1. Collision Course
We should have seen it coming.
Dick Saslaw telling the audience at the JJ dinner that people were coming up to him all the time and saying “Thank God for the Virginia Senate.”
Janet Howell’s observation that the Governor is, at heart, a “zealot” on social issues.
And Lieutenant Governor’s Bill Bolling recent advice that the Governor should veto the Senate’s redistricting plan.
Friday’s crash between Bob McDonnell and the Senate Democratic leadership over the Dems’ redistricting plan has been building for some time.
It’s now the defining feature of Virginia politics in 2011.
2. A Changing Dynamic
For much of the past 15 years, the Senate saw itself as a bipartisan, institutional counterweight that protected the long-term interests of the Commonwealth against what it perceived to be the partisan excesses of the House and the politically motivated policy decisions of Governors.
I’m not sure that the Senate’s perceptions were always accurate, but it did give the chamber a distinctive Virginia gloss.
That dynamic is over.
The partisan battles roiling in the Senate has made it look far more like most legislative chambers that we see these days.
And, for better or worse, we’re unlikely to go back anytime soon.
3. Cantor v. Warner?
Should higher taxes be on the political menu?
This one could become very interesting: an emerging battle between Eric Cantor and Mark Warner to define what it means to be fiscally responsible.
Warner has received plenty of favorable press lately for his bipartisan approach to budget reform, arguing that “everything” has to be put on the table, including both entitlement cuts and tax increases.
But Cantor contended this week that tax increases shouldn’t even be on the menu.
The issue is bound to explode.
It divides Obama v. almost any Republican presidential candidate.
Kaine v. Allen and Radtke.
And now the two most visible members of Virginia’s delegation in Washington.
It’s hard to imagine what issue will be more prominent in 2012 than the partisan slugfest over taxes.
4. The Politics of Email: Part One
Judge Henry Hudson ruled this week that email between former Delegate Phil Hamiton and his wife that discuss his potential employment at Old Dominion University can be included as evidence in his trial.
Since no one unrelated to the trial knows the content of the emails, it’s difficult to say what the impact of the ruling will be.
But it increasingly appears that how the jury interprets the email trial between Hamilton and ODU and now Hamilton and his wife will figure importantly in the case’s ultimate disposition.
5. The Politics of Email: Part Two
Norm Leahy broke what could be a big, big story this week, one that has yet to be widely reported.
To date, a judge has refused to grant Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli access to the UVA emails of climate scientist and former professor Michael Mann.
UVA has vigorously defended its refusal to turn over the emails against what it considers to be a fishing expedition on the part of the AG that ultimately threatens academic freedom.
But Leahy wrote that Delegate Bob Marshall and the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Chris Horner have opened a second front in an effort to obtain his emails, doing so with a simple FOIA request.
According to Leahy, UVA has identified 34,000 potential emails relevant to the request, but has yet to review them to determine which are legitimately exempted.
Marshall had, in fact, initiated this line of inquiry prior to the Cuccinelli subpoena relating to a potential fraud investigation, but was rebuffed when he was apparently informed that the emails were unavailable.
From what I have seen, government watchdog groups regularly FOIA email trails relating to issues that concern them and, while cost can be a factor ,they typically do obtain access to the information they’ve requested.
Marsahll and Horner’s request ultimately raises a fascinating issue about the Freedom of Information Act:
Can they obtain with a simple FOIA what the Attorney General couldn’t get with a subpoena?
“On my honor, as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this examination”. For four years I wrote this out and signed it while studying at the University of Virginia. It was part of the honor code which forbade lying, cheating or stealing.
When Del. Marshall first requested Dr. Mann’s e-mails in an FOIA request the university administration said they were unavailable or had been deleted.
They lied.
When AG Cuccinelli made the same demand using the authority of his office, the e-mails were suddenly available but his request was an affront to the imaginary right to academic freedom.
This incident points out two important facts. First, the administration of the University of Virginia dishonors its own honor code. They lie when lying is convenient and litigate when lying is no longer practical. Second, compliance with FOIA requests is only for “the little people” in life. You know, those of us who are not protected by the imaginary right of academic freedom. One wonders what the limousine liberals who mismanage Mr. Jefferson’s university would have said if the National Rifle Association had lied about its possession of e-mails in response to an FOIA request. No doubt they would have found that behavior dishonorable, to say the least.