Transparency News 7/28/14

What’s the matter with Virginia? A state government long known for a go-along, get-along culture is now a place where compromise is seen as collaborating with the enemy. Current and former elected officials, and longtime analysts, strained to put recent events into perspective. One reached back to 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union, as the last time the state’s politics were so fraught. Another, twisting the state’s well-known tourism slogan, said,“Virginia is for haters now.” The polarization of Richmond mirrors Washington, part of a nationalization of politics in state capitals with divided government across the country. The Legislative session that recently ended featured teeth-spitting acrimony between Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, and Republicans in the General Assembly, which nearly led to a government shutdown.
New York Times

The Hampton PTA Council has called a town hall meeting at City Hall to discuss pay raises received by top school administrators last month.  "I think we owe it to our community to hold this meeting. It's not just about complaints, we need to come to some resolution and to solutions," PTA president Pamela Croom said to the Daily Press Thursday. "We're not against raises, we're against the business practice of how they were done," she said.
Daily Press

Bob and Maureen McDonnell start the trial Monday that will dictate the rest of their lives. Also on trial: Unsavory cash-fueled elements of politics, and Virginia's particular tradition of donor generosity toward the state's political elite. A conviction may mean serious prison time for the former governor and his wife, and a clearer line between the unscrupulous and the criminal in modern politics. Once selected, jurors will hear a tale that could have been pulled from a Greek tragedy, updated for the governor's mansion. A powerful and respected man, once seriously discussed as a vice presidential candidate, laid low by a gift scandal that grew out of his kitchen, fueled at least in part by a desire to keep up with the Joneses.
Daily Press

Geographic Information Systems, which use computers to combine, analyze and map sets of data, have quietly gone from a nerdy side-project to the backbone of a wide cross-section of local government functions. Originally associated with real estate parcel boundaries and street mapping,the systems now include everything from surviving Civil War earthworks to microwave transmission paths between communications towers. “We are the hub,” Nancy C. Parker, Chesterfield County’s GIS manager, said.
Times-Dispatch

As the Town of Strasburg discussed cutting two of its council seats earlier this week, one argument presented against the reduction was that more seats equate to each member representing a smaller percentage of the population. Strasburg, which has eight council members and a mayor, could be divided up into one member — including Mayor Tim Taylor — for every 721 residents. That ratio is the second smallest in Shenandoah County, behind Woodstock's 1:739 ratio. On the other side of the spectrum, Toms Brook's council of six members and Mayor Phil Fauber could be split into one representative for every 37 residents. With such a small population — 260, according to the 2012 census — members of the Toms Brook council may know each resident on a first name basis.
Northern Virginia Daily

Loudoun County must pay $35,000 in attorney fees relating to the failed recall effort against county Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling). The Hon. Paul Sheridan, a retired Arlington County judge, made the ruling in Leesburg Friday afternoon. Sheridan last month dismissed the recall petition against Delgaudio, granting the request of Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Theo Stamos, a Democrat who took on the case after Loudoun's commonwealth's attorney, a Republican, was recused to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Sheridan also determined Friday the proceedings and testimony from the 2013 special grand jury investigation into Delgaudio's office will remain sealed. The grand jury was investigating allegations that Delgaudio misused public assets — claims that played a large role in the recall effort by nearly 700 of the supervisor's Sterling constituents.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

National Stories

The fight over cities’ rights to own, operate and expand community broadband networks now has a new battleground – the FCC. Wilson, N.C.; and Chattanooga, Tenn.; filed a petition with the Commission on July 24 to remove state laws that prevent them from offering broadband services outside of their established territories. Communities have been at war with big cable and telecommunications companies for years over the legality of municipal broadband networks. The battles often take place in state legislatures, where a number of states have enacted legislation to prevent cities from expanding existing networks or building new ones. But those restrictions could now be overturned by the FCC. 
Governing

The potential pitfalls of lawyers who blog were on display Thursday on Capitol Hill, where it was revealed that a federal judicial nominee once wrote that readers of his blog "will agree I shouldn't be a judge."
LegalTimes

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday in favor of a Florida law that bars doctors from asking patients about gun ownership, overturning a decision in the so-called "Docs v. Glocks" case by a lower court that had struck it down. Florida's Republican-led legislature passed the law after a north Florida couple complained that a doctor asked them if they had guns, and refused to see them after they declined to answer. A federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional in 2012, and the state swiftly appealed. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 vote, vacated the federal judge's ruling and described the law as a "legitimate regulation" of professional conduct that simply codified good medical care.
Reuters
 

Editorials/Columns

Today, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and former first lady Maureen McDonnell go on trial in Richmond on federal corruption charges. Basically, they’re charged with selling the influence of the highest state office. In slightly more than four years, McDonnell went from inauguration to indictment. In between, he rose to become a possible vice presidential candidate and was seen by many as one of our state’s better governors. He was a rising star who suffered a meteoric fall. How did this happen? How did a state known for the probity and good sense of its elected officials and a man seen as an embodiment of that get to this point? Simply put, it’s all about the money—not having enough of it, being too fond of it and, as a state, not keeping a watchful eye on its potential to corrupt.
Free Lance-Star

Monday, July 28, will be a day all Virginians should hang their heads in shame: In a federal courtroom in Richmond, the corruption trial of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, begins. And sitting at the defense table along side the McDonnells will be the entire Virginia political system, one that once was known around the nation as one of the cleanest. Are we now lumped into the same category of corruption as New Jersey and North Carolina? We certainly hope not.
News & Advance

When we say something that might be threatening, how much does where we say it matter? The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in June to examine that question from a new angle – the increasingly popular method of online comments and posts on social media, as distinct from directed or face-to-face exchanges. The First Amendment generally shields us from being punished for what we say, but there are exceptions, among them what is called a “true threat.” Courts have used two approaches in dealing with threats. One requires police and prosecutors to show that the person making the threat genuinely intended harm. The other – and one used more often in recent years – is whether “a reasonable person” would be put in genuine fear for their safety or their life.
Gene Policinski, First Amendment Center