“The American people have not responded well to this, and we have received thousands and thousands of e-mail and letters,” [Goodlatte] said. “And the overwhelming majority say push the reset button and that’s what we said when we went to the (Feb. 25 health care) summit.” (Staunton News Leader)

His remarks to the Waynesboro Kiwanis Club today were consistent with statements of opposition the congressman has made about health care reform in the past.

Considering Goodlatte has been in office since 1993, Obama’s recent remarks about congressional obstructionism to his health care plan seem to be tailored for longtime Republican incumbents like Goodlatte (who is now serving his ninth term).

Obama: “I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying ‘No, no, no, we want to focus on things like costs.’ You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?” (TPM)

Going back as far as 1992, when Goodlatte was the “candidate for change” during his first run for congressional office, “Democrat Steve Musselwhite and Republican Bob Goodlatte sparred over how best to extend health care coverage to the estimated 40 million Americans without health insurance” (today that number is closer to 47 million).

Goodlatte said his plans would turn poor Americans into health care consumers and give them more options; Musselwhite contended Goodlatte’s policies would only help the middle-class and wealthy . . .

Goodlatte also repeated his call for a system of tax credits and vouchers. Under the plan, devised by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., the federal government would send a poor recipient a voucher, which could then be spent on health care. (Roanoke Times, September 15, 1992)

That was then, this is now, but not a whole lot has changed. Sweeping health care reform and major coverage expansion has failed in Washington since the Truman administration. Will 2010 be any different? Should it be?

The current law forbids concealed carry in restaurants, though it allows guns to be carried openly. It is legal to drink while carrying openly, though intoxication is illegal for all citizens. Senate Bill 334, referred to as the “Guns-in-bars” bill, would change that to allow concealed carry in restaurants, though forbidding those carrying concealed firearms from drinking. The bill will amend Section 18.2-308 of the Code of Virginia (deletions are struck out and additions are in bold):

JJ3. No person shall carry who carries a concealed handgun onto the premises of any restaurant or club as defined in Section 4.1-100 for which a license to sell and serve alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption has been granted by the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board under Title 4.1 of the Code of Virginia; however, nothing herein may consume an alcoholic beverage while on the premises. A person who carries a concealed handgun onto the premises of such a restaurant or club and consumes alcoholic beverages is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. ?[ A person who becomes intoxicated while carrying a concealed handgun on the premises of such a restaurant or club is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. ?] ?However, nothing in this subsection shall prohibit any sworn apply to a federal, state, or local law-enforcement officer. [ or any retired law-enforcement officer who meets the definition of a "qualified retired law-enforcement officer" pursuant to 18 U.S.C. ? 926C and is carrying the identification required by such statute? ] . from carrying a concealed handgun on the premises of such restaurant or club or any owner or event sponsor or his employees from carrying a concealed handgun while on duty at such restaurant or club if such person has a concealed handgun permit.

“I want to believe that [the law] will not affect anything. People are generally aware of their level of safety and we [at the Artful Dodger] feel that we provide that,” Clark said.

Arafaine said, “I don’t know how much it will change in practice. Unless you do something, no one will even know you have [a concealed gun].”

“I don’t think people will react to it unless there’s an incident.”

Neither Arafaine nor Clark anticipated adding any additional security measures beyond what they have currently in place. Neither has had any serious incidents with customers carrying guns, though both have asked patrons to leave in different circumstances. They both said the change would increase the need for staff to be more aware of who was in the restaurant.

The question of security is tied closely to the law’s enforcement.

“I think the biggest problem is enforcing it. What’s stopping any person from bringing a gun into a bar right now?” Craig Moore, owner of the Local Chop and Grill House, said. “How do you know someone with a concealed gun is drinking?”

“You’ve got to be caught to enforce it.”

He said that he would not be searching patrons because it is “a tremendous invasion of privacy.”

“I hope this doesn’t lead to other things where the burden is on the establishment,” Moore said. Arafaine expressed similar sentiments.

“The burden is on the restaurant and it should be on the person,” she said.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League, Inc., a gun rights lobbying group, said that the security concerns aren’t anything new or different.

“Restaurant owners always have the trespass onus on them,” he said, calling the security issue a trespass issue at its root. “It’s nothing unusual.”

According to Van Cleave, Virginia banned concealed carry in restaurants in 1995, and with the passage of this bill would join approximately 40 states that currently allow concealed carry in restaurants and bars.

This bill will give restaurant owners more options, Van Cleave said. He has had experiences where, as the holder of a concealed gun license, he has had to carry openly in restaurants to comply with the current law. He sees this as potentially distracting to other customers, and has been asked to conceal his gun by restaurant owners, which he legally had to refuse to do.

“This empowers restaurant owners to make their own policy,” he said.

His focus on the law’s application was on scenarios where license holders were dining in restaurants. He said late-night drinking scenarios were unlikely.

“One can sit down and picture all kinds of things that could happen, but we have to look at practice,” he said. “Are permit holders going into that environment in practice? I don’t think so.”

“One should not strip away our freedoms because of what might happen.”

Lori Haas, spokesperson for the Virginia Center for Public Safety, a pro gun control lobby group, argued strongly against the bill.

“Guns and alcohol don’t mix,” she said. “A small, vocal group of gun owners wants any gun, any time.” She also expressed concerns about enforcement and said that the VCPS supports responsible gun ownership and gun control laws.

“Restrictions are not mutually exclusive with the second amendment,” she said.

Both supporters and detractors will soon take a back seat to reality, however, once Gov. McDonnell signs the bill into law as expected. What reaction can we expect from the Harrisonburg community once the law goes into effect?

Note: Local gun rights activist and NRA member Jon Ritenour, representatives from Jack Brown’s, Finnigan’s Cove, Clementine, Dave’s Taverna, the Downtown Dining Alliance, the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association and the Harrisonburg Police Department were unavailable for comment as of posting. Update expected early next week.

But lots of people, including Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney, said it was flawed, and spoke out against it.

Nine committee members voted against passing the bill on to the floor for a full vote, where it likely would have passed and been signed into law — having previously been vetoed by Gov. Kaine. In fact, the measure was expected to pass this session, now with McDonnell in the governor’s mansion, but it seems that testimony in committee hearings was the deciding factor.

. . . And former gubernatorial candidate Sen. Creigh Deeds, D–Bath County, who had previously been supportive of Obenshain’s measures, voted against the bill this time around. The bill failed on a 9-6 vote.

“I went in the room intending to vote for the bill,” Deeds said. But he said he changed his mind after hearing the people who’d come to speak against it. “The testimony today was very compelling.” (pilotonline.com)

The Richmond Times-Dispatch continues:

More than a dozen people spoke on the bill, all but one of them expressing opposition to the legislation.

Foes included death-penalty opponents and the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union as well as Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring. He parted with the position of the Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys, which spoke in support of the legislation.

“We still bear the burden of proving the intentional element,” said Robert Beasley, representing prosecutors.

Herring said the only way to prove that an accomplice to a capital murder shared the same criminal intent as the actual killer would be through circumstantial evidence, which he called a “dangerous slope” for deciding death-penalty eligibility.

The committee also heard from Jerry Givens, who carried out 62 death sentences between 1982 and 1999 as an executioner at the state penitentiary in Greensville.

“The people that recommend executions, that pass these bills, they don’t have to do these things. The executioners and the people that participate in these things, they have to suffer through this stuff. These things linger on,” he said.

Del. Todd Gilbert sponsored the counterpart bill in the House, and it passed. Gilbert’s bill will now move on to the same committee in the Senate that denied Obenshain’s bill.

Gilbert introduced such a bill in each of the three previous legislative sessions. Every time, the House and Senate passed the legislation, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Delegate Joe Morrissey, D-Highland Springs, opposes Gilbert’s proposal. He called the bill “unwarranted, unworthy and un-Christian.”

Morrissey said it’s more expensive to carry out an execution than to keep someone in prison for life, and he said capital punishment is ineffective as a deterrent to crime. He also said he fears that innocent people might be executed. (read the full story)

Obenshain’s ABC bill was rejected last year. There was speculation that the bill had a better chance this session, with McDonnell in the governor’s mansion. According to The Washington Post, “the centerpiece of McDonnell’s 24-page [transportation plan was] the privatization of the state’s ABC stores.”

But as it turns out, the bill doesn’t have what it takes. According to a story in today’s Daily News-Record, “Obenshain said he pulled the bill because the chances of it passing during the current 60-day session are now “slim.”

The Roanoke Times reports:

Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, on Tuesday asked the Senate Finance Committee to shelve his bill, which calls for the divestiture of the state’s liquor stores and the auctioning of a limited number of “package store” licenses. Obenshain said his legislation is unlikely to resurface in this legislative session, which ends March 13, but should become part of a broad government reform effort undertaken by McDonnell’s administration. The issue could resurface in a special session later this year.

“We will be back, and we’ll be back soon — and able to present a proposal that will show how we will do this in a way that is going to put additional money in transportation and avoid the commonwealth suffering a financial loss,” Obenshain said.

What’s not addressed in this, or any of the stories about the bill that I have read so far, is precisely how the bill would do what Obenshain has implied it would do — funnel money to state transportation coffers — and how much revenue it would bring in (see the comments on the Richmond Sunlight).

A Post column in favor of the bill said, “It wouldn’t be an enormous revenue producer.”

The only mention of revenue I can find is in § 4.1-116 of the state code;

The net profits derived under the provisions of this title shall be transferred by the Comptroller to the general fund of the state treasury quarterly.

But that’s not the bill — it’s already existing state code. I see no special mention of a transportation fund. Are there other references that I’m missing?

Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, objected to the bill saying that the language in the legislation went far beyond prohibiting discrimination for sexual orientation to include “gender identity and expression.”

Obenshain said the legislation would open up “an avenue for filing litigation and further grievances that does not exist under current law.”

From the bill summary:

Prohibits discrimination in public employment based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or status as a special disabled veteran or other veteran covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974, as amended. The bill defines “sexual orientation” as a person’s actual or perceived heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, or gender identity or expression. The bill expressly provides that “sexual orientation” shall not include any person’s attraction toward persons with whom sexual conduct would be illegal due to the age of the parties.

Several Valley state legislators have sponsored a bill in which killing an infant that is still attached to its mother by an umbilical cord would become a murder and punishable by imprisonment. Campbell County Virginia law enforcement officials were frustrated in December when they could not charge a woman that suffocated her child while it was still attached to her by umbilical cord and placenta.

As Chair, Lohr will be responsible for setting the legislative agenda for issues that relate to agriculture, chairing all meetings, and directing the proposed legislation [for the state of Virginia].

You can peruse Lohr’s bills here, and Obenshain’s here.

There can only be two official Republican candidates, and neither Ted Byrd (currently the only Repub on Council) nor Charlie Chenault (the Repub who was voted out of office in 2008) have officially announced their intentions for office this year.

According to Jeff Mellott’s story in today’s Daily News-Record, Coffman pledges to raise no new city taxes, but to “support the city’s core responsibilities of education, transportation and public safety, while also making a commitment to be responsive to what the public wants.”

Coffman had been considering a bid for council for a number of years but the city’s move to hold municipal elections in November instead of May starting in 2008 affected his decision. Coffman said he chose to run in a non-presidential election cycle because he believes it would have the least effect on council races.

Last month Joe Fitzgerald announced his intentions to run as a Democrat for one of the two available seats.

By all unofficial projections I’ve heard, voter turnout is expected to be low.