Or the “great”, the “good”, the “bad”, and the “what the…” bills that have been prefiled so far for this coming session.

Great

HJ5 (Oder): Creates a transportation lockbox.

SB 4 (Smith): Requires General Assembly members to disclose if them or anyone in their families makes more than $10,000 from any state or local agency or government.

SB 5 (Smith): Requires state budget documents and amendments be posted for 72 hours before they can be voted on.

Good

HB1 (Loupassi): Makes Virginia’s anti-spam statute constitutional by excepting religious and politician spam.

HB8 (Carrico)/SB 3 (Smith): Allows for renewal of Virginia concealed handgun permits via the mail instead of requiring you to go to the courthouse.

HB18 (Cole): Tells the federal governments that regulation of interstate commerce is exactly that: interstate commerce.

Bad

HB2 (Loupassi): I’m sick of tax credits. And people wonder why it’s impossible to understand the tax code without a team of accountants and lawyers.

SB 9 (Blevins): Because the government doesn’t have anything better to do.

SB 10 (Blevins): See above.

What the…

HB21 (Kilgore): Seriously, who knew that the state had civil immunity for people doing space flights?

From today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter is getting in on the fight over the flying of the American flag.

The Prince William County Republican plans to submit a bill for next year’s General Assembly session that would require homeowners associations to allow combat veterans decorated for valor to fly the flag in any manner permitted by federal law.

[...]

Lingamfelter joins a group of supporters that boasts the White House, Democrats including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and both of Virginia’s U.S. senators, as well as Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the second-ranking Republican in the House.

[...]

Lingamfelter hasn’t finalized the language of his bill, and he noted that he’s open to broadening its scope to include more than just decorated veterans. He also said he’s open to associations decreeing requirements for residents’ flag display.

“Just don’t tell them they can’t do it,” he said.

In terms of Barfoot’s specific situation, Lingamfelter said it’s possible that the association will allow the matter to quietly go away.

“But I’m not going to quietly go away,” he added.

Similarly, he said that he has never faced a situation in which someone objected to his display of the red, white and blue.

But if it had happened?

“It would have only happened one time,” Lingamfelter said.

Okay, this need to be broken down line-by-line (with some reorganizing of the text for increased brevity):

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter is getting in on the fight over the flying of the American flag.

The Prince William County Republican plans to submit a bill for next year’s General Assembly session that would require homeowners associations to allow combat veterans decorated for valor to fly the flag in any manner permitted by federal law.

Lingamfelter hasn’t finalized the language of his bill, and he noted that he’s open to broadening its scope to include more than just decorated veterans.

Lingamfelter is still “open” as to who will be covered by his proposed edict, but the congressional proposal only covered Medal of Honor recipients. What about those lowly combat veterans that only managed to get a Silver or Bronze Star (sarcasm!)? What about those that only receive a Purple Heart or Distinguished Serve Medal? What about those that didn’t serve in a combat? What about reservists and National Guard members? What about the families of all of the above? What about an average person that didn’t serve in the military at all? Will all of these people be protected by these edicts (which, interestingly, doesn’t seem to be part of the powers of Congress, at least not in my copy of the United States Constitution)?

I do find it funny as well that all these Republicans are jumping on a bandwagon to create a protected class of individuals that are exempt from the rules of a homeowners association (HOA), an organization that they entered into a contract — voluntarily — with. No one forces you to join a HOA, you make that choice when you decide to move into a particular neighborhood. You choose to give up your rights, while presumably of sound mind, when you enter into a contract with the HOA.

And notably, for Republicans, when it comes to protecting a certain class of people under hate crime legislation, then it’s totally unacceptable to create a class of individuals that are treated differently in the eyes of the law. Or so they would want you to believe.

[...]

Lingamfelter joins a group of supporters that boasts the White House, Democrats including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and both of Virginia’s U.S. senators, as well as Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the second-ranking Republican in the House.

We call them “statists” here.

[...] He also said he’s open to associations decreeing requirements for residents’ flag display.

“Just don’t tell them they can’t do it,” he said.

And here comes the lying (or the opening of one’s mouth and proving of one’s own ignorance).  The veteran in this case was never told that he couldn’t fly the flag. He was told that he could not erect a flag pole. So, Mr. (or Delegate, or King of Virginia) Lingamfelter, you have now shown yourself to be a liar or completely ignorant.

In terms of Barfoot’s specific situation, Lingamfelter said it’s possible that the association will allow the matter to quietly go away.

“But I’m not going to quietly go away,” he added.

Of course not, you’re a politician, they never go away — quietly or not.

Similarly, he said that he has never faced a situation in which someone objected to his display of the red, white and blue.

But if it had happened?

“It would have only happened one time,” Lingamfelter said.

And what exactly does that mean? Is King of Virginia Lingamfelter saying he would result to violence if someone told him he was violating an HOA rule? Or is he saying he would just use his power as a legislator to exempt him from any rule that he feels like violating?

Questions, questions.

Check it out at Bloggers for Ken Cuccinelli: Tim Kaine Agrees With Ken Cuccinelli, Decides to Call Special Session.

From WTVR:

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

And the full YouTube video:

Here’s Dave Albo’s response on the WaPo’s Virginia Politics blog:

Amy: Did it occur to anyone to inquire what was going on at the time? Had the VCU reporter told the full story, she would have mentioned that at that time no votes were being taken, and I actually recall we were in a recess “break” awaiting Senate action. We get on line all the time to respond mostly to constituent inquiries. I get 100′s a day and its tough to keep up. At the time of this report, I was looking at house values in Mason Neck b/c I had a constituent write, all upset about his County Real Estate Tax. But the “reporter” did not give any subject of the report an opportunity to respond. Just a slam piece taken out of context.

And, unfortunately, the video WTVR is from their 5:00 broadcast and not the 11:00 broadcast. When they ran the story at 11:00, there was a comment at the end of the segment from the newscaster that went something like, “When the VCU student tried to contact the Delegates before posting the video, none of the Delegates said that the photos were taken during a recess of the House.”

Um…excuse me, you have to be told that there’s a recess going on when you’re in the House gallery and can see and hear everything going on on the House floor?

Follow-up to my previous post. From The Washington Post:

This year, there were echoes — distant perhaps — of Webster vs. Clay as delegates debated clotheslines. The energy-saving bill, sponsored by Sen. Linda T. “Toddy” Puller (D-Fairfax), would have prevented rule-happy homeowner associations from banning clotheslines.

Taking aim at the bill as if wielding a rug-beater, Del. Robert D. “Bobby” Orrock Sr. (R-Caroline) said Northern Virginians might regret seeing clotheslines strung from “tree to tree to tree.”

“Go ahead and pass this, and then when your folks come screaming that this looks like a West Virginia subdivision,” Orrock began, but boos cut him off.

Christ, what an elitist.

As “theRadical” pointed out in a comment on my post about Bobby Orrock’s proposed voted registration legislation, the portion of Bobby Orrock’s legislation which makes it illegal to pay someone to collect signatures or distribute voter registration forms on a per-signature rate has been ruled unconstitutional in Ohio (specifically by the Southern District of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals).

The state of Ohio appealed the Sixth Circuit’s opinion and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case on November 17, 2008.

Unfortunately, cases from the Sixth Circuit don’t directly affect Virginia since Virginia is part of the Fourth Circuit, but the Supreme Court obviously didn’t disagree with the Sixth Circuit’s opinion in the matter since they refused to hear Ohio’s request for an appeal.

Chief Local Idiot Politician Bobby Orrock voted for it.

It’s kinda of sad to see Bob Marshall support the ban, especially given his conservative credentials.

And former Attorney General and current candidate for Governor, Bob McDonnell, released a press statement a couple days stating that he did not support the ban (WTOP). Hey, he might actually get my support this year. Wonders will never cease. :)

Thank God.

As I pointed out a couple days ago, Bobby Orrock’s original version of HB 2642 was a monstrosity which required that anyone, who distributed a voter registration form to a citizen, register with the State Board of Elections (SBE) and provide quarterly reports to the SBE about who conducted voter registration activities and where such activities were conducted at.

Thankfully, the Elections Subcommittee of the of the Privileges and Elections Committee in the House of Delegates unanimously voted to remove that provision, along with a lot more of the bill, leaving only the requirement that registrars check the people currently on the voter rolls with those that are listed as being dead with the Social Security Administration. The subcommittee version of the bill also retains the prohibition on paying people on a per signature basis to solicit signatures on candidate forms or for voter registration forms, which was also part of Orrock’s original bill.

Nice to see that some folks in the General Assembly have some sense.