americans like the attempt by President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to take over the American health care system and put it under federal government control. Conservatives, liberals, moderates, Democrats, Republicans and independents alike have made their voices known — No nationalized health care! After a string of embarrassing election losses — including the historic conservative landslide sweep here in Virginia last November and the recent Republican win in the Massachusetts special Senate election — it looked like health care “reform” was dead.

Not so fast. President Obama and his liberal Congressional allies are resuscitating their plans with talk of forcing it through Congress in a process called “reconciliation” that bypasses the protection of a filibuster. So, what can we do about it?

In Virginia, plenty! This week’s news from Washington couldn’t have better timing because Monday afternoon the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee will hear Delegate Bob Marshall’s HB 10, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, which would exempt Virginians from individual federal health care mandates. Although three Senate versions have passed the General Assembly already, and are on their way to Governor Bob McDonnell to become the first law of its type in the land, Delegate Marshall’s (R-13, Manassas) bill is slightly different and would provide additional protections. The Commerce and Labor Committee barely passed the other versions with 8-7 votes. Democrat Senators Charles Colgan (D-29, Manassas) and Phil Puckett (D-38, Tazewell) bravely bucked their party leadership to vote for true health care freedom. Please thank them, and encourage them and other members of the committee to vote for HB 10 to secure Virginia from federal intrusion into our personal health care decisions!

This is an historic opportunity for Virginia to protect itself from federal government intrusion! Please contact members of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee (here) now and ask them to pass HB 10.

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.

The intrigue this session in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee continues. Remember the saga of SB 504? It was in COJ, and passed out of a sub-committee, only to be abruptly referred to the Committee on Education and Health. Today, for some unexplained reason (and it may be on the up and up) HB 652, a property rights/just compensation bill, which was supposed to be heard in the COJ Civil Sub-committee was (with selected other bills) singled out to be carried over straight to the full committee on Monday morning. If HB 652 passes there, it likely will be referred to the Finance Committee because of an alleged “fiscal impact.”

Oh, the things I wish I could tell. But can’t. But hope to once the coast is clear!

Back to matter at hand: HB 652 is a great bill that will go a long way to making whole families whose businesses, homes and farms are horribly affected in eminent domain cases. The bill, patroned by Delegate Ward Armstrong (D-10, Martinsville) and co-patroned by several Republicans, passed the House 98-1, and the Appropriations Committee said it caused no fiscal impact to the Commonwealth. However, we think there may be some skeptics in the Senate, so please act (see below). The bill would allow property owners a chance to present evidence that a government taking has rendered other property useless, and therefore receive adequate compensation. It is a fairness bill — it guarantees nothing — only that a farmer, small business owner or family can present the evidence 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 — counties, cities and VDOT, 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 it has been ripping off landowners in Virginia for decades already! Enough of that! (See refutation of FIS.) 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.

So, please contact members of the Senate Courts of Justice (here) and Finance Committees now and ask them to pass HB 652.

In a fire-charged day in Senate Finance (see Part 3), a day of which we have barely scratched the surface, there were many memorable quotes. However, we have chosen Senator Walter Stosch (R-12, Henrico), whose pithiness underlined a severe truth during the debate on education freedom in Virginia. Responding to committee statists, who want to preserve the failing government-run school system and block, at all costs, competition and access to better schools for lower-income families by claiming the privately funded scholarship bill was a backdoor voucher program, Senator Stosch said the statements were nothing more than . . .

inappropriate arguments because they don’t make sense any more so than a tax credit for a “green job” is a voucher. …

Ouch! That had to hit committee statists right, smack in between their liberal sensibilities.

In some bright news amidst the regular drumbeat of negative national and state reports, Virginia earned a coveted grade from NARAL Pro-Choice America last week — an “F” in protecting abortion on demand!

My message to them: You ain’t seen nothing yet!

However, just a quick glance at NARAL’s criteria for Virginia’s stellar grade conveys just how out of the mainstream NARAL actually is when it comes to abortion. For example, one strike against us is that we “ban a safe abortion procedure.” That procedure is the brutal act of partial birth infanticide!

Another strike? We require “biased-counseling requirements and mandatory delays” prior to abortion. That would be the vastly popular and reasonable Informed Consent law. The bias-counseling? A pamphlet that describes the gestational development of an unborn child!

It gets better. Virginia also “restricts young women’s access to abortion services by mandating parental consent.” Imagine that, requiring a parent be involved in a medical procedure when a teenager is the patient!

They also claim that Virginia law “subjects abortion providers to burdensome restrictions.” What would that be? We don’t allow women to be subjected to second and third trimester abortions inside unregulated and uninspected abortion centers, but instead require that they be done in hospitals.

All that before we even get to the lies. In one place they claim Virginia restricts low income women’s access to abortion when, in fact, Virginia is one of only 17 states that goes beyond federal requirements and pays for low income abortions that are “elective.”

While we can all be somewhat proud of this failing grade, to me, we have a long way to go to restore a respect for human life in Virginia. That will happen when we finally require Virginia’s abortion centers to be regulated and inspected; when we no longer force taxpayers to fund Planned Parenthood and low income abortions; when we bring our Informed Consent laws into the 21st century by requiring an ultrasound prior to an abortion.

So, although we don’t think we truly deserve an “F,” we hope you celebrate it for a moment. Then, let’s all get back to work to truly earn that grade next year.

One of the biggest aggravations — and financial hardships — local governments place on taxpaying families and individuals is the assessments on their houses. Not only are local property tax rates often much too high, the assessments are as well, resulting in a double infliction of financial pain.

Of course, by law, localities must allow homeowners an appeals process if a homeowner thinks the assessment is too high. But, as usual in Virginia, we have laws to remedy a problem that are nothing more than window dressing, so that legislators can say, “We have a law,” (and plaster it all over campaign brochures). In fact, it’s said Virginia has laws to prevent solutions (such as our restrictive charter school law).

Virginia’s assessment appeals process is such a case and is counterproductive to a fair appeal. It’s almost like an IRS appeal where you are guilty until proven innocent. In the case of an assessment appeal, you must prove the assessor wrong — he or she has no burden to prove your property is valued at fair market value. It is such a stacked system that most aggrieved homeowners don’t even attempt to appeal and end up paying more than they should of their hard-earned income in local property taxes.

However, now there’s a chance to reform this overly slanted playing field in favor of the government to a level playing field for all homeowners. Delegate Sal Iaquinto (R-84, Virginia Beach) is patroning HB 570. It passed the House 86-13 and will be voted on in the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday.

Please contact members of the committee (click here) and ask them to report this bill to the floor so that taxpayers, homeowners and families finally can receive a bit of tax fairness.

According to fiscal impact statement attached to HB 570 (and these statements normally sink a bill, so it’s nice to have one that offers clarity on the subject) the bill would . . .

shift the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the assessor when the taxpayer appeals the assessment of real property to a Board of Equalization or to a circuit court, and would remove the presumption that the assessor’s valuation of real property is correct. The assessor would have the burden of proving that the property in question is valued at its fair market value or that the assessment is uniform in its application, or that the assessment is otherwise valid or legal.

In addition, currently, in all such cases, the taxpayer has the burden of proving that the property in question is valued at more than its fair market value — and is . . .

required to produce substantial evidence that the valuation determined by the assessor is erroneous and was not arrived at in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practice in order to receive relief.

Perhaps there is nothing in Virginia more contrary to American due process than our process to appeal unjust property assessments — assessments localities use to milk its residents for their unquenchable thirst for more tax revenue. Wednesday may be the day Virginia takes a big step toward reversing that and not just “having a law” for the sake of having a law, but having a law that puts its citizens first.