Bell wins re-election in landslide
Incumbent Republican Dickie Bell won re-election in the 20th House District by receiving 69.8 percent of the vote in his race with Democrat Laura Kleiner.
Bell, a former Staunton City Councilman and Augusta County schoolteacher, was strongest in Augusta County, where he won 82.8 percent of the votes against Kleiner, a recent Mary Baldwin College graduate.
Bell won majorities in every locality in the 20th, which was redrawn in the 2011 legislative redistricting to add Waynesboro and Nelson County. Bell garnered 72.4 percent of the vote in Waynesboro and 66.4 percent of the vote in Staunton, where he had won four elections to City Council before running and winning in the 20th House District race in 2009.
Kleiner performed best in Democrat-friendly Nelson County, though she still fell short of a majority in Nelson, getting 44.1 percent of the vote there.
Ken Plum: Our fair share
In the decade-long debate on funding transportation improvements, many simple solutions have been offered. Endless demands for auditing the Department of Transportation resulted in about a dozen audits, none of which alleged waste, fraud, or abuse. No new funds were identified. One audit suggested that reserves on projects could be reduced, freeing up money to be spent quicker. Hopefully the added risk will not leave the department unable to pay its bills. Another frequent suggestion has been the expanded use of public-private partnerships whose popularity seems to have diminished with the realization that the projects are not free but are funded with high tolls like the Greenway.
The simplest solution proposed by many especially in election years is revising the highway funding formula to bring more money to one’s region. “Change the formula; get our fair share back to Northern Virginia,” is the promise. Accomplish the task by putting together a coalition of “legislators from the parts of Virginia that have the greatest transportation needs and gather the votes to change the formula.” The results of a recent study seem to throw cold water on this idea. While we contend that we do not get our fair share in Northern Virginia, the results of a study by the Senate Finance Committee staff found that Northern Virginia actually gets back more in transportation funding than it pays in transportation taxes. Certainly we do not get back as much as we want or need, but the study found that the Northern Virginia region with 27.9 percent of the state’s population pays 27.7 percent of the state’s transportation taxes but gets back 32.5 percent of the state’s expenditures for transportation. In contrast, the Richmond region pays 15.9 percent of the state’s transportation taxes and gets back 11.2 percent. Hampton Roads is about even with 20.2 percent of the taxes and 20.1 percent of the expenditures. The small district of Bristol is the only other region of the nine regions in the state to get back more than it put in. Now who is going to join the coalition to send even more money to Northern Virginia? Seems that another simple solution has bitten the dust.
I voted with others for Governor McDonnell’s borrowing scheme to put more money into transportation. For support for his proposal from business organizations and legislators, Governor McDonnell pledged to propose a sustainable and dedicated source of revenue for transportation. I look forward to his proposal as being a serious one and not another ABC sales idea. I will support it if it produces real revenue and if, of course, we in Northern Virginia get our fair share.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Virginia is shirking school funding responsibility
In a recent column I questioned how Virginia could have hundreds of millions of dollars in budget surplus when the Commonwealth has “a responsibility to fund 55 percent of public education and is paying just 41 percent.” The Truth-O-Meter column of the Richmond Times Dispatch decided to check out my statement. It checked the report from the State Superintendent of Education that found in 2010 of the $13.3 billion spent on public education, the federal government provided $1.5 billion, or 11 percent; local governments $6.5 billion, or 49 percent; and the state government $5.3 billion, or 40 percent – a percentage less than I had alleged. A report by the Senate Finance Committee found that between 1996 and 2005 the state contributed 43 percent to total education costs.
My contention that state government is shirking its responsibility in funding just 40 to 43 percent of the cost of public education is based on my reading of the State Constitution, Article VIII, that requires that “public schools of high quality to be maintained.” It states that “the General Assembly shall provide a system of free public elementary and secondary schools for all children of school age throughout the Commonwealth, and shall seek to ensure that an educational program of high quality is established and continually maintained.” Since the General Assembly is given the Constitutional requirement to provide public education, it should foot more than half the bill.
I spoke at length to the Truth-O-Meter reporter about the inadequacies of the Standards of Quality (SOQ) as a measure of education costs since the Standards are so out-of-date and are greatly exceeded by even the poorest school districts. The Standards are not sufficient to operate a school system, and the Standards have been known to be reduced when state funding is scarce. The defenders of the current system of funding public education hide behind the Standards of Quality as a defense. The result is that more costs get shifted to local property taxpayers. Unfortunately, the reporter fell for the SOQ argument, rewrote my “responsibility” statement to be “requirement,” and labeled my contention “false.” The state does fund about 55 percent of SOQ costs. I wrote to his editor suggesting that the Truth-O-Meter needed to be recalibrated.
Even if there is disagreement over my contention that the state has a responsibility and not a technical requirement to fund 55 percent of the actual cost of public education, is there not a moral obligation to get to funding half the costs rather than saddling local governments with the difference between half and 40-43 percent of the cost? The truth I see in all this is that the state is shirking its responsibility in funding public education.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Energy capital of the East Coast
The Governor’s 2011 Conference on Energy has been announced for October 17-19 at the Richmond Convention Center. Once again the logo for the conference proclaims “Virginia: Energy Capital of the East Coast.” For a state that imports nearly 20 percent of its electricity and virtually all its petroleum products and is in the lower half of the states in promoting alternative energy sources, the claim that the Governor tosses around in his speeches that Virginia is the East Coast’s energy capital hardly seems to fit reality. If the slogan is to indicate the debates that are likely to take place in the Commonwealth next year on energy issues, it might be a better fit.
The Energy Capital of the East Coast is likely to see intense debates next year on uranium mining, off-shore drilling, wind farms, fracking, and renewable energy sources. A move on the part of uranium mining interests will attempt to repeal the ban on mining uranium that has been in place for several decades. While the current focus is on mining in Southside, a repeal would affect all deposits in the state including those closer to the water supply of Northern Virginia. I and the conservation community oppose lifting the ban because of the potential risks to human health and safety.
Although the amount of oil off-shore of Virginia is debatable, the Governor continues to promote “drill, baby, drill!” as a solution to many of the state’s problems including funding transportation. There will be a move on the part of the Governor to secure leases from the federal government. Whether such leases will be available is unknown, and whether Virginia could realize any tax money from them is highly problematic. The most recent oil spill along the Gulf coast quelled much of the interest in drilling off the coast of Virginia. Of much greater interest recently has been the prospect of wind farms off the Virginia coast to generate electricity. Technical studies have found that the wind off the Virginia coast is strong and sustainable enough to support wind turbines to generate electricity. The gigantic turbines would be far enough off the coast so as to be barely visible from land. Financing of such a project seems to be the major hurdle.
Natural gas extraction in the state will be controversial as proposals are made to use fracking to free natural gas from the shale. Under this method, water and chemicals are pumped into the shale under tremendous pressure causing the shale to fracture and release the gas. The impact on the water supply of the chemicals used is open to serious discussions as there are currently claims in Pennsylvania that drinking well have been adversely affected.
With these heavyweight issues, alternative energy will not receive much attention. Maybe Virginia is the energy-debate capital of the East!
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Energy capital of the East Coast
The Governor’s 2011 Conference on Energy has been announced for October 17-19 at the Richmond Convention Center. Once again the logo for the conference proclaims “Virginia: Energy Capital of the East Coast.” For a state that imports nearly 20 percent of its electricity and virtually all its petroleum products and is in the lower half of the states in promoting alternative energy sources, the claim that the Governor tosses around in his speeches that Virginia is the East Coast’s energy capital hardly seems to fit reality. If the slogan is to indicate the debates that are likely to take place in the Commonwealth next year on energy issues, it might be a better fit.
The Energy Capital of the East Coast is likely to see intense debates next year on uranium mining, off-shore drilling, wind farms, fracking, and renewable energy sources. A move on the part of uranium mining interests will attempt to repeal the ban on mining uranium that has been in place for several decades. While the current focus is on mining in Southside, a repeal would affect all deposits in the state including those closer to the water supply of Northern Virginia. I and the conservation community oppose lifting the ban because of the potential risks to human health and safety.
Although the amount of oil off-shore of Virginia is debatable, the Governor continues to promote “drill, baby, drill!” as a solution to many of the state’s problems including funding transportation. There will be a move on the part of the Governor to secure leases from the federal government. Whether such leases will be available is unknown, and whether Virginia could realize any tax money from them is highly problematic. The most recent oil spill along the Gulf coast quelled much of the interest in drilling off the coast of Virginia. Of much greater interest recently has been the prospect of wind farms off the Virginia coast to generate electricity. Technical studies have found that the wind off the Virginia coast is strong and sustainable enough to support wind turbines to generate electricity. The gigantic turbines would be far enough off the coast so as to be barely visible from land. Financing of such a project seems to be the major hurdle.
Natural gas extraction in the state will be controversial as proposals are made to use fracking to free natural gas from the shale. Under this method, water and chemicals are pumped into the shale under tremendous pressure causing the shale to fracture and release the gas. The impact on the water supply of the chemicals used is open to serious discussions as there are currently claims in Pennsylvania that drinking well have been adversely affected.
With these heavyweight issues, alternative energy will not receive much attention. Maybe Virginia is the energy-debate capital of the East!
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: A budget surplus?
Gov. Bob McDonnell’s recent announcement that the Commonwealth finished the fiscal year with a $311 million budget surplus left most with a knowledge of state finances scratching their heads in amazement at the continuation of the “budget surplus” myth.
How could a state that had just earlier in the calendar year made painful billion dollar reductions in order to balance the budget have a surplus a few months later? How could a state that has a responsibility to fund 55 percent public education costs get by with saying it has a surplus when it is funding just 41 percent? When the state has long waiting lists for programs for the disabled, how can it be said that the state has a surplus of money? Why would the major credit rating agencies be threatening to reduce the state’s AAA bond rating as part of the federal debt situation if that state has a true surplus? How can you have a surplus if there are more than a billion dollars in unmet highway and transportation needs each year?
The independent Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis issued a report last week, “In the Red: Early Warnings About Virginia’s Fiscal Outlook,” with a very different conclusion (www.thecommonwealthinstitute.org). It found that “Virginia faces an estimated budget shortfall of more than $800 million in the upcoming 2012-1014 biennium, even with years of core service cuts and slowly rebounding state revenue.” Its analysis concluded that state tax collections are well below pre-recession levels despite recent modest improvements and that revenues lag behind the cost of maintaining existing services. Coupled with the certain loss of federal monies that had softened the blow of the recession, the outlook for the state is bleak.
As the report indicates, Virginia has used various one-time tactics to stay afloat the last several years. Deep budget cuts were made; the Rainy Day Fund was drained; capital projects were shifted to bonding; underfunding and borrowing from the state’s pension fund were done; and federal relief monies were utilized. Localities have been required to pick up a greater percentage of the cost of programs that the state previously funded.
Certainly there may be some short-term relief in rubbing together the couple of nickels that we have in our pockets today as a result of tax collections that were slightly improved beyond projections, but the long-term prospect is for more budget shortfalls. Virginia has a small amount of revenue beyond what it expected from last fiscal year, but the needs for that money are many-fold. To call it a surplus is misleading.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: An immortal Virginian
Ask Virginians the name of a native of the Commonwealth who has had the greatest impact on history, and you are likely to get a variety of answers. Few are likely to give the name of the Virginian whom I believe has had and will continue to have the greatest influence on human history: Henrietta Lacks. Unfortunately few have heard of her, and her name does not appear in many history books. All that is changing with the 2010 publication of the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
Henrietta was born in 1920 in Roanoke and grew up in Clover in Southside Virginia. She moved to Baltimore as an adult. She died at age 31 of cancer. Her body was returned to Clover and buried in an unmarked grave in a family burial plot. What Henrietta never knew and her family has only in recent years found out is that when she was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, small tissue samples were removed from her body. Amazingly, the cells from these samples did what scientists had never seen before. They could be kept alive and grown. The cell line that was started was named for its unwitting donor “HeLa” and became the first immortal cell line.
HeLa cells were used by Dr. Jonas Salk to help develop a vaccine for polio. The cells have been used around the world for research into cancer, AIDS, effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, human sensitivity to many substances, and others too numerous to mention here. It is estimated that scientists have grown more than 20 tons of her cells. More than 11,000 patents have been granted involving the cells. Henrietta nor her family ever received any compensation.
This week the Virginia Department of Historic Resources is erecting a roadside marker near Clover to recognize her important contribution to medical science. I hope to attend its unveiling. I recommend reading Skloot’s book. A documentary has been produced, and more are likely to follow. A humble African American woman of very limited means has had a profound effect on all our lives. She may truly be the only immortal Virginian.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Virginians leading the nation
In the late 1990s the state teachers’ organization distributed a hopeful poster. With scenes from Monticello and colonial Virginia printed in the background, the text proclaimed that “Virginians led the Eighteenth Century, Virginians can lead the Twenty-first Century.”
There is a plentiful supply of documentation of Virginians providing leadership in the Revolutionary period through the formation of our Nation. Virginian Thomas Jefferson put in words in the Declaration of Independence the case for freedom of the colonies from the Mother Country and also the notion of natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Along with James Madison he helped to design a nation of “we the people” rather than a confederation of states. Virginian George Mason insisted on a Bill of Rights as part of the new country’s constitution, and history is replete with examples of the wisdom of his leadership. Virginian George Washington took the helm of the new government, but even as he was wildly popular chose to step down from leadership rather than to proclaim himself king or dictator as the patterns of past history may have suggested for him to do. Virginian Jefferson became our third president followed by his neighbors Madison and James Monroe, making Virginians four of our first five presidents. Virginian John Marshall gave form to our Supreme Court
From that surge of leadership with the formation of our country, Virginia fell rapidly from its position of providing national leadership. Historian Susan Dunn in her book Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison and the Decline of Virginia (Basic Books, 2007) found that unlike the men of the founding generation, Virginians who inherited the Revolution were “spellbound by the myth of aristocratic, gracious plantation life, they waged an impossible battle against progress and time itself.”
The designers of the teachers’ poster were hoping that Virginians might reassert themselves and provide leadership to the Nation by an investment in public education. Their wishes have not come true. Each year there is a struggle in the legislature to prevent any further erosion of education funding. But Virginia names are being mentioned nationally in a way that hardly brings favor to the state. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has gained national notoriety for his attack on academic freedom at Mr. Jefferson’s University and for his actions against the new federal health care law. Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor as majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives gets national attention daily with his grimaces, sneers, and “just say no” approach to budget and deficit negotiation.
Virginians need to step forward and show national leadership of the style of Virginia’s earliest years, not like what we have seen lately.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Lowest score in the House
We politicians like to take credit for accomplishments even when our connection to what has been achieved may sometimes seem less than clear. We also tend to ignore things that are not going as well as they might. For example, Governor McDonnell as most governors before him regularly announces new jobs that are created in the state as though they might have something to do with a private business decision that will be implemented over many years. When there are job layoffs and companies closing, the news is announced in the business section of the newspaper with no press releases from the governor’s office.
As an eternal optimist I tend to focus on the good things that are happening with less emphasis on what goes wrong. Hopefully you read my recent columns in which I made sure you knew about my perfect score on the Virginia League of Conservation Voters scorecard leading them to call me a “champion of the environment.” Or you may have heard about the Virginia teachers giving me their “Solid as a Rock for Public Education” recognition for my perfect voting record on public education issues. And there are others (kenplum.com).
To be fair, if I am going to point out when I am doing well, I may need to point out when I do not do too well. For example, on the 2010-2011 Virginia Family Foundation Report Card I and four other delegates made the lowest scores in the House of Delegates (www.familyfoundation.org). Our scores were 5 out of a possible score of 100. As near as I can tell, they did not make any errors in their calculations. While I highly value family, we just disagree fundamentally on what constitutes family values. They did not like my vote against a constitutional amendment that would have attempted to define parents’ rights in the U.S. Constitution; another amendment protecting public prayer; and one that defined state sovereignty under the Constitution. They did not like my vote against denying funding for stem cell research and Planned Parenthood. I also voted against their position to increase regulations for clinics in which abortions may be conducted and against their bill to require that all women seeking an abortion be given an ultrasound and be offered a chance to review it.
Others will be able to see my low score on the Family Foundation Scorecard as the group has plans to distribute 100,000 copies of them and a half-million voter guides through their campaign IGNITE, “an enduring cultural transformation.” Among “our Biblically-based beliefs” they intend to promote are the ideas that “moral, physical and spiritual absolutes exist and were given to mankind to govern all of life…the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman is the essential element of the family.” Actually, their involvement in the fall campaign will give me an opportunity to talk about my family and my values. It will provide me a chance to explain why I believe my lowest score in the House of Delegates correctly reflects my position on the issues considered and the opinion of a majority of my constituents.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: Environmental scores and attitudes
Among the groups keeping “score” on the actions of the General Assembly is the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. From among the thousands of votes cast by members of the House of Delegates and the State Senate the League chooses those votes of most importance to the environmental and conservation groups that make up their organization. For many issues the League takes an opposing view that the consequences of legislation might be harmful to the environment. Other bills enjoy the support of League members if they might result in keeping the air and water of the Commonwealth clean or leading to it being cleaned up. All these votes are tallied into a scorecard that is issued annually. The most recent 2011 scorecard can be found at www.valcv.org.
I am pleased to have scored a perfect 100 percent on the League of Conservation Voters Scorecard for 2011 making me one of their champions as I have been for at least the past half-dozen years. I am pleased that my score correctly reflects my feelings that in Virginia we need to do a better job of protecting the environment. Although my score reflects the League’s priorities, they do not necessarily reflect the outcome of bills. In fact, in the House the average score of legislators was 61 percent and in the Senate 74 percent.
Just as there is a clear split in the legislature on environmental issues there is a division in public opinion on these issues. In its 2011 Virginia Environmental Attitudes Survey, the Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University found that slightly less than half (48.4%) of Virginians think that climate change is a real problem while 29.8 percent do not consider it a real problem. Virginians surveyed rate the state’s natural environment an average grade of 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 5 or about a C-minus grade. Slightly over half (51.8%) consider that the state’s environment will be about the same in ten years; 27.3% think it will get worse.
Six of ten Virginians consider environmental protection as generally good for the economy while only two in ten view it as generally bad for the economy. Nearly eight in ten Virginians are willing to pay more to support companies with environmentally conscious policies and practices. Slightly over half of those surveyed indicated that they would pay more for these companies’ products. The survey reported that Virginians “when pressed they favor environmental protection over economic growth and development.”
When my voting record on environmental issues is compared with public opinion, I believe my votes correctly reflect my constituents’ interests that the environment be protected as our economy grows. They also reflect the fact that we can protect our environment and have a healthy economy.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Ken Plum: You Scandalize My Name
The success of recording and selling Southern vernacular music in the 1920s led to the beginning of the country music industry. Talent scouts and recording engineers traveled throughout the South seeking commercially marketable music played and sung by local residents. From October 13 through 18, 1929, musicians from all areas of Virginia were invited to Richmond to record their music. A temporary studio was set up probably in the Polk Furniture Company on Broad Street. In recent years a two-CD set of the Richmond recording session was released. It contains a couple of songs back from 13 different musical groups. The CD set is called “Virginia Roots: The 1929 Richmond Sessions.”
Among the musical groups that took part in the Richmond sessions was the group The Golden Crown Quartet who sang unaccompanied four-part, African American gospel harmony. They were formed in 1919 and from 1939 to 1950 had a weekly radio broadcast. One of the songs they recorded at the Richmond session was “Scandalize My Name.” I do not know the history of the song in which the writer after shaking hands in turn with his mother, father, sister, and preacher found that as soon as “my back was turned” they each in turn “scandalized my name.”
As the political campaign season for 2011 is getting underway, I find myself thinking about this gospel song more and more. Both political parties spend too much time trying to scandalize the name of the other. Such efforts occur early in campaigns and are often low-key. In my own case, the Republican Party of Virginia has sent out at least four, full-color, slick postcards with footnotes that supposedly portray my record in office. The suggestion in the cards, the automated telephone calls, and the newspaper ad is that I should be “sent packing.” The fine print indicates that the cards were “not being sent on behalf of any candidate.” Interesting that a political party would be willing to make such expenditures I suppose on behalf of good government. More likely the Party intends to be the bad guy in raising suspicion or doubt about my public record, enabling a candidate to enter the campaign with the negative campaigning being done for him. This technique has been known to work in some areas, but I believe the voters of my district are too sophisticated to be influenced by it.
Of course, my voting record is totally open to public examination and discussion. All my thousands of votes are available at legis.virginia.gov. Likewise, my campaign contributions and spending are available for public scrutiny at vpap.org. Hopefully none of this information will be misused to try to do what the gospel hymn says, “to scandalize my name.”
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Chris Graham: Who I’m voting for in the 20th House
Posted by afp on November 7, 2011 · 2 Comments
This other Dickie Bell, the one who comes across as a hard-core social and fiscal conservative, I don’t know him that well, but I understand what’s going on there. Back when Dickie first got the nomination to run as the Republican nominee for the 20th House District seat in 2009, he was about as close to the political center of the long list of candidates as you could be and still be considered a Republican.
He could have viewed his ultimate blessing by the party hierarchy as an endorsement of his approach to politics, but decided instead to run to the right after having secured the nomination. A curious move, indeed, but it’s hard to criticize – he won the November 2009 election with more than 70 percent of the vote in a district that includes Democratic-leaning Staunton.
Now with the borders of the 20th redrawn to include Waynesboro and Nelson County, Bell could very well face a challenge at some point down the road in a district that is tilting back toward the political middle. This is where the old Dickie, the one that I like, would do well to re-emerge.
He doesn’t have anything to worry about in 2011. Laura Kleiner, God bless her for trying, but it’s hard to imagine a lot of people, even diehard Democrats, being able to justify pulling the lever for her given her age (22) and lack of experience (she’s a recent college graduate with no meaningful political or business qualifications). Bell, for his part, has plenty to call upon – four terms on Staunton City Council, for starters, plus a long run as a teacher and coach in the Augusta County school system.
And he has a history of reaching across the aisle to get things done. I know this personally, having worked with Bell for more than a year in the early 2000s on an effort to develop a public skateboard park in Staunton. Through an orchestrated series of public meetings and private one-on-ones, Bell was able to methodically gain support for the effort, and the results are what we’d both said they’d be when he first brought the idea up and I first began to write in support of it – it’s a rare day to drive by the park on Lake Tams and not see it teeming with skateboarders.
I still have issues sometimes reconciling the Dickie Bell that I’ve known and worked with over the years with some of the public pronouncements I see being made in his name on some issues of the day. In the end, I get it, that’s politics, and when the politics are accounted for, the Dickie that can get a skateboard park built in the face of initial opposition from City Council and the local newspaper is the Dickie that can get things done in Richmond.
That’s why I’ll be pulling the lever for Dickie Bell on Nov. 8.
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