The Washington Post reports that Gov. McDonnell is considering calling a special session of the General Assembly to deal with the issues of transportation and government reform.

The governor also revealed that he has been in contact with Governors Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana to consult with them about some solutions that they are successfully implementing in their states to deal with these issues.

Gov. McDonnell also discussed the connection between implementing governmental reform and restoring some of the budget that was cut in this years session. By implementing governmental reform, McDonnell will acquire significant savings for the Commonwealth that, according to McDonnell will,”..take the savings and put it back into restoring the cuts,..”

Governors Daniels and Jindal have implemented similar governmental reforms in their respective states and by many accounts, these reforms have gone a long way in providing creative fixes for their state’s budget woes. McDonnell is wise to consult with these governors.

Furthermore, it is laudable that Gov. McDonnell is pursuing governmental reform. The sheer amounts of waste that often go into government budgets is unreal to say the least. Getting some genuine accountability will be helpful to the state and will likely produce results that we can all appreciate.

Jessica Sandlin, a political newcomer, writer and single mother of five, has decided that Scott Rigell, Bert Mizusawa, Ben Loyola, Ken Golden, Scott Taylor, Ed Maulbeck, and Chuck Smith are not enough of a choice for 2nd District Republicans, so she is entering the congressional campaign.

From Sandlin about why she’s running:

“I am running because it is time to change the conversation occurring at the policy level in America,” said Sandlin, who believes that the best kind of legislator – and the one our Founders’ intended – is a citizen legislator.

“If [Republicans] continue to use the same process, the results will be the same. If the party is to survive, we must notice and respond to the change in topography happening in our country,” she said. “People are dissatisfied- some are downright grab-the-pitchfork furious- with BOTH parties. I know why conservatism is better. I can bring that message to a new audience.”

Here is Sandlin’s bio:

Jessica Sandlin has been a resident of Virginia Beach and the Second Congressional District for fourteen years. Like many Americans, she has followed with dismay the recent events that challenge our great country – the economic crisis, the contention over governments’ place and power in our lives, the underfunding of critical military and security missions, the narcissism of our leaders, the leveraging of our future, the empty promises, the backroom deal-making and the scandals. The dreams we have for ourselves and our children seem to be moving out of our grasp.

Uncertainty and confusion cloud the road ahead. There are no easy answers, but we know if the process we use in the future is the same, the results will be the same! More than ever we need citizens with honesty, optimism, intelligence, and determination to step up. Jessica brings these qualities and more. Believing deeply in the great opportunities our freedom provides, she has the expertise to serve our community and confront the enormous challenges which face our nation during this period of economic hardship.

Jessica was born in Arlington, Virginia on September 12, 1969. Growing up in Northern Virginia, she enjoyed a rich diversity of friends from all over the world. She was baptized in the Episcopal Church and was active as an Acolyte and in youth programs. After graduating from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, she attended James Madison University for her freshman year.

She took a year off to work in the personnel department of the FDIC during the Savings and Loan crisis in 1989. She returned Randolph-Macon Woman’s College for one semester in the fall of 1989, and then returned to JMU, graduating with a B.A. in English and Secondary Education in 1992. After returning to the FDIC for the summer, she begin substituting at both public and private schools before taking a long-term job substituting at Escambia High School in Pensacola, FL. Then she moved back to Virginia Beach with her husband, Kevin.

Jessica and Kevin had their first child, Rebecca, in June of 1993 at Chesapeake General Hospital. Like many dedicated Navy wives, Jessica moved with her husband to Japan in the spring of 1994 where he joined VF-21 (the Freelancers), an F-14 squadron.

Jessica and Kevin had their second child, Christopher, in June of 1995. Based on her personal positive experience, Jessica began studying to become a La Leche League leader (breastfeeding support group).

Jessica accompanied her husband to duty stations in Pensacola, Virginia Beach, Japan, and San Diego before their return to Virginia Beach in 1996. She worked as a stay-at-home-mother, a labor support person, and a homeschool teacher. She was active in both military spouses’ groups and community. In 1997, Jessica studied to become a certified childbirth educator (CCE) and taught Bradley natural childbirth classes in Virginia Beach. Phoebe (1997), Luke (1998), and Hope (2000) were born at home in Virginia Beach.

A single parent for the last nine years, Jessica has worked as a volunteer at her children’s schools, renovated an older home, worked part-time as a freelance writer and editor, and served as an administrative assistant to a local Montessori school director. Jessica is an avid reader and researcher. She has been a vegetarian for twenty years and enjoys both writing and photography in her spare time.

Jessica is proud to have made family her top priority. She considers her most important job has been as a fulltime mom to five wonderful children. Committed to the goal of life-long education, she is an active volunteer to school and community providing meaningful experiences and opportunities for children to learn. As a mother and educator she’s honed the skills that a good Congresswoman needs: thorough in her preparation, objective in assessing the issues, steadfast in the face of bullying, a fierce advocate for her District, pro-active not reactive, a strong, confident communicator with the ability to cooperatively reach goals.

Jessica brings a fresh voice to the policy conversation; she is not a millionaire, not a wheeler-dealer businessman, not a political insider, but a Virginia-educated, concerned citizen-legislator. She believes that the future of America is on the line, that Congress needs the voices of women for balance, and that the 2nd District deserves a Representative not mired in the same old party-line ideas. Jessica is not an ideologue, but is full of optimism, energy, and creativity to lead our future!

Jessica lives in Virginia Beach with her five school-aged children: Rebecca, Chris, Phoebe, Luke, and Hope.
Her parents live in Falls Church, Virginia. She has one sister, two years younger, who lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Virginia Politics On Demand” takes over the WRVA 1140AM airwaves from 3-4PM this afternoon as both Shaun Kenney (3:30 PM) and I (3 PM) are guests of former BD contributor, and current Tertium Quids rock star, Norm Leahy. Norm is guest hosting the Doc Thompson Show this afternoon.

I’ll be on to talk a little about the state budget, this past General Assembly session: who won, who lost, who played the game. And Shaun is on in his role as “The Honorable”, so, I am presuming, he’s going todiscuss the impact of the state budget on localities, among others.

It should be fun!

Delegate Brenda Pogge has endorsed Feda Morton in the 5th district GOP primary.

This follows the announcement by the Morton campaign that several major conservative leaders as well as the Virginia Eagle Forum have endorsed her campaign.

The Weekly Standard reports that Congressman Rick Boucher will be voting against the Healthcare plan that Obama has put forward.  He seems to realize that reelection may not be an absolute surety.

Now-what will Perriello and Nye do?

On Meet the Press this morning Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod made an egregious error in his response to Israel’s expanded settlement announcement.

I realize that the announcement by the Israeli government was made while Vice President Biden was visiting the country, however, the whole point of Biden going over there in the first place was to lessen concern of a rift between the United States and Israel. Unfortunately, it appears that such a rift does exist. I would further submit that the blame for this rift lies with the Obama Administration and their actions since assuming office over a year ago.

It is really none of the Obama Administration’s business whether or not another sovereign nation expands its communities or not. Israel is not America’s child and should not be treated as such. We are not a “mother country” that has the right to dictate to Israel what she can and cannot do. We are Israel’s equal partner on the world stage.

Such actions and statements on the part of the Obama Administration only lead me to conclude what the people of Israel have concluded. That the Obama Administration harbors more affinity with Israel’s critics than with the people of Israel.

I had the opportunity to attend Keith Fimian’s event yesterday to kickoff his Fairfax County campaign. Fimian is running in a primary against Fairfax Supervisor Pat Herrity for the GOP nomination in the 11th Congressional district. The winner of that will face Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly in November.

Close to 200 people squeezed into the back room at Brion’s grille, which is a stones throw away from George Mason University. Mr. Fimian is a business owner who lost to Connolly in the last election. He outlined his job-oriented platform and took questions from those in attendance.

“I’ve lived the American dream and I know what it takes to create jobs,” Mr. Fimian explained. “And what does it take to create jobs? Folks, it takes a whole new kind of leader. It takes a completely different kind of leader than we got in Congress. These people do not how to create a job, they’ve never created a job. They don’t know how to fix what’s broke, they’ve broke what’s broke. We’re here because of them and they don’t know what to do literally, they’re paralyzed.”

He then directed the crowd to his website to see his 6-point jobs plan.

Fimian gave a pretty good speech and the crowd was receptive. He also once again championed a poll that shows him up on Connolly by 5 points.

Fimian spent a portion of his time railing against the abuses of government and career politicians. “Folks, your money is your money and it’s better off in your hands than someone else, especially career politicians who use it to pay off special interest groups,” he said.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of his remarks came when he made tongue-in-cheek references to Pat Herrity. The race has been tense since Herrity jumped in mid-January. Although Fimian never mentioned his opponent by name he did say some things that echoed past statements.

After making lengthy case for why Washington is broken Fimian said, “The crowd of which I speak, the insiders, the status quo, the good ol’ boy network – they live off their political connections, they trade off their names, they’re opportunistically ambitious and all they care about is moving up on the next rung of the political ladder and that is not what we need now. They will tell you they’ve got experience…Your experience means nothing, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have experience.”

On January 13th Fimian put Herrity in his crosshairs by saying, “His opportunistic ambition to run for Congress is another sign that Gerry Connolly is vulnerable due to his reckless tax-and-spend policies. Sadly Pat Herrity misreads what Virginians’ want from their leaders. They do not want a career politician more concerned with power than results…I offer a break from politics as usual. I am not a politician and that is a problem to the insiders who cut deals and want to anoint their friends.”

The race is really heating up as the June 8th primary date rapidly approaches.

Follow me on Twitter: @SecPress

Update: The Conference Report

*****

So, while the Senate takes another full day of per diem for tomorrow Sunday (a day after the session was supposed to end), a budget deal will finally be reported out from the conferees tomorrow in the afternoon and voted on by their respective chambers tomorrow in the evening.

In the deal, a purported $100 million in fees will be added, yet funding to localities to pay for car tax relief is preserved. There will also be a reserve, just in case revenue predictions don’t materialize (which got up into this nonsense in the first place).

According to one source, Public Safety/Law Enforcement, K12, and Health and Human Resources will all be pretty close to splitting the difference between the House and Senate positions.

More details on the budget are sure to be out soon.

Update: Norm Leahy over at TQ wrote about an AP article by Bob Lewis that spoke of a deal that might be in the works. Lewis apparently editorialized a bit about the nature of the cuts, saying:

Any compromise will contain draconian reductions, ensuring thousands of governmental layoffs and pressure on local governments to boost their taxes to preserve some services.

To which Leahy responds:

Or, looked at another way, the cuts will likely take state spending back to about what it was in 2006.

Oh, that evil year…when budget surpluses were still flowing, state government was still growing, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were thriving and George Allen was in the Senate.

More specific details are available from Pilot on Politics.

Also check out Too Conservative’s and SWAC Girl’s take.

Virginia’s 8th Congressional district is probably one of the safest Democratic seats in the country but the Republicans haven’t given up. So far 7 candidates have expressed interest in the 2010 GOP nomination of which 4 have dropped out of the race. Here’s a run down:

Matthew Berry has an impressive resume including clerking at the Supreme Court, General Counsel of the FCC, and the Department of Justice. Currently, he is the only candidate running a serious campaign in the primary by not only raising substantial funds ($62,844 thru 12/31/09) but also attacking Moran on a consistent basis. While I don’t agree with Mr. Berry on the Patriot Act and foreign policy issues (I realize I’m the minority within the GOP), he is able to articulate all his beliefs and policy positions in an intellectual and positive manner. I believe Berry is the strongest candidate to challenge Moran in the general election but he will still need a lot of help from both inside and outside the GOP.

Mark Ellmore – Dropped out in March.

Deb Maddrell – Dropped out this week. Deb Maddrell recently left the Navy where she spent the last few years focusing on Sexual Assault issues for the Office of the Assistant Secretary. She is new to politics, largely restricted by the Hatch Act, and fairly new to the 8th district.

Mike Maibach – Dropped out in December. In my conversation with him he did not want to run in a race with more than 2 candidates.

Patrick Murray is a career military man with the basic credentials of a GOP candidate. The military overtones in his campaign (i.e. “ground campaign” instead of “door-to-door”) may resonate with many GOP in the district (we do have the Pentagon afterall) but his disappointing fundraising numbers (less than $7K) may hinder him in the end. I have tried to reach out to his campaign three times without any response (not that I’m someone they need to respond to) so I can’t really comment on Murray’s ability to articulate issues (he also happened to miss the last Arlington GOP meeting). In the last few days, I have finally started to see some traffic from his campaign regarding fundraisers, parades, etc. so he still has time to turn things around.

Will Radle – Announced he was dropping out of the primary but may still run as an independent. Will Radle currently works for an insurance company and has participated in Leadership Institute courses. Currently Mr. Radle’s campaign revolves around a plan he has written where the basic theory is to eliminate federal taxation of American production to help the economy grow. Radle has yet to start fundraising as well.

Laurence Socci is the CEO of the lobbyist group, the C. L. A. group and has written a handbook on successful lobbyist strategies. I have reached out to him without any response. He was able to raise $23,500 of which at least $10,500 seem to come from out of state family and friends. He has not attended many GOP meetings in the district and his Facebook page only has 5 fans (including himself). No word on whether he intends to stay in the race or not.

More information and links to campaigns here.

Oh, just wait. Before you get your Birkenstocks in an uproar, note the toungue-in-cheekiness of my post.

It’s just that I get tired of outsiders, particularly New Yorkers, telling us in Virginia that they’ve got a better way of doing things. Like, in this case, gun control.

Seriously New York? Shall we compare crime statistics?

What prompted my rant? See this editorial from The Harrisonburg Daily News Record:

Va.’s Bad Gun Laws Posted: A Cheap Shot From New York

So, because Virginia’s lawmakers do not agree with the Times’ seize-the-guns ideology they are “callous.” And now, this latest little dig: Those crazy Virginians want to let law-abiding citizens carry weapons! No wonder a maniac shot up the Pentagon.

Seems The New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg and crowd are all upset about Virginia’s gun laws. But in this case, the Times leaves out some important information until they’ve had their little rant. This time the guns that committed the crime in question were purchase in California.

But not to worry. I have the solution.

I’m hearby calling on the General Assembly to enact a “One New Yorker a Month Law.”

In other words, once the first New Yorker crosses the Potomac in Virginia, the next one has to wait on the northern bank for the next 30-or-so days.

It appears that Virginia is rich, but not suprising, it’s in Northern Virginia. But, here in the Commonwealth, we share the wealth. So, congrats, NoVA. We’re in the money! That ought to temper some of that NoVA jubliation.

Speaking of Northern Virginia, it appears that former State Senator Jay O’Brien is going to get a little company in his challenge for the 39th District Senate seat against George Barker. Mason Conservative posts that Scott Martin, an Associate Dean of Technology at George Mason University is getting into the fray for the GOP nod.

Finally, the governor is providing his own muscle to Virginia budget negotiations in an effort to get this thing resolved before Sine Die tomorrow. The RTD is reporting that Governor Bob McDonnell met privately with Senate Democrats before entering a joint meeting with the House and Senate Budget negotiators.

I just read today in the Virginian Pilot of a massive cut planned that will impact the life of every man, woman and child. These are certainly tough times, and tough choices I know have to be made, but some cuts are just so draconian I expect to see massive editorials in the major newspapers decrying this cut.

Social services workers will be quoted talking about how it will impact their daily lives for the foreseeable future. McDonnell will be called “cruel” and “heartless” for tolerating such a cut.

Even though mathematically the cut figures to be just over 4%, teachers unions will lobby and attack the cut as “hurting the children” and saying the impact will go beyond the simple 4% cut, but stretch for months into the future.

The story of this massive cut is here.

Get to bed early Saturday. We lose an hour on Sunday. Daylight Savings time!

It’s been a long time in coming, but BD has finally gotten around to releasing it’s first magazine issue.

In this “inaugural” issue, we feature Gov. Bob McDonnell in his first interview with blogs as governor (hmm…it took Gov. Tim Kaine at least three years to get with ‘Raising Kaine’ and it didn’t take us but a month…interesting sidebar).

We also profile Del. Ron Villanueva, and look at the issues of offshore wind energy and health care.

Last but not least. a healthy dose of snark from Ward Smythe.

We welcome your comments and emails which we will publish in our next issue. Let us know what you think about the articles and this first issue! What can we do better?

Enjoy!

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Lots of things, as always, going on throughout Virginia, but here are a few posts to note.

Bob Holsworth at Virginia Tomorrow describes what he sees McDonnell attempting to do by holding yesterday’s press conference regarding the state’s anti-discrimination policies, in particular, the class of “sexual orientation”

Holsworth believes McDonnell is “Reasserting Gubernatorial Priorities, Extricating Himself from the Pelosi Maneuver, and Controlling the Virginia Model”.

McDonnell’s Executive Order places the highest office in Virginia on record as noting that discrimination based on sexual orientation is inherently protected by the U.S. Constitution and, by implication, suggests that the Governor has reconsidered his own previous statement that “Cuccinelli’s legal reasoning” was accurate.
Even more importantly, it is a message to both the broader business and political communities that Virginia remains a forward-looking state that can be a model of where conservatism is moving.

Jim Riley at Virginia Virtucon has a great take on the WaPO doing it again – bringing up the most sourced and discussed college paper in the history of the World – Bob McDonnell’s thesis.

The WashPo is turning itself into a bad joke with this….McCartney is either being disingenuous for partisan purposes or else is a fool.

Brian S at Too Conservative discusses Eric Massa based on his personal dealings with the man:

Don’t trust a word he says. He’s not the good guy here. He’s just another Democratic politician with zipper problems who got caught and is willing to say anything as he heads out the door.

And, the RTD Virginia Politics blog reports that Dave Mills will be the new executive director at DPVA. Mills is married to Del. Jennifer McLellan and “was selected by a group of political and grassroots leaders from across Virginia, according to the party.” Congratulations, Dave. You don’t authorize tire slashing, do you?