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Thu Jan 28, 2010 at 06:37:43 PM EST
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  Virginia Democrats in the State Senate are about to pass as early as tomorrow on a bill banning an individual mandate from taking effect in Virginia. This move is little more than symbolic, as a federal mandate would override state petulance, but State Senators Chuck Colgan and Phil Pickett, at left, gave SB417 the two Democratic votes it needed to pass out of the committee, and therefore the two Democratic votes it needs to pass the 22-18 Senate.
With health care reform barely alive as it is, this rather premature bill exists solely to score political points. Naturally, the bill completely sidesteps the public option question, and only tackles the individual mandate. Here's where it gets complicated.
An individual mandate is a key component of health care reform, for numerous reasons (it spreads risk and lowers overall health care costs). However, with President Obama and useless Democrats in the federal Senate abandoning the public option, an individual mandate becomes a mandate to buy private insurance. For conservatives, who were against both the individual mandate and public option to begin with, they can force Democrats to support a private mandate or kill the bill entirely.
I don't expect any members of the State Senate to vote for a symbolic rebuke of the individual mandate as a cry to bring the public option back. Score one for the Republicans.
State Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel, sponsor of the Virginia bill, smelled blood in the water, and crafted a bill to force Senate Democrats into voting on the private mandate question. It would be unconscionable for liberals to support a mandate to buy private insurance, but it would be ineffective to pass any sort of reform without a mandate at all.
It will be interesting to see which State Senate Democrats buckle and vote for a symbolic ban on an individual mandate. Spinelessness begets spinelessness. Stand and deliver, Senators, both federal and state. We'll be waiting.
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Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 03:43:30 PM EST
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5th District Republican candidate Laurence Verga is elbowing with other Republican candidates to become the conservative alternative to State Sen. Robert Hurt. Mind you, Hurt has perfectly adequate conservative bona fides, but if you're trying to distinguish yourself in a field full of wingnuts you have to do your best. Verga wrote a guest post on Bearing Drift this morning where Verga applauded Hurt for voting to authorize a study on repealing the ban on uranimum mining, then chided Hurt for not fighting to repeal the ban on uranium mining. Heaven forfend we wait for the study to conclude!
The best part from Verga's post?
The National Research Council is finally set to begin an environmental impact study, which is expected to take 18 months. In the meantime the General Assembly should repeal its irrational, unconditional ban on uranium mining and replace it with code that awards immediate approval upon projects that successfully complete an environmental impact study.
Let's get this straight. Verga insists on the immediate and automatic approval of projects that simply complete an EIS, without regard to what the local government happens to think, or even what the rest of the state happens to think. It's quite unfortunate we insist on knowing the consequences of our actions before granting automatic permits!
Uranium mining is one of the most toxic types of mining known to man. From the Piedmont Environmental Council:
Enormous quantities of radioactive waste are generated by uranium mining and milling, with only 2 to 4 pounds of concentrated uranium oxide yellow cake obtained from each ton of ore taken out of the ground. The resulting waste, or tailings contain 85% of the original radioactivity and remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Tailings can contain several hazardous substances, including radium (which decays to produce radon) selenium, molybdenum, uranium, and thorium. The mill tailings and the mill tailings effluent are highly radioactive and acutely hazardous.
Directly downstream from Pittsylvania County are major drinking water sources, including Lake Gaston, water source for the City of Norfolk.
It would seem that no matter how loopy 5th District Republicans can get, they'll always fight to outdo each other. If I were Tom Perriello I wouldn't mind a Verga nomination.
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Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 09:20:15 PM EST
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Normally when more than one candidate from the same party files for an office, the political party committee for that district chooses between a primary, convention, or caucus. Virginia has a rather peculiar law which allows incumbents facing a same-party challenger to choose a nominating method.
This is, on its face, insane. Republican Delegate Lee Ware has pre-filed a bill to repeal this incumbency bonus, but it remains to be seen whether 140 incumbents want to vote away their best weapon against upstart intra-party challenges.
Invariably the incumbent--who typically has better name recognition--will choose a primary, and win. Very rarely do incumbents in this state find themselves overthrown in a primary (Delegates Bob Hull from 2009 and Gary Reese from 2005 come to mind, but they are exceptions).
Both parties have areas of the state with heavy one-sided party alignment, but eliminating the incumbent advantage in nomination contests is more important for Democrats, who have a stranglehold on majority-black districts that often reach up to 70-90% Democratic performance. Senators and Delegates who are elected in single-party areas of the state are practically guaranteed their seat until they give it up, and can choose whatever method of nomination they believe will be most advantageous to them.
Of course, this doesn't eliminate any pro-incumbent bias in the political party committees that would make this selection--but that's the party's problem. I hope that Virginia's legislators have the courage to eliminate the statutory incumbent protection.
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