All results / Stories / Kenneth R. “Ken” Plum, State Delegate (D-36)
Opinion: Commentary: Ending Election Fraud
My earliest experience in government and politics came when I was a senior in high school.
Opinion: Commentary: It Is Hot Outside
The extended weather forecast for this week indicates that temperatures will be in the mid- to upper-90s.
Column: Soulless Ant Colony
That is what a reporter for Norfolk’s Virginian Pilot called Reston in a column recently.
Column: Repeat of a Sordid History
The Virginia General Assembly may be about to repeat an unfortunate chapter of its history by passing bills that will have the effect of suppressing voter participation.
Column: All Aboard!
The buzzards are circling again! They see a struggling Phase II of the Dulles Metrorail Silver Line and are ready to swoop in to clean the bones of the project.
Column: History Repeating Itself
This week I complete teaching a six-week course for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at George Mason University on "highlights of Virginia’s history." I have been meeting with more than 80 students at the JoAnne Rose Gallery in Reston.
Column: General Assembly Goes Off a Cliff
The General Assembly adjourned sine die last week with a great sigh of relief from most everyone who participates in or follows its deliberations. Pre-session survey and hearing results suggested that the session would be about traffic congestion relief, expanding job opportunities, and strengthening the economy.
Column: Affordable Health Care
A friend of mine of moderate political persuasion said to me recently that while he felt that details of managing the federal Affordable Health Care Act were issues of governance that should continue to be debated and improved, he also felt that passage of the Act was a moral issue that should not be reversed.
Commentary: Let's Take a Break from School Reform
Earlier this month I attended “The Governor’s K-12 Education Reform Summit,” the second such event put on by the McDonnell administration in as many years.
Commentary: Voting Rights Need Protection
The Supreme Court had an historic week recently with major decisions on gay marriage, immigration and voting. I am particularly concerned about the decision that I believe does major damage to the Voting Rights Act.
Within Constitutional Limits
Our newly minted senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, gave the best response I have heard to those who argue that the Second Amendment is an absolute right to own guns.
Commentary: Northern Virginia’s Health
The 2.2 million people in the Northern Virginia communities of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park cities live in the most populous region in the commonwealth and in some of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the nation.
Column: Invest in the Young
There is no program or service for which public dollars can be invested that will have a greater return than those invested in the care and education of young children. People who work in early childhood and day care programs have known intuitively and anecdotally for a long time that children in their programs were much more likely to be successful by a number of different measures than were children who did not have access to their programs.
Commentary: Voter Suppression
As fundamental as the right to vote is to a democratic republic, free and open access to voting continues to be a contentious issue. From the earliest days of our nation’s history when only white male landowners could vote to recent history when the Voting Rights Act was intended to ensure that voter registration processes were open and fair, there have been expansions of the suffrage followed by efforts at retrenchment. While the Emancipation Proclamation may have freed the slaves, African Americans and other minorities have seen a steady stream of legislation and intimidation to keep them from voting.
Column: Term Limited
In a couple of days Governor Bob McDonnell will present a proposed budget to the General Assembly for the next two years. Early announcements about what it contains have been good: critically needed funding for mental health and restoration of funding to education programs. What is unique about the budget is that Governor McDonnell will not be around to defend or to implement it. The Constitution of Virginia limits the governor to one term. A governor can run a second time as Mills Godwin did in the 1960s, but the terms cannot be successive.
Column: Legislative Resolutions
Legislation that is proposed for consideration by the General Assembly is called a bill. A bill that has passed the House of Delegates and the Senate and has been signed by the Governor in identical form becomes a law on July 1 after the adjournment of the legislative session and is included in the Code of Virginia. To know what the laws of the Commonwealth are, go to the Code at http://leg1.state.va.us/000/src.htm. Bills that will be voted on at the legislative session beginning on Jan. 9 can be reviewed at the same website.
Commentary
Five Million Dollars a Day
Virginia taxpayer dollars not returned to them has amounted to five million dollars each day since Jan. 1, and will continue at that rate each day that Virginia refuses to expand its Medicaid program. In addition, at least 400,000 working Virginians will continue to be uninsured.
Sustaining Virginia’s Future
Of all the sources of information I cite in my weekly columns, none is quoted as frequently as The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis (www.thecommonwealthinstitute.org). The institute is an independent staff of professionals who do analyses of state public policies with particular attention to the impacts on low and moderate income persons. Their July 2012 report, Frozen in Time: Virginia’s Revenue System Can’t Pull its Weight, provides the documentation for this column.