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Lindsey
June 6th, 2006, 09:48 PM
Approaching 150 days into a budget standoff, the Virginia legislature still has not settled on a budget for the next biennium, and the state is fast approaching a constitutional crisis if there is no resolution before the June 30 deadline, when the current budget expires.

This standoff is not the result of an impasse between Republicans and Democrats; no, this is entirely an intra-party fight, with arch-conservative, anti-tax Republicans in the House squaring off against more moderate Republicans in the state Senate. In this, it mirrors what is going on in Washington.

(Background article in the Washington Post, written almost exactly one month ago, here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601099.html).)

The state's Attorney General, a Republican with gubernatorial ambitions, has issued a statement that says that if there is no budget agreement by June 30, the governor has no authority to continue running the state. (Times-Dispatch article here (http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188267098&path=%21news&s=1045855934842).)

Bottom line: the Virgina Republicans are choosing ideological purity over responsible governance. Ideological purity is something you can indulge in when you are in the minority and not responsible for the end result. It's a luxury that cannot be afforded when you are in the majority. I for one am sick of this sort of nonsense, and I can only hope a lot of other voters feel the same way.

--Lindsey

ndebord
June 7th, 2006, 12:35 AM
Approaching 150 days into a budget standoff, the Virginia legislature still has not settled on a budget for the next biennium, and the state is fast approaching a constitutional crisis if there is no resolution before the June 30 deadline, when the current budget expires.

This standoff is not the result of an impasse between Republicans and Democrats; no, this is entirely an intra-party fight, with arch-conservative, anti-tax Republicans in the House squaring off against more moderate Republicans in the state Senate. In this, it mirrors what is going on in Washington.

(Background article in the Washington Post, written almost exactly one month ago, here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601099.html).)

The state's Attorney General, a Republican with gubernatorial ambitions, has issued a statement that says that if there is no budget agreement by June 30, the governor has no authority to continue running the state. (Times-Dispatch article here (http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188267098&path=%21news&s=1045855934842).)

Bottom line: the Virgina Republicans are choosing ideological purity over responsible governance. Ideological purity is something you can indulge in when you are in the minority and not responsible for the end result. It's a luxury that cannot be afforded when you are in the majority. I for one am sick of this sort of nonsense, and I can only hope a lot of other voters feel the same way.

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

Two questions really. How's the gerrymandering in your fair state? And what kind of voting implements do you use?

<sigh>

Judy G. Russell
June 7th, 2006, 12:34 PM
I for one am sick of this sort of nonsense, and I can only hope a lot of other voters feel the same way.My sister the scoolteacher sure feels that way -- she has been awarded a contract for next year but they can't give it to her (yet) because of the budget crisis!

Lindsey
June 8th, 2006, 04:00 PM
Two questions really. How's the gerrymandering in your fair state? And what kind of voting implements do you use?
The gerrymandering is no better or worse than in any other state, I suppose. Which is to say that urban areas have been chopped up and the pieces added to multiple other districts to dilute their strength, and areas of Democratic strength have been ghetto-ized to create safe districts for Republicans.

As for voting machines, I can only speak for my own county. In 2002, we were still using punch cards. I'm not sure about 2004, because I had to vote by absentee ballot in that election, and absentee ballots are punch cards as well. But in the gubernatorial election last year, we were using touch screens. With no paper trail. :(

--Lindsey

Lindsey
June 8th, 2006, 04:08 PM
My sister the scoolteacher sure feels that way -- she has been awarded a contract for next year but they can't give it to her (yet) because of the budget crisis!
Schoolteachers were on the chopping block during the last budget crisis, too, as I recall. This is, I believe, the third time this has happened since the Republicans took over complete control of the legislature -- and that didn't happen until 1999! I would be like watching the Keystone Kops except that it isn't funny -- these guys are putting the state's bond rating in serious jeopardy. It was the threat of having the bonds downrated that finally got them to get serious last time around, and now they don't seem even to care about that. They sent Tim Kaine off to New York City to meet with the bond raters just the other day without the budget deal he had hoped to be able to take with him. Absent that, he can only issue personal assurances that he firmly expects the Republicans will ultimately come to their senses and the budget will indeed be passed before June 30th, but bankers don't tend to put a lot of weight on personal assurances, especially when they come from someone with no authority to compel action. <sigh>

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
June 8th, 2006, 06:28 PM
bankers don't tend to put a lot of weight on personal assurances, especially when they come from someone with no authority to compel action. <sigh>Geez... what a bunch of morons... The legislators, not the bankers!

ndebord
June 8th, 2006, 09:08 PM
The gerrymandering is no better or worse than in any other state, I suppose. Which is to say that urban areas have been chopped up and the pieces added to multiple other districts to dilute their strength, and areas of Democratic strength have been ghetto-ized to create safe districts for Republicans.

As for voting machines, I can only speak for my own county. In 2002, we were still using punch cards. I'm not sure about 2004, because I had to vote by absentee ballot in that election, and absentee ballots are punch cards as well. But in the gubernatorial election last year, we were using touch screens. With no paper trail. :(

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

Well, the Diebold machines "may" have struck again in that campaign in California where the Dems were expected to beat the republican candidate running to replace the disgraced Cunningham. The Dems candidate, Busby, only got the traditional 45% vs 49% for Bilbray, the Republican.

Straightforward you say? Perhaps. But the election poll workers took home the diebold machines before the election with only a piece of plastic tape over the input slot. Given reports that you can fix these machines in minutes, if not seconds, one has to ask how kosher this election actually was (yes another state where the SoS is a Republican and just loves Diebold machines).

Lindsey
June 8th, 2006, 10:09 PM
Geez... what a bunch of morons... The legislators, not the bankers!
Agreed!

Today's headline in the T-D was "What if nobody blinks?"

Apparently Moody's assured Kaine that the state's AAA bond rating was not immediately imperiled by the current budget impasse, but they are, of course, going to be watching developments closely.

Here's what I think may get the ball rolling: the T-D reports that if the budget impasse goes past June 30th, the state lottery will not be able to pay out any lottery winnings. Yeah, that should get the letters flowing into the legislators' mailboxes...

--Lindsey

Lindsey
June 8th, 2006, 10:15 PM
Well, the Diebold machines "may" have struck again in that campaign in California where the Dems were expected to beat the republican candidate running to replace the disgraced Cunningham. The Dems candidate, Busby, only got the traditional 45% vs 49% for Bilbray, the Republican
"The traditional 45%"? Registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in that district by something like 3 to 2, and Cunningham won his last election by 20 points. Busby got a lot more than the "traditional" margin. And you have to admit, she did herself no favors with that misspoken "you don't need papers to vote" remark that Republicans easily construed as advocating voting fraud.

Busby was a weak candidate, but she nevertheless did well in a district that is heavily Republican. I don't think that makes a very strong case that there was something wrong with the results. Nevertheless, the fact that such questions can be raised and not definitively resolved is reason enough to do something to tighten up the process. It is vitally important that election results be confirmable by a process that is independent of the initial tally.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
June 9th, 2006, 11:27 PM
Here's what I think may get the ball rolling: the T-D reports that if the budget impasse goes past June 30th, the state lottery will not be able to pay out any lottery winnings. Yeah, that should get the letters flowing into the legislators' mailboxes...Oh ROFL!!! Yeah, that'd do it for sure!