Override after-action report

Watching the General Assembly today was certainly instructive. The phrase has been attributed to a number of people but whoever said it was right: Laws, as with sausage, should not be watched in the making.

In my previous post I did a sort-of live blogging of event up to around 6:15 PM or so. Feel free to read that post but I’m going to recap the pertinent stuff here. As you know if you’ve read this blog I was an advocate for several bills passing through the Assembly and, when Governor Kaine vetoed them, I was also an advocate for the override of those vetoes. Well, here’s how it shook out today:

Bill	Descrip.	Vote		Override?
		House (Y/N)	Senate (Y/N)	House (Y/N)	Senate (Y/N)
HB1851	Military > 1 gun/mo.	73/26	26/14	Yes	No
HB2528	Gun “buyback”	71/28	24/16	Yes	No
SB877	Retired LEO CCW in restaurant	76/22	30/10	Yes	Yes
SB1035	CCW in restaurant	n/a	24/16	n/a	No
SB1528	CCW safety course online	73/23	28/12	Yes	Yes

You’ll note that the Senate actually had a majority vote to override the veto in each case. The ones that failed did so because they needed 2/3rds of the Senate to vote for the override, which means they needed 27 Yes votes to get the job done. Cynic that I am, I am convinced the Democratic majority in the Senate  contrived to allow a number of their own to vote yes to the override so they could go home and say they voted “yes” but there just wasn’t enough votes to complete the override. Be as that may, this is what it is. Of the 5 bills I was hoping to see an override on, 2 of them managed to get through. Of the others, the House voted to override but the Senate did not.

The big bill, so far as I was concerned, was SB1035 which sought to remove the inconsistency of being a trustworthy enough citizen to carry a concealed weapon in the street and the sidewalk outside a restaurant but not enough so as to carry it past the threshold of that restaurant. Irrational fears and hyped-up hypotheticals is all that the opponents of this bill have had for over 2 years, now. This law has been passed twice by the Commonwealth’s elected representatives by quite large margins only to be dismissed by a handful of people. Truly incredible.

The good news is that this will be the last time Kaine gets to use Virginia’s legislative process to pad his national resume. He’s out in November, period. Those of us who have tried to work with him and his party must now put our efforts into electing Bob McDonnell to the governorship and as many Delegates and Senators as we can who offer the trust and respect to Virginia’s citizens that we’ve clearly been asking for.

In case any of my nearby neighbors were wondering, Delegate Dave Poisson (House 32nd District) and Senator Mark Herring (Senate 33rd District) voted like this:

Bill	Poisson	Herring
HB1851	No	No
HB2528	No	No
SB877	Yes	Yes
SB1035	n/a	No
SB1528	Yes	Yes

Note that Poisson didn’t vote on SB1035 because the Senate failed to override making the House vote moot. I would like to point out to my fellow Loudouners that the votes of these 2 gentlemen make it clear they trust a retired cop slamming down brews at the local pub with a concealed weapon far more than they trust you stone-cold sober. Keep that in mind.

I’d also like to hear them explain themselves regarding HB1851 where they think our military personnel and Guardsmen aren’t worth the consideration of being able to buy more than 1 handgun a month. With the deployments going on a soldier with orders to ship out might very well get caught having to decide between buying a sidearm for his own use overseas or getting one for his wife to keep at home to defend themselves here. I don’t understand how they can claim to trust and honor our military personnel – and depend on them to fulfill their missions, I might add – and not allow them this latitude. I hope members of our military and Guard will keep that in mind, as well.

Time to turn our eyes toward the future, my friends, and work to show Virginians everywhere that we’ve got the ideas and solutions to a better way and the people who know how to get them implemented.

Action in Richmond; House votes to override Governor’s veto on 2 bills (Updates)

I’ve mentioned that the General Assembly has convened today to consider actions on several vetoes and amendments returned to them by the Governor. I have taken notice of the House minutes today and find that the House has overridden vetoes on 2 of the bills I was speaking of.

HB1851, which would allow members of the US military and the VA National Guard to be exempt from Virginia’s “1 handgun a month” limitation was vetoed by the Governor. The House has voted 72-26 to override. It now goes to the Senate.

HB2528 which requires localities wishing to perform a “gun buyback program” to pass a specific ordinance authorizing it and to sell guns received in this manner to federal firearms licensed dealers whenever possible was also vetoed. The House overrode that veto by a vote of 71-28. It will also go to the Senate.

More to come as I hear more.

Update: Interestingly, there’s a real kerfuffle going on over in the Senate around SB1070. The issue doesn’t appear to be the Governor’s amendments to this bill but, rather, the question of whether the amendments offered are “severable.” I came in a little late on the matter but the Republican caucus appears to be arguing that the Governor’s stance that these amendments are not severable (which means considered separately, I’m guessing) is a breach of the Constitutional duties assigned to the Senate. They are arguing that the Constitutional matter should be considered and dealt with before the amendments to the bill are considered. The Democrat caucus is merely trying to force the amendments through.

More to come as I hear more.

Update 2: The House has completed it’s 1st set of business which was dealing with the House bills vetoed or amended by the Governor. They stand in recess for the moment. (Until 5:00 pm EDT, as of now.) They are awaiting the Senate to complete their run of bills. The Senate’s calendar dealt with the Senate bills that were amended first and they appear to be stuck on SB1495, again over whether or not the amendments offered by the Governor are to be considered “separate and severable” and, therefore, subject to being debated separately. Counting SB1495, they have 4 more bills to consider before moving to the issues vetoed by Gov. Kaine. There are 7 of those bills, including SB877, SB1528, and SB1035 which I’ve written about before. The Senate needs to act on those bills before the House can consider them. More to come, folks.

Oh, by the way, the Senate’s minutes are here. If you’re extremely bored and want to go watch either session in progress, go to the G.A.’s web site and click on one of the links for video. There’s audio-only links, too.

Update 3: OK, apparently the issue was a matter of whether the amendments are separate and severable meaning that if they were not, the whole bill had to go back to committee. The Senate has voted along party lines to say that they are and, therefore, are moving ahead to determine whether to accept the Governor’s amendments again.

Update 4: The Senate has finished the amendments phase and is now taking up the Governor’s vetoes. At 5:50PM they overrode the veto on SB877.

Update 5: SB971, the “Triggerman” veto has been sustained in the Senate. SB1035 is being discussed now. (6:12PM)

…And as of 6:15PM, the Senate has failed to override the veto of SB1035. The vote was 24-16 in favor of the override, but that’s not the 3/4ths 2/3rds vote necessary to get it done.

I’ll have more on that later but, for now, I’m headed to dinner.

(Edited my Update 5 to correct the passage ratio required for a veto override. It’s 2/3rds or 27 of 40 Senators.)

Update 6: The House is starting on the Senate responses to the Kaine vetos. They’ve passed by SB877 and are working on SB1528, the issue of permitting on-line instruction for the purposes of qualifying for a concealed carry permit.

Repeat Traffic: VA General Assembly meeting again April 8th to consider overrides of Kaine vetoes.

This is a repeat message. Please take a moment today or early tomorrow to contact your Virginia General Assembly Delegate and Senator!

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As is the procedure in Virginia, the General Assembly is reconvening on April 8th to consider responses to Governor Kaine’s actions regarding the bills passed in the session that was just completed. According to Virginia law, the Governor has 4 options open to him when a bill is sent to his desk.

1. Sign the bill. It becomes law either immediately or on a certain date as described in the law.
2. Veto the bill. He then returns the bill to the General Assembly.
3. Modify the bill. The Governor can make modifications to any bill sent to him. He then returns the bill to the General Assembly so they can vote on whether to accept his modifications.
4. Do nothing. In the absence of action on the Governor’s part, the bill becomes law just as if he’d signed it.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Governor Kaine vetoed several firearms-related bills that passed the GA pretty handily. The Assembly will now consider whether to override the Governor’s veto. Among those bills being considered (summaries from a Grassroots Bulletin from the NRA-ILA):

SB1035 would permit a Right-to-Carry permit holder to carry concealed in a restaurant, provided he or she does not consume alcohol. The House amended SB1035, improving it by removing the requirement that Right-to-Carry permit holders notify the alcohol beverage manager when they carry concealed in their establishment.

After vetoing SB1035, Governor Kaine said, “Allowing concealed weapons into restaurants and bars that serve alcohol puts the public, the employees, and our public safety officers at risk. I take seriously the objections of law enforcement to this measure.”  Last year, the Governor signed a bill permitting Commonwealth Attorneys to carry concealed in restaurants even while consuming alcohol.  It should be noted that SB1053 prohibited the consumption of alcohol while carrying concealed by licensed Right-to-Carry permit holders.
 
SB877 would allow “retired” law enforcement officers to carry concealed in a restaurant that serves alcoholic beverages. Unlike SB1035, this bill applies only to retired law enforcement officers.
 
HB1851 would exempt active duty military personnel or Virginia National Guardsmen from Virginia’s “one-gun-a-month” law on handgun purchases.
 
SB1528 would have allowed a safety course conducted by a state-certified or National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor required for obtaining a concealed handgun permit to be done electronically or online.
 
HB2528 would establish that no locality or entity may participate in a gun “buyback” program where individuals are given anything of value or money in exchange for surrendering a firearm to the locality unless the governing body first passes an ordinance authorizing the gun “buyback.”  The legislation also requires that any locality holding gun “buybacks” sell the firearms to a federally licensed dealer “or be disposed of in any appropriate manner” if they could not be sold.

One of our local members of the GOP and of several pro-2nd Amendment organizations, Greg Stone, put out an e-mail calling for concerned citizens to take a moment and make their voices heard to their members of the General Assembly, particularly those who had voted “no” during the floor vote. He writes:

If YOUR Senator is one of the following:

Blevins, Colgan, Herring, Lucas, Norment, Northam, or Petersen

And/Or YOUR Delegate is one of the following:

Albo, Amundson, Caputo, Dance, Hamilton, Hargrove, Mathieson, May, Melvin, Paula Miller, Poisson, Rust, Shannon, Sickles, Tata, Tyler, Vanderhye, or Watts

You need to call them NOW and let them know that since they supported RETIRED police officers carrying concealed in restaurants, even if they are drinking alcohol, they NEED to change their vote and override the Governor’s veto to SUPPORT concealed handgun permit holders carrying concealed in restaurants if they don’t drink!

These legislators simply cannot justify what they have done by their contradictory votes.  We MUST call them and let them know we expect them to make it right by overriding the veto.

His e-mail included phone contacts for these Senators and Delegates. I’ll include them here and toss in e-mail addresses, too.

Harry Blevins (district), 757-546-2435

Chuck Colgan, 703-368-0300

Mark Herring, 703-729-3300

Louise Lucas (district), 757-397-8209

Thomas Norment, 757-259-7810

Ralph Northam (district), 757-818-5172

Chap Petersen, 703-349-3361

Delegates:

Dave Albo, 703-451-3555

Kristen Amundson, 703-619-0444

Chuck Caputo, 703-476-6944

Rosalyn Dance, 804-862-2922

Phillip Hamilton, 757-249-2480

Frank Hargrove, 804-550-2900

Bobby Mathieson, 757-470-3000

Joe May, 703-777-1191

Ken Melvin, 757-397-2800

Paula Miller, 757-587-8757

David Poisson, 703-421-6899

Thomas Rust, 703-437-9400

Stephen Shannon, 703-281-5200

Mark Sickles, 703-922-6440

Bob Tata, 757-340-3510

Roslyn Tyler, 434-336-1710

Margi Vanderhye, 703-448-8018

Vivian Watts, 703-978-2989

It’s important to contact your Senator or Delegate and ask them to vote to override the Governor’s veto of these bills. It is crucial that you do so for 1 of these bill especially, SB1035 and to show you why, I’ll quote from Greg Stone’s e-mail again:

SB 1035, the restaurant ban repeal, needs 5 more votes to be overridden in the Senate …  The House only needs 1 more vote to override the veto. (Senate 22 to 16, House 66 to 33) …

SB 877, the restaurant ban repeal for retired police, passed by a large veto proof margin. (Senate 40 to 0, House 84 to 15)

SB 1851, One Handgun A Month exemption for active duty military, passed by a large veto proof majority. (Senate 31 to 8, House 86 to 13)

SB 1528, internet training for CHPs, passed by  a large veto-proof majority. (Senate 29 to 10, House 99 to 0)

HB 2528, gun buy-up bill, passed by a large veto-proof majority. (Senate 28 to 12, House 85 to 11)

Emphasis mine. All 4 of the other bills already passed by a margin capable of overriding the veto. We need to ask those who voted “no” on them to reconsider but all that really needs to happen is for all of the Assembly to vote again as they voted before. SB1035, however, is a different situation. We need 5 Senators and 1 Delegate to change from a “no” to a “yes” and that’s where you come in.

Note that all 40 Senators voted to permit retired police officers to carry concealed in those same restaurants and bars and they voted to permit those same people to drink while doing so. In other words, these Senators who voted for that bill but against SB1035 are saying they trust a drunk retired cop to carry a gun but they don’t trust you stone cold sober. I don’t recommend you actually say that in your correspondence with them, but definitely keep it in mind as you decide whether you’ve got the time to call them.

I’d also remind everyone that Gov. Kaine already signed a bill last year that permits Commonwealth Attorneys to carry concealed and drink while doing so. Perhaps they can argue that police training means something where their current inconsistencies are concerned but Attorneys are no more trained regarding firearms than are regular citizens like us. Again, something to keep in mind.

Your action is needed. Your efforts do matter. Make a couple of calls, please.

Who should be RPV Chairman

Virginia Virtucon has a thread running talking about some names being bandied about for RPV Chairman now that Jeff Frederick has been removed. Interesting names.

Bogus Mexican gun statistics finally getting called out

I’ve listened with disgusted amazement at the people getting on TV and talking about the Mexican drug war going on making the statement that the guns and other weapons being used are coming into Mexico from the United States. It’s almost invariably linked to more gun control advocacy. I knew there was something very, very wrong in all of this when I started hearing about the types of weapons and seeing the pictures. They included fully-automatic weapons, mortars, and various explosive missiles – none of which are available in the US civilian market that’s being blamed for the guns.

Now, Fox News has done some exclusive reporting that shows this often-repeated claim is at best the repetition of dead wrong info and an outright lie at worst. Speaking of the claim repeated by Secretary of State Clinton, CA Senator Dianne Feinstein, members of the MSM and even officials at BATFE that 90% of the guns found in Mexico came through the US:

There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:

It’s just not true.

In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

You see, the fact is that of the guns Mexico turned over to us to see if they were from the US, 90% of those were, in fact, ID’d as coming from the United States. The problem for the statistic comes when you find out that during the collection period where those guns were found at Mexican crime scenes, the Mexican police recovered 4 times as many guns that weren’t sent to us:

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

Short & sweet, the “90% of guns recovered in Mexican crime scenes came out of America” claim is sheer crap, as bogus as the day is long. Enough, already. I have no issue with helping the Mexican government out but their problems with crime didn’t start with the US and they’re not being supported by our firearms market. I would suggest that those persons concerned with what’s going on down there stick to the facts and work to resolve the real issues. Leave the “blame America for the guns” meme behind.

VA General Assembly meeting again April 8th to consider overrides of Kaine vetoes.

As is the procedure in Virginia, the General Assembly is reconvening on April 8th to consider responses to Governor Kaine’s actions regarding the bills passed in the session that was just completed. According to Virginia law, the Governor has 4 options open to him when a bill is sent to his desk.

1. Sign the bill. It becomes law either immediately or on a certain date as described in the law.
2. Veto the bill. He then returns the bill to the General Assembly.
3. Modify the bill. The Governor can make modifications to any bill sent to him. He then returns the bill to the General Assembly so they can vote on whether to accept his modifications.
4. Do nothing. In the absence of action on the Governor’s part, the bill becomes law just as if he’d signed it.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Governor Kaine vetoed several firearms-related bills that passed the GA pretty handily. The Assembly will now consider whether to override the Governor’s veto. Among those bills being considered (summaries from a Grassroots Bulletin from the NRA-ILA):

SB1035 would permit a Right-to-Carry permit holder to carry concealed in a restaurant, provided he or she does not consume alcohol. The House amended SB1035, improving it by removing the requirement that Right-to-Carry permit holders notify the alcohol beverage manager when they carry concealed in their establishment.

After vetoing SB1035, Governor Kaine said, “Allowing concealed weapons into restaurants and bars that serve alcohol puts the public, the employees, and our public safety officers at risk. I take seriously the objections of law enforcement to this measure.”  Last year, the Governor signed a bill permitting Commonwealth Attorneys to carry concealed in restaurants even while consuming alcohol.  It should be noted that SB1053 prohibited the consumption of alcohol while carrying concealed by licensed Right-to-Carry permit holders.
 
SB877 would allow “retired” law enforcement officers to carry concealed in a restaurant that serves alcoholic beverages. Unlike SB1035, this bill applies only to retired law enforcement officers.
 
HB1851 would exempt active duty military personnel or Virginia National Guardsmen from Virginia’s “one-gun-a-month” law on handgun purchases.
 
SB1528 would have allowed a safety course conducted by a state-certified or National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor required for obtaining a concealed handgun permit to be done electronically or online.
 
HB2528 would establish that no locality or entity may participate in a gun “buyback” program where individuals are given anything of value or money in exchange for surrendering a firearm to the locality unless the governing body first passes an ordinance authorizing the gun “buyback.”  The legislation also requires that any locality holding gun “buybacks” sell the firearms to a federally licensed dealer “or be disposed of in any appropriate manner” if they could not be sold.

One of our local members of the GOP and of several pro-2nd Amendment organizations, Greg Stone, put out an e-mail calling for concerned citizens to take a moment and make their voices heard to their members of the General Assembly, particularly those who had voted “no” during the floor vote. He writes:

If YOUR Senator is one of the following:

Blevins, Colgan, Herring, Lucas, Norment, Northam, or Petersen

And/Or YOUR Delegate is one of the following:

Albo, Amundson, Caputo, Dance, Hamilton, Hargrove, Mathieson, May, Melvin, Paula Miller, Poisson, Rust, Shannon, Sickles, Tata, Tyler, Vanderhye, or Watts

You need to call them NOW and let them know that since they supported RETIRED police officers carrying concealed in restaurants, even if they are drinking alcohol, they NEED to change their vote and override the Governor’s veto to SUPPORT concealed handgun permit holders carrying concealed in restaurants if they don’t drink!

These legislators simply cannot justify what they have done by their contradictory votes.  We MUST call them and let them know we expect them to make it right by overriding the veto.

His e-mail included phone contacts for these Senators and Delegates. I’ll include them here and toss in e-mail addresses, too.

Harry Blevins (district), 757-546-2435

Chuck Colgan, 703-368-0300

Mark Herring, 703-729-3300

Louise Lucas (district), 757-397-8209

Thomas Norment, 757-259-7810

Ralph Northam (district), 757-818-5172

Chap Petersen, 703-349-3361

Delegates:

Dave Albo, 703-451-3555

Kristen Amundson, 703-619-0444

Chuck Caputo, 703-476-6944

Rosalyn Dance, 804-862-2922

Phillip Hamilton, 757-249-2480

Frank Hargrove, 804-550-2900

Bobby Mathieson, 757-470-3000

Joe May, 703-777-1191

Ken Melvin, 757-397-2800

Paula Miller, 757-587-8757

David Poisson, 703-421-6899

Thomas Rust, 703-437-9400

Stephen Shannon, 703-281-5200

Mark Sickles, 703-922-6440

Bob Tata, 757-340-3510

Roslyn Tyler, 434-336-1710

Margi Vanderhye, 703-448-8018

Vivian Watts, 703-978-2989

It’s important to contact your Senator or Delegate and ask them to vote to override the Governor’s veto of these bills. It is crucial that you do so for 1 of these bill especially, SB1035 and to show you why, I’ll quote from Greg Stone’s e-mail again:

SB 1035, the restaurant ban repeal, needs 5 more votes to be overridden in the Senate …  The House only needs 1 more vote to override the veto. (Senate 22 to 16, House 66 to 33) …

SB 877, the restaurant ban repeal for retired police, passed by a large veto proof margin. (Senate 40 to 0, House 84 to 15)

SB 1851, One Handgun A Month exemption for active duty military, passed by a large veto proof majority. (Senate 31 to 8, House 86 to 13)

SB 1528, internet training for CHPs, passed by  a large veto-proof majority. (Senate 29 to 10, House 99 to 0)

HB 2528, gun buy-up bill, passed by a large veto-proof majority. (Senate 28 to 12, House 85 to 11)

Emphasis mine. All 4 of the other bills already passed by a margin capable of overriding the veto. We need to ask those who voted “no” on them to reconsider but all that really needs to happen is for all of the Assembly to vote again as they voted before. SB1035, however, is a different situation. We need 5 Senators and 1 Delegate to change from a “no” to a “yes” and that’s where you come in.

Note that all 40 Senators voted to permit retired police officers to carry concealed in those same restaurants and bars and they voted to permit those same people to drink while doing so. In other words, these Senators who voted for that bill but against SB1035 are saying they trust a drunk retired cop to carry a gun but they don’t trust you stone cold sober. I don’t recommend you actually say that in your correspondence with them, but definitely keep it in mind as you decide whether you’ve got the time to call them.

I’d also remind everyone that Gov. Kaine already signed a bill last year that permits Commonwealth Attorneys to carry concealed and drink while doing so. Perhaps they can argue that police training means something where their current inconsistencies are concerned but Attorneys are no more trained regarding firearms than are regular citizens like us. Again, something to keep in mind.

Your action is needed. Your efforts do matter. Make a couple of calls, please.

Alexandria, VA to be the new Gitmo?

Terrific.

A Virginia jail could be the next home for Guantanamo Bay inmates.

The maximum security jail in Alexandria, Va. — home to approximately 460 inmates — is under contract to take federal inmates who are tried at the courthouse just a few blocks away.

Among them could be former Al Qaeda operatives detained in Guantanamo Bay like Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda’s operations chief, or Abd Al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the U.S.S. Cole attack, Alexandria sheriff Dana Lawhorne told FOX News.

It’s all about the level of demand…

Mark Levin’s new book, “Liberty and Tyranny“, is out and there appears to be a pretty serious demand for it. For those people who have been going on about how Virginia – especially northern Virginia – is turning “blue” I’d like to present this video. Mark Levin is just about the quintessential conservative author and radio host and there’s no doubting where he lands in the political spectrum. This video, taken by Instapundit reader Dan Byers, shows the length of the line of people waiting in Tyson’s Corner, VA to get a copy of Levin’s book and have a chance at getting a signed copy.

Truly staggering:

Bonus for Loudoun County, VA residents! At 1:08 in the video, do I detect a certain well-known Loudoun Supervisor in a blaze-orange hat?

Kaine vetoes gun bills

Well, I’m obviously not surprised by the news that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has decided to thumb his nose at the clear wishes of the citizens of the Commonwealth as expressed by our elected representatives; Kaine vetoed several firearms-related bills that were sent to his desk by the General Assembly.

Kaine vetoed bills Friday that would have expanded the death penalty to accomplices in murders and to those who kill on-duty fire marshals or auxiliary police officers.

Kaine also rejected legislation that would have allowed those with concealed carry permits and retired law enforcement officers to carry firearms into restaurants that serve booze.

Clearly, Kaine has decided to put furthering his political career ahead of what’s in the interest of the people of Virginia and, let’s be honest, no one expected him to sign the bill extending legal concealed carry into restaurants. Given the passage ratio of this bill (both times) it’s obviously something a majority of Virginians either actively want or don’t have a problem with. It’s just Kaine peddling to the gun-ban lobby to shine up his resume that landed a veto on this bill.

I would also like to think that our reps in the General Assembly could see that and muster an override. Given the difficulty in getting them to work together on the normal business in Richmond, however, I’m not holding my breath. At this point it appears the best bet we have of seeing the will of the majority carry in the Commonwealth is to elect a Governor who has a clue.

One of the bills I found more surprising to see him veto was the exception to Virginia’s 1-gun-a-month law for active-duty military people. It’s not hard to see where someone getting deployed might run afoul of that law and these are the people we trust with government-issued fully automatic weapons in any case. I can’t imagine where his thoughts were running that he found something objectionable to that change.

Time for a real Governor to be elected. Time to get Bob McDonnell into the Governor’s office!

Loudoun’s budget and the choices we make

Loudoun County’s budget process is in full swing with the Board of Supervisors slated to vote on the adoption of a budget at their next meeting on April 7. In my last post on the matter I wrote about the need to hold the County’s school system (LCPS) to the same budgetary cuts as all of the other critical government functions. Thanks to the yeoman’s work of The Loudoun Scoop on 25 March we are directed to a story that shows the BoS is intending to do just that.

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to slash the proposed schools budget for next fiscal year by almost $27 million over objections from School Board members who said the cuts would severely affect the quality of students’ education.

“Everybody is getting impacted by the circumstances of our moment, and I’m afraid that’s going to have to include the schools,” said Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), who voted for the cuts.

The School Board approved a $747 million budget in late January and forwarded it to the Board of Supervisors, cutting cost-of-living and seniority raises for employees to avoid eliminating staff positions or increasing average class size. The spending plan called for $12 million less in county funding than the current schools budget.

The School Board, at the BoS’s direction, came back with budgets representing a 5%, a 10%, and a 15% cut from the full budget originally floated. They provided a set of measures they’d take to find those cuts with each “Tier” which has lead to the “Tier 1, Tier 2…” nomeclature they’ve been using in the press these days. The BoS’s vote as refered to in the story represents the 5% option calling on the LCPS to make those Tier 1 cuts. (I’ll go into this in more detail in another post.)

When Loudoun County – which has seen over a decade of rising school budgets – makes the decision to actually apply cuts to the proposed budget you know we’re facing some serious money issues. That’s hardly a surprise to any of us paying any attention these days. However, it should now be obvious to everyone that if we’re in the process of cutting the budget for things like the Sheriff’s office and the school system, then we certainly don’t have money to be spending on anything new. From my last post:

To the Board of Supervisors, I’d say this: immediately halt any discussion of new services or departments in the Loudoun government until this economy recovers; do not implement new projects to upgrade systems we already have in place without a truly significant, near-term increase of capability or decrease in operating costs; require that all departments that fall within the scope of the core government responsibilities I’ve mentioned above cut their budgets by the same percentage figure. This year’s going to be tough, we all know that. Let’s see our government act like they know that, too.

It would appear the Board is taking the suggestion that all of the critical function areas of government be held to the same percentage of budget cut. I would imagine there’s little support for system upgrades that aren’t providing that significant capability improvement I mentioned. Putting a moratorium on new departments and positions, however…

The current Board of Supervisors is more “bike friendly” than an earlier board was, Turner said. Still, she said, she was worried that during an economic downturn the county would not allocate money for a bike coordinator.

County Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac), who serves on the board’s Transportation/Land Use Committee, was more optimistic.

“I think it’s a critical piece of going forward in Loudoun County,” she said. Noting that there had been two pedestrian fatalities in the same spot on Algonkian Parkway, she said, “We’ve grown quickly, and these are some hot spots that are being addressed.”

I have already said that we could probably use a bike and pedestrian coordinator, although I feel that the planning and zoning folks in the government could probably provide that level of oversight in new construction, too. The issue isn’t whether we could use one or if one is truly needed. We can’t pay for it. We haven’t the funds. This is a fine idea to keep in mind for the future but to even be considering it now, after telling our schools, our police, and our emergency teams that they have to make do with less because times are tight, is just irresponsible.

I’ll also call foul on Supervisor McGimsey’s use of the fatalities on Algonkian Parkway. She’s clearly referring to the 2 deaths at the intersection of Algonkian and Countryside Parkway, incidents I’ve written about before. Tragic though they were, in both of those situations the pedestrian was walking out into the street outside of the existing crosswalk and against the light. Having a pedestrian coordinator in place at the time would have done precisely nothing to avert the accidents because the 2 people in question weren’t following the rules or using the facilities that were already in place. Just because there would have been a guy in an office in Leesburg coordinating pedestrian pathways around the County doesn’t mean anything would have changed. The reference is a moot point and a non-sequitur in this debate.

This decision should be tabled until our economy recovers. We can reconsider it at that time.