Blog

February 21, 2012. Richmond, VA – The New Dominion Project PAC today hosted a panel discussion on innovation, job creation, and growth in Virginia featuring Mike Signer, Chair, NDPPAC, Sen. Barbara Favola, Sen. John Edwards, and Dak Hardwick of the Harris Corporation at the General Assembly Building. In a lively discussion that highlighted the power of fresh progressive ideas to overcome the gridlock and overreaching in Richmond today, the panelists and audience members, including leadership of major Virginia organizations such as Virginia 21 and the Business Council for Higher Education for Virginia, discussed a set of principles drawn from a new NDP Strategy Paper titled “The Engine for the Future: Taking Higher Ed to the Next Level in Virginia” that recommends five “Principles for Reform” (summarized below).

Governor McDonnell’s education plan is already making waves around Virginia--specifically, in Virginia Beach. This past January, Gov. McDonnell released his K-12 education plan calling for an increase in funding of $438 million for K-12 schools throughout the Commonwealth. (Read my first post about it here.) Nevertheless, while on the surface the plan is laudable, only 22% of the proposed $438 million will go to the classroom while the remaining will head to the teacher pension system and other non-classroom needs. Furthermore, McDonnell's refusal to peg education costs to inflation means less and less money for school districts and even worse, the Governor's proposal to increase the percentage of the sales tax going towards transportation translates to a concomitant decrease in education funding.

The public has a right to know. It’s a simple maxim that has been expressed ever since our nation’s founding. Our Founding Fathers reasoned that a government that keeps its citizens in the dark is amenable to corruption, vice, and greed. Yet today, legislation now sitting in the General Assembly would restrict localities’ ability to publish public notices in newspapers.

There's an extraordinary op-ed in today's New York Times on ProgressVA's report on the far-right group ALEC's legislative agenda in Virginia. It's very rare for a scrappy group like ProgressVA (run by the estimable Anna Scholl) to achieve publicity like this, but this shows the power of good analysis and the right issue. The Beltway-run ALEC is trampling all around our beloved Commonwealth like a bull (or an elephant) in a china shop, and great advocacy like this goes a long way toward calling out the extremists in Richmond for what they are: reckless, out-of-touch, and fundamentally unconcerned with the problems of everyday folks around their kitchen tables.

Great work by Senator McEachin and Delegate Toscano calling extremists in Richmond to task for their failure to work on the issues that matters to middle-class Virginians trying to figure out how to live their dreams. in Senator McEachin's words: "Republicans are so focused on divisive policies that they are hindering our efforts at progress, putting our kids' education at risk, and leaving them less prepared for the future. In the last four weeks, Senate and House Republicans have introduced hundreds of bills that target the poor, women, and immigrants, make it harder to vote, and discriminate against gays and lesbians. It's time for Republicans to put divisive ideology and raw partisanship aside.

I've been dismayed by how fecklessly President Obama's enemies are trotting out the old playbook of attacking a Democrat as weak on national security. Even taking for granted our current fact-free politics, these assaults are particularly egregious, ignoring the confident, precise, intensely patriotic nature of the President's foreign policy and national security. I have an op-ed out in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch drawing on some of my experience in national security as well as some of the facts about the President's proposed new Pentagon budget to argue that it's critics like Mitt Romney who really ought to be playing defense on defense. Here are a few grafs from the article -- you can check out the full version here.

Now we're turning our focus to fresh ideas on public education. As a Virginia public school and UVA Law graduate, a small businessman, and an educator at Virginia Tech, I firmly believe in the power of public education to build Virginia's future -- and give progressives an edge at the kitchen table. Here's what we're delivering in the coming weeks...

There is a fundamental debate raging in the higher education world right now. The basic resolution reads: Is higher education a public or private good? This is a crucial question not only for theoretical debates in the academy but about public policy affecting thousands of Virginia students and families. If higher ed is is a public good, the state’s role in funding higher education is clearly established. The state has a clear obligation to ensure that students can attend higher education since the product of that education benefits state and society alike. Meanwhile, if it's a private good, it follows that the costs of education should fall entirely onto the student, since it's the student who enjoys the fruits of his education.

As a veteran of seven Virginia Democratic election protection programs and founder of the New Electoral Reform Alliance of Virginia, I'm familiar with the provisional ballot system we have. I fear the intentional chaos that will be unleashed under this new system. I've counseled many frustrated voters through the process of casting provisional ballots and have advised them on how to ensure they get counted -- usually, by taking a day off work to show up to the registrar's office the next day. (Virginia's system is already unusual in that the "canvass" of votes starts the day after voting -- in some states, the canvass starts a few days later, giving more time to a voter to arrange to travel).

Tomorrow, the Democratic Party of Virginia and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus are sponsoring a "Protect Our Vote Rally" at the Bell Tower on the grounds of the Virginia Capitol in Richmond. The event features a special guest, the civil rights hero Dr. Benjamin Chavis. You can also take a minute to sign a petition opposing these anti-voter bills.