Story by Chris Graham
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Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello is facing a full-court press from the Republicans gunning for the chance to knock him off in November. The press might work better if the GOP’ers weren’t trying at the same time to steal the ball from each other.

“My opponent Jim McKelvey put out a statement challenging Congressman Perriello to ‘go ahead and make my day’ by voting for the pending health-care bill. This is exactly the type of arrogant thought process the people of Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District and the country cannot afford to tolerate any longer.”

This was from Laurence Verga, who called the one-line statement from McKelvey to Perriello on the upcoming vote in the House on health-care reform, in which McKelvey referenced the line made famous in Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” movies, “petty politics.”

“We need candidates and representatives who will take their jobs seriously and put an end to politics as usual,” Verga said.

Feda Morton couldn’t resist staying out of the fracas over the “make my day” comment. Neither did she feel compelled to pull back from invoking the Democratic boogeymen that are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama in her message to voters.

“Voters must remind Tom Perriello that if he votes in favor of Obamacare, it will undoubtedly be his political ruin in November as voters from across the district hold him accountable for his lack of representation,” Morton said.

Whether or not that is the case – that voters will necessarily lead a revolt against Democrats at the polls in November if they move to pass substantive health-care reform – remains a question. A new poll released this week by Public Policy Polling has some indication of momentum in favor of reform. The March PPP poll on health-care reform still has a plurality of voters, 49 percent, expressing disapproval of the plan currently being debated in Congress, but the number supporting the reform effort has gone from 39 percent in a February poll to 45 percent in March.

The bigger issue for Democrats seeking re-election in the fall is the support at the party base. Last month’s PPP poll had support among liberals for the plan before Congress at 73 percent, with 19 percent opposed, with the opposition rooted in disapproval of the direction of the bill, which critics in liberal circles had been feeling as being so severely watered down as to be ineffectual. The attitude toward the bill among liberals seems to be shifting and shifting dramatically, with 89 percent of liberals in the PPP poll saying they support the plan, with just 3 percent opposed.

But Republican voters remain steadfastly opposed to the proposed reforms, and statements like “make my day” and references to “Obamacare” are red meat to a Republican primary electorate.

“Tom Perriello has let us down,” said State Sen. Robert Hurt, who is considered the frontrunner in the Fifth District GOP primary, adding his two cents in. “His voting record doesn’t match the values we share. The Fifth Congressional District faces record unemployment and instead of fighting to create jobs, Congressman Perriello has voted in favor of Obama’s failed stimulus plan, cap and trade and the Democrats’ job-killing takeover of our health-care system.”

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Column by Del. Ken Plum

Last week I took the extraordinary step of making a motion on the floor of the House of Delegates that a bill be discharged from a committee. The rules provide for such a motion, but it is seldom made and almost never approved. Had my motion been approved, the full membership of the House of Delegates would have had the opportunity to debate a bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A subcommittee of the General Laws Committee on a vote of 5-3 had refused to report a bill on this subject that had passed the Senate just as it had refused to recommend bills on nondiscrimination that I have been introducing over the past nine years.

The timing on the issue was critical as Virginia has once again made national news in an unfavorable way with the announcement that the attorney general has advised all colleges and universities that they must remove any statements of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation from their student handbooks and other materials. As one of the first acts of his administration, Gov. McDonnell refused to continue an Executive Order from his predecessor that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in state hiring. A statement the governor issued last week came up short of being an Executive Order. Many fear with good reason that the reputation of intolerance the state is gaining may interfere with its ability to attract top-flight companies to locate here and students and professors to come to our universities.

Other actions that seem to reflect the darkest days of Virginia’s intolerance of racial integration during the period of Massive Resistance have recently been seen. Using the same arguments of states’ rights that were used during that period, there has been a series of bills proclaiming Virginia citizens’ rights over actions of the federal government. Four bills were introduced proclaiming that Virginia citizens do not have to buy medical insurance if the federal government says they have to. Such bills will be struck down by the courts, but Virginia’s attorney general is likely to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending them as a further way to burnish his conservative credentials.

Just a few weeks ago the 50th anniversary of the “Richmond 34″ was celebrated here in the capital city. Among the 34 students of Virginia Union University who were arrested for a sit-in at the lunch counter at Thalhimer’s Department Store was Mamie BaCote who is now a member of the House of Delegates. Del. Algie Howell participated in sit-ins in Norfolk. In the State Senate, Sen. Henry Marsh was one of the lead attorneys in the more than 40 court cases that were necessary before Virginia desegregated its public schools. The Legislative Black Caucus has been adamant in its opposition to Gov. McDonnell’s educational reforms to start more charter and lab schools fearing I believe that having more programs outside the public schools would have the effect of resegregating the schools.

Unfortunately, these are not the only signs of intolerance in the actions of the legislature. What is happening in the legislature is reflective of the decline in civility in public discourse. But the legislature should not be a follower of negative behavior; it needs to be a leader in demonstrating and protecting tolerance for all lawful citizens.

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Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, fresh off the controversy that he generated with his letter to Virginia public colleges and universities earlier this month advising them against going too far in policies protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination on campus, is back in the hot seat again, this time over comments from late last year questioning President Obama’s citizenship.

The comments came to light in a posting on the left-wing political blog Not Larry Sabato on Monday that included audio from an interview conducted by an unnamed man of Cuccinelli in the post-election transition period.

In the interview, the man asks Cuccinelli what can be done “about Obama and the birth-certificate thing.” Cuccinelli responds that he thinks the question of Obama’s citizenship that has been a cause celebre for the far, far right dating back to the 2008 presidential election “will get tested, in my view, when someone – when he signs a law, and someone is convicted of violating it, and one of their defenses will be, ‘It’s not a law because someone qualified to be president didn’t sign it.’”

The interviewer then interjects that the issue would be that “we are talking about the possibility that he was not born in America,” referring to Obama. “Right,” answers Cuccinelli. “But at the same time under Rule 11, Federal Rule 11, we gotta have proof of it.”

Later in the exchange, Cuccinelli says it is not “beyond the realm of possibility” that Obama was born in Kenya, as has been suggested consistently by far-right partisans.

Cuccinelli told the Washingfton Post in a statement on the matter released on Monday that he “absolutely believe(s)” that Obama was born in America.

“I don’t buy into the claims that he wasn’t,” Cuccinelli said.

Democratic Party of Virginia executive director David Mills used the new controversy involving Cuccinelli to blast the attorney general and the Republican Party.

“Attorney General Cuccinelli owes Virginians an explanation for his out-of-whack priorities. While our Commonwealth struggles with a $4.2 billion dollar deficit, the Attorney General has shown that he’s willing to use the resources of his taxpayer-funded office to push his own radical agenda. Virginians shouldn’t be asked to foot the bill for Ken Cuccinelli’s irresponsible behavior and missplaced priorities,” Mills said. “The Attorney General should pledge today not to spend a dime of our tax dollars pursuing ridiculous conspiracy theories about President Obama. We hope Governor McDonnell is making plans to rein in his 2009 ticketmate and protect Virginians’ money from being spent on Ken Cuccinelli’s extreme political agenda.”

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Column by Bob Goodlatte

It is no secret that the American people are facing a very tough economic climate. Families and small businesses are cutting back on expenses. As economic uncertainty continues, many across our nation are looking to the government for leadership during this difficult time.

In these challenging economic times it is even more important for government to control spending. The federal government must work to both eliminate every cent of waste and squeeze every cent of value out of each dollar our citizens entrust to it. When you are preparing a budget for your family, you know that you can’t spend more than you take in. It’s a simple concept but one that Congress has failed to adhere to for far too long. We must balance the budget and reduce the deficit and the debt – not by raising taxes, but by being good stewards of t axpayer money.

Because it has become clear that neither party can exercise the self control necessary to rein in excessive spending, I have introduced a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, H.J. Res 1, to force Congress to do so. My legislation, which has the support of 175 bipartisan Members of the House, ensures that the federal government is held accountable and that the money our citizens work so hard to earn is not squandered on wasteful spending and programs.

My balanced budget amendment, which is identical to the legislation that passed the House in 1995 by a vote of 300-132 and fell just two votes short of passage in the Senate, forces Congress to enact fiscally responsible spending measures and reduce the deficit by requiring that total spending for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts. The legislation also includes a specific exception to the balanced budget provisions in times of war or other national emergencies.

This week I was pleased to join with Congressmen Mike Coffman, a Republican from Colorado and Jim Marshall, a Democrat from Georgia, in launching a new Congressional caucus aimed at adding support for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The bipartisan caucus will be dedicated to achieving passage of H.J. Res. 1, and to educating Members of Congress on the necessity and importance of the proposed amendment to the Constitution.

As our nation faces many difficult decisions, Congress will face great pressure to spend beyond its means rather than making difficult decisions about spending priorities. My balanced budget amendment ensures that Congress and the President are held accountable to the American taxpayers. Unless Congress is forced to make the decisions necessary to create a balanced budget, it will always have the all-too-tempting option of shirking this responsibility. Americans are desperate for fiscal reform and the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment is a common sense approach to ensure that Congress is bound by the same fiscal principles that America’s families face each day.

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Gov. Bob McDonnell today issued an executive directive clarifying his administration’s position on employment discrimination that makes it clear that discrimination “based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation or parental status” will not be tolerated.

“Discrimination based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation or parental status violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Therefore, discrimination against enumerated classes of persons set forth in the Virginia Human Rights Act or discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis is prohibited,” McDonnell wrote in the directive, titled Executive Directive 1.

The directive was issued at the height of a controversy initiated by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who last week wrote a letter to public college and university presidents in Virginia giving them the legal advice that “the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.”

Cuccinelli, as attorney general of Virginia, is the legal counsel for state agencies and organs of the state including public colleges and universities.

The letter from Cuccinelli appeared to clip the wings of state institutions like the College of William and Mary, which has in place what many consider to be a progressive employment antidiscrimination policy.

McDonnell had been mum on the issue, and had been roundly criticized by civil-rights and civil-liberties groups for leaving sexual orientation out of an executive order on employment nondiscrimination in state government issued by his office on Feb. 5.

Critics suggested that the discrimination issue could hurt the state severely both in hiring in state government and higher education and in the economic-development arena.

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It makes sense that there might be low morale in VDOT offices around the state. If you’re among the people in danger of being downsized, the reason for your low morale is pretty obvious. Not as obvious, but just as demoralizing, is seeing the person who has been sitting in the cubicle next to you pack up and leave, or picking up the phone to talk with somebody in another VDOT office on an issue and finding out that they’ve been let go.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has been in the political crosshairs for most of the last 10 years as Democrats and Republicans fight over what the state needs to do to address its myriad transportation challenges.

VDOT needs to get leaner and meaner, has been the hue and cry from the Republicans in Richmond. We’re past cutting fat, we’re into the muscle and bone, respond the Democrats.

Meanwhile, engineers and maintenance supervisors and front-line employees across the Commonwealth are bearing the brunt of things.

“Certainly it’s a challenge for all of us at VDOT right now. It’s been a tough couple of years for us with our financial challenges. I don’t know a better word for it, though that doesn’t necessarily cover the extent of it. The reorganization and layoffs really has taken a toll on folks. It has,” VDOT spokesman Jeff Caldwell told me recently.

The transportation department has gone from more than 10,000 employees toward a goal of having a staff of 7,500 by July 1, 2010. I asked Caldwell what VDOT might be doing to help employees through the transition in a formal way, for example, by offering counseling services. The inspiration on that question comes from a friend, Cynthia Long, who works in grief counseling, and has expanded her counseling options into areas that you might not traditionally associate with needing help with grief. Job loss is one of her specialties. I can imagine for her a sidebar session on dealing with organizational change.

Caldwell’s first response to my question on counseling was probably expected. “Do you mean career counseling?” he asked me. When I went into more detail on what I was looking for, he did indicate to me that there was a strategy in place for dealing with at least the uncertainty that mass job cuts can bring to an organization.

“It’s a challenge we’ve tried to overcome by providing every piece of information that we can to employees,” Caldwell said, laying out the approach from VDOT that focused on getting information directly to employees in the form of video conferencing and regular e-mail updates to keep employees abreast of the latest on the cuts.

The idea, it seems, was to try to prevent the rumor mill from getting cranked up to the point where there was as much bad information circulating around as there was good, if not there being a lot more of the bad than the good.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of challenges facing these folks that are impacting morale. Certainly the reorganization and layoffs are at the top of the list. But there’s struggles that we’ve had that we’ve tried to communicate with folks from a global perspective where employee raises have been delayed or removed ftom the state budget on several occasions,” Caldwell said. “We tried more than anything else to keep the lines of communication open. We’re trying to make sure that everybody knows exactly what’s going on.”

You ask me, and I think they could all stand for some of that grief counseling that I mentioned above.

“VDOT employees are very dedicated to what they do. The amount of energy that people put in, and the amount of years that people put in, is just amazing. This is a place where people still put in 30, 40, 50 years,’ Caldwell said. “So when they have to face these times where we’re really changing the shape of the organization, and where it impacts people that they’ve known for years or have sat right next to them, it’s a challenge, there’s no doubt about that.”

We could also stand for the Republicans and Democrats getting past their partisan differences and trying to actually get something done, too. That’d be a huge morale boost.

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Edited by Chris Graham
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News items: Tuesday, March 9

Richmond: House Democrat leader reacts to block by GOP on antidiscrimination measure House Democratic Caucus Chairman Ken Plum released a statement this afternoon on the refusal of the House of Delegates to consider SB 66, State Sen. Donald McEachin’s bill to prohibit discrimination in state employment.

“Sen. McEachin’s SB 66 was an attempt to take an important step in protecting Virginians against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

“I am disappointed that Republicans in the House of Delegates once again refused debate on this important issue and placed in jeopardy Virginia’s status as the ‘Best State for Business.’ By rejecting Senator McEachin’s bill, House Republicans are sending a message to businesses and individuals around the country that Virginia is not welcoming of all people.

“It appears that the only solution we now have is for Governor McDonnell to send down a bill. I hope that he will do so immediately to enable proper debate on this topic.”

Today’s vote comes after Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sent a letter to Virginia’s colleges and universities asking them to repeal provisions protecting faculty and staff against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Richmond: State Senate passes charter-school bill The Senate of Virginia today passed legislation to change the charter school application process in Virginia but preserve the authority of local school boards to approve or reject charter school applications.

The bill passed today makes no changes to the charter school approval process, and only small changes to the charter school application process. No school board will be compelled to approve new charter schools under this legislation.

Virginia already has charter schools — publicly funded schools that are given more freedom in their curriculum — but this legislation will improve the quality of applications submitted to local school boards and make the process more open to the public. Gov. Bob McDonnell made reform of Virginia’s charter school structure a priority, but his original bill would have given the unelected State Board of Education veto power over the decisions of local school boards.

Under current charter school law in Virginia, applicants can confer with State Board of Education to prepare an application, and then submit their plan to the local school board which either approves or rejects the plan. If enacted, SB737 will allow an applicant to submit their plan to the State Board of Education for a basic evaluation and then submit their plan to the local school board which approves or rejects the plan. Under the new law, if a school board denies an application they will have to state the reasons, then applicants can work with Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction to make technical improvements to their application.

Once the changes are made, an applicant can appeal back to the local board, which then approves or rejects the plan again. The appeal process back to the local school board is the biggest change that SB737 makes to existing charter school law. Localities will not be obligated to approve any new charter schools and will have the final word in whether to approve new charter schools. No outside entity will have more than advisory power in the process.

Senate Democrats raised concerns with Gov. McDonnell’s original charter school reform legislation. The bill, as introduced, included an appeal by rejected applicants to the State Board of Elections, which is comprised of gubernatorial appointees. This arrangement would have given a group of political appointees veto power over local school boards in violation of the Virginia Constitution which says that “the supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board.”

The arrangement which passed today was introduced in the Senate Education and Health Committee and is the result of many hours of negotiations between legislators, Gov. McDonnell’s office, and education stakeholders.

Education stakeholders, including the Virginia Education Association, opposed plans to take decisionmaking power away from local school boards, as Gov. McDonnell’s original legislation did, but they do not oppose the legislation that passed the Senate today.

McDonnell, for his part, declared the Senate move to be a victory for his efforts in the charter school arena. “I applaud the Republicans and Democrats who came together today to help Virginia school children, especially those who are at-risk and disadvantaged, gain more educational opportunities,” McDonnell said in a statement. “In the modern economy, education is the coin of the realm. Without a world-class education our young people will not be able to compete with their peers in the global marketplace. States that move proactively to bring innovation, competition and reform to their public schools are not only serving their young people well, they are improving their prospects for future economic prosperity and job creation.”

“This positive legislation to reform our public education system and give all Virginia’s young people the tools they need to learn and succeed is the result of real bipartisan cooperation in Richmond. This is a great day for Virginia’s public schools, our public school teachers and students and parents in every community,” said State Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg.

D.C. News: Perriello backs bipartisan bill to cut pay for Congress Congressman Tom Perriello is backing a bipartisan bill to make members of Congress show a personal commitment to cutting federal spending. He is a cosponsor of H.R. 4720, the Taking Responsibility for Congressional Pay Act, which will cut pay for all senators and representatives by 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2011. If the bill is passed into law, member salaries will be reduced for the first time since April 1, 1933.

Additionally, recent House expenditure reports show that Congressman Perriello’s office ranks second lowest in personnel compensation for all House members who served an entire year in 2009.

“We need to restore the true meaning of ‘public service’ and part of that is taking personal responsibility for our national fiscal crisis. Working families across Central and Southern Virginia are getting by on less and making personal cuts in the economic downturn, and they are the folks who pay my and my staff’s salary. We’re tightening our own belts just like everybody else,” Perriello said.

Congressman Perriello previously fought successfully to block the automatic pay raise for federal lawmakers in 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. He is also a co-sponsor of H.R. 1597, which would repeal the law that provides automatic pay adjustments for members of Congress. Instead, congressional pay raises would be brought to a simple up-or-down vote.

Campaign Trail: Eagle Forum endorses Morton in Fifth GOP race Eagle Forum PAC, a conservative public policy organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly, is endorsing Feda Morton in the race to represent Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District.

“Feda and I have worked together for many years to elect conservative leaders, to protect life and marriage and to fight out-of-control government spending,” said Virginia Eagle Forum President Helen Blackwell. “She has a proven track record as a hard-working elected official and an uncompromising conservative leader.”

“Feda is exactly the kind of leader we need in Washington,” said Eagle Forum founder and president Phyllis Schlafly. “As a career schoolteacher who has taught at public schools, private schools, homeschooled her children and was elected to serve on the Fluvanna County School Board, Feda knows how badly federal meddling impacts education.”

“Feda knows that from education to the economy, solutions must come from communities, not the federal government,” Schlafly said. “As a lifelong resident of Virginia’s Fifth Congressional district with a distinguished record of service and political involvement, Feda knows the community well, and is in the best position to represent its needs to Congress.”

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“It is my advice,” reads a March 4 letter from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli addressed to “Presidents, Rectors, and Visitors of Virginia’s Public Colleges and Universities,” “that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.”

In a single letter, Cuccinelli is “turning back the clock on civil rights in Virginia,” Roanoke Democratic State Sen. John Edwards said on Friday.

The words of Portsmouth Democratic State Sen. Louise Lucas: “This is not a proud day for Virginia.”

Henrico Democratic State Sen. Donald McEachin, for his part, invoked the 2009 gubernatorial campaign. “Attorney General Cuccinelli and Gov. McDonnell are putting McDonnell’s troubling graduate school thesis into practice,” McEachin said.

The state civil-rights community is taking the letter from Cuccinelli as a call to action. The ACLU of Virginia said Friday that it is sending letters to the presidents of Virginia’s public colleges and universities “warning them against taking any action that would permit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees or students.

According to the ACLU, gays and lesbians are protected against governmental discrimination by the U.S. Constitution.

“Cuccinelli’s letter is an affront to anyone who stands for the principle of equal protection under the law,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “Regardless of state law or policy, not only should universities prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but they are required to do so under the U.S. Constitution.

“If Ken Cuccinelli is trying to say that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply in Virginia,” Willis said, “his first significant act as attorney general is a giant step backwards and a huge embarrassment for the state.”

The Cuccinelli letter comes on the heels of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s move last month to erase sexual orientation as a protected class in his executive order laying out nondiscrimination policy for state workers.

Jon Blair, the CEO of Equality Virginia, a Richmond-based GLBT civil-rights group, is calling on McDonnell to live up to what he said on the ‘09 campaign trail to refute criticisms related to his controversial 1989 graduate-school thesis.

“It is time that Gov. McDonnell come out from hiding and rein in Mr. Cuccinelli before his embarrassing and regressive actions permanently damage the reputation, educational system and competitiveness of our great Commonwealth. It is the least we can expect from a governor who supposedly opposes discrimination,” Blair said.

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In 2007 the General Assembly passed legislation that greatly reduced the ability of the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to set just and reasonable electric rates. The result has been a 60 percent increase in the electric rates paid by customers of the Appalachian Power Company and a 26 percent increase in rates for Dominion Virginia Power customers.

The 2007 legislature all but guaranteed the return on equity that Apco and Dominion can earn on investments, instead of leaving that decision up to the SCC based on expert testimony. It also allowed Apco and Dominion to be paid for new power plants through add-on rate riders as they are being built, instead of being paid through the general rates after we start receiving electricity from the new plant. And it allowed the power companies to impose other individual riders for specific costs, such as transmission or environmental compliance. The legislated return on equity and various rate riders combined are adding already to what we pay as customers, and in the future will add far more. 

The sad part is that many of our senators and delegates did not realize the consequences of the 2007 legislation. It was too complicated. But some of them are starting to realize that they share the blame for the recent cost increases to homeowners and businesses.

Just in the past few days, both the appropriate House and Senate committees considered and rejected similar bills to return the power companies to the regulatory structure that existed for decades. The bills sponsored by among others Del. Ward Armstrong of Henry County and Sen. Roscoe Reynolds of Martinsville returned full discretion over power company profit margins to the SCC and required they set rates based on the entire operation of the company, not by looking at individual riders for individual costs like a new plant or environmental compliance.

Some on the committee wanted a guarantee that the bills would immediately result in lower rates. No one could make that guarantee. This is evidence that the legislators still do not understand the issue, because the question that needed to be asked was, “Will this lower our rates over the next ten years?” And the answer to that would be a resounding, “YES!”

My friends, you have not seen anything yet when it comes to rate increases:

The 2007 legislation contains numerous powerful “incentives” for utilities to increase their costs and profits; provides numerous opportunities for utilities to increase their rates; and hobbles the SCC’s ability to make sure that rates are just and reasonable. Once the SCC sets a new profit target within the range dictated by the legislation, the companies get bonus profits for building new plants or using more expensive renewable power.

The law was even amended in 2009 to guarantee they will still get paid for power they no longer sell if their efficiency programs succeed.

Evidence already abounds that the 2007 legislation has and will result in higher rates than those that would result from customary regulation. For example, in a 2007 rate decision, the SCC determined in a footnote that the 2007 legislation would have increased Appalachian Power’s rates approximately $72 million per year greater than the increase actually found to be just and reasonable under customary regulation.

In a 2009 rate case, the 2007 legislation required the SCC to approve a $77.9 million increase in Virginia Power’s rates through a separate rate adjustment clause (RAC) to collect transmission-related costs. The SCC simply lacked the legal authority to deny the Virginia Power’s request for this rate increase even though Virginia Power’s overall operation in 2008 had generated a return on common equity of approximately 17 percent - greatly in excess of the rates of return of around 10 percent that had been found to be reasonable for other Virginia utilities, resulting in a $77.9 million increase. Those excess profits should have been used to cover the transmission costs – and under the old regulator set up, they would have been.

These rate hikes to date do not begin to reflect what’s in store for us, their customers. In 2009 alone, Dominion Virginia Power filed for five separate rate adjustment “riders” and Appalachian Power applied for four of them.

If Virginia Power builds a nuclear plant, the 2007 legislation would also require a 200 basis points (ROE) bonus on a plant that could cost billions of dollars and result in customers paying hundreds of millions of dollars more per year.

Some of the harshest criticism of the 2007 legislation has come from one of the Dominion’s largest customers, and one that passes its entire electric bill on to the taxpayer – the Department of Defense. In recent SCC testimony the Navy’s expert witness complained that the 2007 legislation would guarantee Dominion a profit margin of at least 10.55 percent, when he estimated it should be no higher than 9.5 percent.

The Navy witness concluded: “In the current economic environment, with unemployment nearing the 10 percent mark, requiring ratepayers to provide extraordinary monetary rewards to the company — rewards above and beyond a reasonable profit — does not balance the interests of ratepayers [and] the company.”

What is the General Assembly thinking?

For more information go to: www.energyva.org.

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Richmond: House kills nonpartisan redistricting A House of Delegates subcommittee killed a bill that would create a seven-member bipartisan commission to redraw state and federal legislative districts.

“Redistricting ought to produce competitive, contiguous districts that keep communities of interest together. Right now elected officials choose their constituents, and that is patently unfair.” said Bath County State Sen. Creigh Deeds, who sponsored the legislation, SB 173, that would have led to nonpartisan redistricting following the 2010 Census.

“I regret that the House failed to see the wisdom of the measure,” said Deeds, the 2009 Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee.

Deeds’ bill had passed the State Senate with unanimous support.

D.C. News: Webb, Warner applaud Keenan confirmation U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner on Tuesday applauded the Senate’s unanimous vote to confirm Virginia Supreme Court Justice Barbara M. Keenan as a federal judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Recommended by Sens. Webb and Warner on June 2, 2009, Keenan will be the first female judge from Virginia to serve on the federal appeals court. Keenan currently serves on the Supreme Court of Virginia.

“I am pleased by the unanimous confirmation of Justice Barbara Keenan to the Fourth Circuit,” said Webb. “Justice Keenan is an extraordinary choice to fill this vacancy. She has been a dedicated public servant, a fair and balanced jurist, and a trailblazer for women in the law throughout her career. There is a wide bipartisan support for Justice Keenan in Virginia, and I know she will continue her distinguished record of service in this new capacity.”

“After interviewing many quality candidates, Sen. Webb and I were pleased to put Justice Keenan’s name forward last summer. She was nominated by the president in September, and the Judiciary Committee endorsed her unanimously more than four months ago,” Warner said. “I am disappointed that Justice Keenan’s noncontroversial nomination was delayed more than four months by unnecessary filibusters that came to an end with two unanimous, bipartisan votes today. I urge my colleagues in this institution, on both sides of the aisle, to step away from the politics of obstruction and delay, and work together to move our nation and our troubled economy forward.”

Justice Keenan, 59, has served on the Supreme Court of Virginia since 1991. Prior to that, Keenan served as a judge on the General District and Circuit courts of Fairfax County and the Virginia Court of Appeals. She was the first woman appointed to the bench in Virginia, and one of the initial 10 appointees to the Virginia Court of Appeals following its creation in 1985. Earlier in her career, she worked as an assistant prosecutor in Fairfax and briefly worked as an attorney in private practice.

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