The House Privileges and Elections Committee finally takes-up a bill of genuine substance on Friday: a proposed constitutional amendment to protect property rights. It’s one of those big issues that manages to slide under the media radar because it’s just doesn’t seem as sexy as bills dealing with God, guns or gays. That needs to change.
Earlier in the session, a similar property rights amendment backed by Sen. Mark Obenshain was scuttled in a subcommittee. Obenshain noted on his Facebook page that it wasn’t a “huge surprise, as the subcommittee is actually more hostile to property rights than the full Privileges & Elections (P&E) Committee.
How can Virginia politicians be hostile to property rights? Because like their sloppy and corrupt handling of the state budget, it’s part of the Virginia Way. And this antipathy isn’t reserved to legislators. It also includes the bureaucrats in charge of Virginia’s anti-terrorism initiatives.
As attorney Jeremy Hopkins noted, a “Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s training manual (‘Terrorism & Security Awareness Orientation for State Employees’) has labeled ‘property rights activists’ as terrorists.”
Yes, indeed, those dangerous folks at the Farm Bureau, the Family Foundation, Tertium Quids and other groups are, in the minds of the state’s anti-terrorism Pooh-Bahs, in the same league as al-Qaida. Once this became public knowledge, the state changed its definition to “’property rights extremists: anti-eminent domain.’”
So…if, say a local housing authority tries to takes your land and you take them to court over the matter, the state may consider you an extremist. One can only imagine what they might consider you if you dare speak up on eminent domain reform before a General Assembly committee.
But we already have an idea of what might happen. Last year, a narrow property rights bill carried by House minority leader Ward Armstrong was defeated in the Senate after some members took exception to the tone of one of the people—Henry Howell, III, son of legendary liberal firebrand and Lt. Gov. Henry Howell — testifying on the measure.
Howell must have counted himself fortunate he wasn’t carted away in irons.
Though it would have gotten the pathetic Richmond press corps’ attention.
