Virginia Beach Rejuvenated

In Virginia Beach’s Oceanfront, the streets are alive with people at all times of day, which is how it should be during peak tourist season. I was pleasantly surprised by this summer’s rebirth, and I surmise that a reckoning moment had come in the city’s Tourism Bureau after a lackluster performance in the first post-pandemic summer of 2022. Much credit has been given to the return of the Summer Work Visa, in which young adults, mainly from Eastern Europe, share an apartment and work for the summer. I have heard them working- with Slavic language- in places ranging from a Japanese buffet to hotel lifeguarding work. I have realized that transportation is a barrier for getting locals to take these jobs. The neighborhoods closest to the Oceanfront are upscale, with the fact that those youth have other summer opportunities. The Virginia Beach Oceanfront is served by one through-bus line, which ends 90 minutes away in the inner city of Norfolk. (A daytime express service is geared to tourists). While there are many moderate-income families living near the downtown terminus, I would predict that the teenagers are already likely to have year-round after-school employment. Overall, it appears to be easier to commute across the ocean from Europe than from adjacent Norfolk. Credit should also be given to the tourists themselves, who have given Virginia Beach a new look. The city may have been overlooked during last year’s “revenge travel” trend, but being within a day’s drive of a quarter of the US population makes for a friendly destination in economically inflationary times.

What Happens at the end of Work from Home?

If you’ve noticed the paucity of communication coming from me, it’s because I am cruising through the northern part of the Pacific Ocean with no satellite service. Providers train their satellites towards near-shore areas, where the bulk of their clientele work and play on drill rigs and yachts. Outside the primary deep-sea trade routes, the satellite providers cut their losses. If you’re wondering, the Search and Rescue satellite system (GMDSS) does ping six times per day as they pass through their respective orbits. This summer brought a number of large-scale return-to-office experiences, from Wall Street, to Main Street Richmond, Virginia. In this case, telework-capable state government employees were given two-months’ notice to return to the office four days per week, or to request additional WFH days from their agency leadership. Records show that 58% of employees accepted four or five days per week; and 93% of employees accepted at least three days per week. The State Highway Department did lose 10 or so engineers over this ask (and a few more who took retirement over this decision), but in the whole, attrition over the issue was less than 1%. Most requests were to preserve the enhanced telework arrangements certain white-collar employees had prior to the Pandemic. As a right-to-work state, government employment in Virginia is more similar to private employment than in other state governments. Thus, private employers can allay fears of workplace exodus, when they chose to return to an in-office schedule. The one caveat is that Richmond, Virginia is home to more traditional industries like medicine, tobacco, and public utilities, where in-person work is a given expectation.

Gen X Still Remembers the Great Recession: A Virginia Chronicle

 

Having spent their lives fending for themselves, the theory goes, Generation X is naturally conservative. In the New York Times, Ross Douthat further speculates that this generation came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, a time of broad-based conservative and neo-liberal reforms that delivered public order and individual prosperity.

But exit polls in Terry McAuliffe’s two runs for Virginia Governor tell a different story locally. In his 2013 run, the 30-40 demographic voted strongest for the Democrat, while the under-30’s went for his unsuccessful Tea Party Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli. In his 2021 campaign, McAuliffe overperformed with the 40-50 demographic (who were 30-somethings in 2013); and underperformed with the 30-40 group, ultimately losing the race. This inversion of national trends perplexed me: why were our Gen X-ers more liberal than their national peers, while our millennials tilted to the right?

Did liberal GenX-ers move to Virginia when then-Governor Tim Kaine declared in 2008 that “Old Virginny is Dead”? Aside from the Democrats who held statewide elected office, Virginia for the next decade would still retain a distinctively conservative political culture. No, it was not Mr. Kaine’s come-on, but one facilitated by the Great Recession. I have said before that 1987 was the worst year to be born in post-WWII America; indeed, in the face of mass layoffs and unemployment, there were few jobs for recent college graduates in 2009-2010. Washington, DC, however, stood out from the rest. The Federal Government was hiring, and the Obama Administration was in-sourcing some analyst and policy roles that had previously been outsourced to contractors. Like California in the 1930’s, Washington, DC drew newcomers from across the country to these government positions.

Where would these newcomers live? Washington, DC’s outer suburbs, whose housing bubble had burst. Newly-built homes in cul-de-sac subdivisions were available to rent at affordable prices. Virginia’s conservative policies meant that the building boom was concentrated here, rather than in the equidistant Maryland suburbs. A general rebound in home prices benefitted homeowners in Manassas and Dumfries greatly. But that was a curse if they were renters.

Virginia Democrats in elected office tend to be either fiscally or socially conservative. In recent years, however, these suburbs are the home of the most vocal progressives in the Virginia Legislature. There was Democratic-Socialist Lee Carter, the liberal enforcer Haya Ayala, and transgender Delegate Danica Roem. Carter and Ayala are no longer in elected office; their fast ambition for statewide office ended in loss.

To explain away natural conservativism of Virginia millennials, there is a practical matter that won’t repeat in future elections, hopefully. Older millennials, especially mothers displaced from the workforce by lack of childcare options, are the largest beneficiaries of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s promise of “no more school lockdowns” for COVID-19. Tellingly, he won the “parent vote” by 12 points.   

In 2013, I thought it was the military vote that pushed the youth vote to the right. Virginia always had a base of young conservatives: military members from deep-Southern states: they preferred Bob Dole over Bill Clinton; John McCain over Barack Obama. After the War on Terror began, it became commonplace for servicemembers to keep their hometown residency, instead of switching it to their Virginia duty station. Thus, Virginia Republicans lost room for electoral error.

The parents of Northern Virginia millennials purchased homes long ago at affordable prices in now highly-desirable inner-suburban neighborhoods. In the 1990’s, they might have bought into a state college tuition prepayment plan for their children; an investment with an incredible effective rate-of-return. At that time, Governor George Allen successfully pivoted employment in the Cold War-Era Defense Sector towards the nascent I.T. Industry, avoiding the job losses and stagnation that hobbled Southern California for years. His fondness for market-based solutions finally modernized Virginia’s segregation-era economic system; a regulatory paradigm that kept people down, rather than help them grow.  Virginia’s youngsters were on trajectory for the professional-class: those with liberal, creative interests moved to the power cities of their respective careers. Virginia retained capital and infrastructure-heavy firms that thrive in a loose regulatory environment, such as banking and weapons manufacturing; the quants grew up and stayed at home, at least until financially stable. There is nothing like a libertarian living in their parents’ basement: childhood bedrooms offered short commutes and free rent.      

For aspiring young professionals, living in the City of Washington’s older housing allows for affordable options such as a shared bedroom. For those who work nights in the service sector, the minimum wage is progressive. Across the Potomac River in Virginia, the newer apartment stock of the Clarendon-centered “polo shirt corridor” tends to rent itself to young adults in higher-paying jobs such as finance and consulting. While the corridor votes solidly Democratic, Progressivism has no home here. This may change with the establishment of Amazon’s HQ2. Right-to-Work brought Amazon to Virginia; but ironically, all those Amazon tech workers might, through elections in representative democracy, spell the end of Right-to-Work in Virginia.  

Thus comes my political theory: While Gen X-ers came to Virginia in need; Millennials stayed in Virginia, in a position of relative strength and privilege.  

Will the Law Prevail? AGs as Celebrities and Public Servants

 

Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security after his term as Virginia’s Attorney General (2010-2014), was perhaps a prototypical Tea Party Republican politician; but his term in office did not rock the status quo. A practicing patent attorney, he came from a golden age of law practice, when the American Bar Association was supreme. Opinions differed between liberals and conservatives, but the predominant trend was to empower the people through choice and autonomy; even if it varied from scientific research and planning favored in the immediate postwar era.

In the role of Attorney General, Cuccinelli’s work was informed by strict textualism as a servant of the state, rather than a judicial philosophy informed by groups such as the Federalist Society. As Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli deferred to the legislature to repeal the one-handgun-a-month limit. This was a bipartisan effort: federal background checks instituted in the late 1990’s had reduced the importance of this purchase limit.

The status quo had definitely changed when Cuccinelli’s successor, Mark Herring (D) refused to defend Virginias’s traditional marriage law in the lead-up to Obergefell vs Hodges (2015); this deference to the federal courts was viewed as unprecedented in Virginia’s history. In retrospect, Herring’s choice has been seen as a decisive, if polarizing moment. At the time, defense of state laws and practices in the Federal Courts was widely seen as key function of the Attorney General’s office: “my Virginia, right or wrong”. Last year, former Governor Ralph Northam (D) never clarified why he endorsed incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring’s Democratic Primary opponent, leaving Virginians to guess the reason why: was it his judicial activism? Was he not progressive enough?

As former Attorney General Mark Herring was on his way out, he left his successor Jason Miyares (R) a suit against the Town of Windsor for racially-discriminatory policing practices. This again was a first; as in the past a gentlemen’s agreement would have been achieved between local government and the state, well before the courts would become involved. 

Bipartisan consensus is harder to achieve today, and the much-feared swing-state pendulum of diametrically opposite policies had arrived in Virginia. For a short time in 2020 after universal background checks for gun purchases became law again in Virginia (under pain of felony offense), I considered opening an online clearinghouse to handle these transfers; I’m glad I didn’t, since I would’ve gone out of business. Citing their own interpretations of the Second Amendment, the vast majority of rural and suburban Commonwealths’ Attorneys (county DA’s) decided not to prosecute private transactions done in accordance with prior law.

Newly-inaugurated Attorney General Jason Miyares promised to take politics out of the office. Even if he avoids going on stage in the national Republican Party spotlight, his judicial upbringing will guide his work. Born in 1976, the Federalist Society was active on Virginia law school campuses when he arrived at the College of William and Mary. This organization is now seen as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which critics claim to have become too liberal (i.e. defense-friendly) on criminal justice issues.

As the alt-right has taken to embrace chaotic, disorderly forms of personal liberty; he stuck his stake in the position of law-and-order. To him, freedom and support of law enforcement are complementary, not contrary. During his campaign, Miyares spoke from the steps of specific courthouses where criminal assailants were given light sentences. Son of a Cuban immigrant, he contrasted the terror of Cuba’s secret police knocking at the door, with America’s love of neighborhood spirit.  

He wants to be your local prosecutor, too; and has asked the legislature for joint jurisdiction with locally-elected Commonwealths’ Attorneys. If they won’t prosecute, Jason Miyares will. The changes could take effect as soon as July. In Fairfax County, the most populous jurisdiction in Virginia, and located just outside of DC, Steve Descano was elected as a progressive Commonwealth’s Attorney in the anti-Trump wave of 2019.  His predecessor left the Democratic Party in protest. Descano has proven himself to be a hothead with a temper, easy enough to be triggered.  While there are other “woke” prosecutors in the inner suburbs, the joint jurisdiction bill was about Descano, who seems easy enough to topple in what will be a raucous Fairfax County 2023 Democratic Primary.

How does the Attorney General put politics and individual philosophy back into the box it came from? Especially when popular elections are involved, these elements become deeply engrained in the interpretation and enforcement of laws. Two suggestions emerge from my experience with the engineering profession: Reinstate the fraternity-sorority of state bar membership by emphasizing core principles of “equality and justice for all”. Matters affecting governance within a state must be handled by local stakeholders; they cannot be outsourced overseas or to BigLaw; to do otherwise is to lose nuance, continuity, and collaboration. In this way, duty to the profession of law would supersede the temporal incentives of playing politics from the Attorney General’s office.

Glad I wasn't a Freeway Icicle

 

It happened in my backyard- a 24-hour backup in fairly mid-weathered Virginia. Interstate 95 between Washington, DC and Richmond, VA is fragile at the best of times. It serves as a long-distance route connecting the Northeast to Florida, a commuter route to Washington DC and the inner suburbs, and local traffic within the suburbs of Prince William and Stafford counties.  Add some weather, and it becomes a parking lot. Despite ample public warnings and morning snow, the road was carrying near normal weekday afternoon traffic load. The snow came fast in the afternoon, slushing the highway, stalling cars and jack-knifed trucks. Once the lanes were blocked, cars stopped and were frozen in like ice cubes.

Why was everyone out of the road? First, there were lots of trucks delivering cargo. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other essential workers were on the road, including nurses and firefighters headed to their shifts. Many others were told by their employer to be at work- not considering stay-at-home warnings. I guess these were not the same employers who offered special time off during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. There were those who were making a quick grocery run that turned into a brutal night; and there were travelers conquering distance, or so they hoped. GPS blindness put those cars on the road– many long-distance drivers paid excessive attention to their electronic navigation aids and the often-optimistic Estimated Times of Arrival (ETA). Those ETAs are estimates, and drivers, like air pilots and mariners, need to look outside the window for a reality check.    

What were the human factors? Why ignore the warnings? Some never received them. While tornadoes and hurricanes call for Emergency Alerts broadcasted to every cellphone, mass notification about this storm did not reach atomized groups. Complacency in one’s rolling fortress: exhibiting style over substance, not all large vehicles today are designed for heavy weather driving.

And, for the past two years, propensity to ignore public health and safety warnings. I guess that once you decide that legitimate coronavirus information is “fake news”, blizzards are the next threat to ignore.

 

Voting Matters: The High Turnout Virginia Races

 

On a recent Tuesday night, Virginia just broke one of the longest statewide Democratic voting streaks in the nation, on par with California and New York. The oft-presumed blue state, which had not elected a statewide Republican since 2009, appeared quite red with a sweep of statewide offices.  With just three statewide offices, in addition to the two senators and the Presidential vote, these races have become high-stake affairs; and down-ballot offices coming with national notoriety.

The Democratic Party bench appears much weaker than before. Former Governor Doug Wilder, a Democrat, wisely criticized incumbents Terry McAuliffe, running for a second, non-consecutive, term as Governor; and Mark Herring, running for a third term as Attorney General, for blocking the advancement of new leaders. Congresswomen Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria represent future statewide potential; it seems unlikely that recently-elected Northern Virginia progressives could mount a successful statewide campaign.

 

The Party of Virginia’s Attorney General

Weeks before Incoming Attorney General Jason Miyares was elected, “Woke Prosecutors” found themselves under investigation for misuse of position, retaliation, neglect of office, and neglect of state law. Outgoing Attorney General Mark Herring seemed to be more interested in national issues, such as abortion, than what was happening in his own Loudoun County backyard. Prior to Mark Herring’s narrow 2013 election were a string of five one-term Republican Attorneys General who each sought higher office. Progressives handed Jason Miyares, 45 years young, fuel to feed his political ambitions.

 

Solid South or Something New?

Democrats held the Virginia House of Delegates for 2 years before losing it in this month’s election. Their last hold of the chamber lasted the entire 20^th century. Followed by 18 years of Republican leadership, these long tenures reflect the political stability of the Solid South. The recent, liberal Democratic Party majority chose confrontation, and the brute force of narrow statehouse votes, over lasting collaboration. Their leaders are now paying the price.

It would be premature to assume that the legislative “Class of 2019” was a mere blip on the Republicans’ rightful legislative dynasty. Prior to the Trump presidency, Republicans held a supermajority in the House of Delegates. Court-ordered redistricting allowed Democrats to gain seats, and suburban voters soured against the Republican Party during Trump’s presidency. Concerningly, today’s new and thin Republican majority has no representation in the first two rings of counties surrounding Washington, DC, and a scant two seats in the third ring; although Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin fares from Great Falls, an upscale district along the Potomac River. These growing Northern Virginia suburbs are at risk of becoming a one-party region.

A characteristic of the Solid South is the maintenance of social hierarchy, with the proven effect of limiting class mobility. Incumbent businesses are protected, creating a drag on productivity and economic growth. At the end of Massive Resistance to desegregation, conservative Democratic Party leader Harry Byrd had a choice: hunker down or embrace change. He chose the latter (although his statue would lose its place at the Virginia Capitol). This libertarianism, once favored by both major parties in Virginia, is found in areas such as gambling, alcohol; and business regulation, such as limiting non-compete clauses and favoring the right-to-work. As liberal Democrats have shied away from economic liberties, Republicans are in a better position than before to secure the votes of educated, suburban, pro-business moderates.  Blue Virginia noted that upscale, educated, politically-balanced districts within Democratic-voting counties had extraordinary turnout in this year’s election.

 

Virginia Senate Changes Little

With a 21-19 split in favor of Democrats, and a spirit of collegiality, one observer quipped that the Senate Democrats would work better with House Republicans than with the Democratic Party progressives who led the last two legislative sessions.

The Democratic Party leadership in the Virginia Senate might prefer to work on compromises to Glenn Youngkin’s agenda, rather than acting as a stonewall. In this later case, two swing-voting Democrats from Fairfax City and Richmond, with the incoming Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a Republican, would hold immense power in government. In the last year, faced with a single defection from party line voting, marijuana and policing bills were decided on tiebreaking votes in the Virginia Senate. Outgoing Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax tipped these bills in favor of Democrats; on future tie votes, Winsome Sears would tip the bills the other way.

 

“RINO” Hunters Decide that Voting Matters

Virginia is home to many low-propensity and fickle conservative voters that continually vexed the Republican party. Geographically, they are concentrated in rural areas west of Richmond. They came out for John McCain in 2008, but were overwhelmed by Barack Obama’s supporters. They stayed home in 2012, when they could have won; then came out for Trump, but were again outvoted. It was to this group that Trump, in his fury, suggested boycotting future elections. This year, Republicans made a concerted effort to get these dissatisfied citizens to vote.  On gun and religious forums that appeal to this demographic, authors reminded readers to scrape off their bumper stickers reading: “My Governor is an Idiot”.

In a high-turnout election with six weeks of in-person early voting, Republicans prevailed, challenging the orthodoxy that increase ballot access favors Democrats. The 45-day early voting period, a now-permanent product of COVID-19 countermeasures, represents a unique opportunity for Republican Presidential candidates: they can ground-stomp for Virginia votes in October, before turning to traditional swing states in the last weeks of the race.

Heads Up: John Warner; Exxon

The Virginia Senator

John Warner’s career in the US Senate bookended the Republican Party’s short era of dominance in Virginia. He was narrowly elected in 1978, in a state which favored conservative Democrats; and retired from the US Senate in 2009. He was certainly part of the Defense establishment, which once held economic and political power in Virginia; the submarine USS John Warner (SSN-785) is named in his honor. He drew support from across the political spectrum, running unopposed in 2002. Before his retirement, the nascent Tea Party movement branded this popular moderate as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). John Warner was indeed a RINO: “Reasonable, Intelligent, Nice and Open-minded”.

Warner's death comes at an inflection point as the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) attempts to rebuilt from a lost decade of nominating Tea Party and Trumpist candidates, who failed to win any statewide election since 2009. If proof is found in pudding, these rural hardliners typically lost their November elections by 10 points or more; while mainstream candidates in 2013 and 2014 fell just one point short of victory. The RPV is optimistic for this year’s races, as the nominees are both diverse and chosen by suburban voters, who have marched towards the Democrats in the past decade. John Warner was richly eulogized by the nominees, showing that the late Senator is a model to be followed. 

 

Exxon Going Green?

This one is personal to me, as I dumped this laggard of a stock last year. Shareholders put Jeffrey Ubben of Value Act Capital onto Exxon's Board of Directors, in hopes of bringing the large corporation up to par in the future of energy. Ubben's unique thinking is that an "oil company" can be part of a "Responsible Investing" (ESG-focused) portfolio.  For other petroleum companies, the transition to green energy is nothing new. BP (British Petroleum) had long styled itself as "beyond petroleum", embracing a green sunflower as its logo.

Appalachian Serenade

 

For at least the past decade, New Hampshire has been attracting conservative and libertarian-minded individuals from the Northeast, through the Free State Project and personal initiative. Strong gun rights, no state income tax, and boundless opportunities for rugged outdoor activities provide the incentives. The Granite State’s rural areas vote Democratic, while the more educated and urbanized southern part of New Hampshire, closest to Boston, prefer Republicans. This inversion of modern political trends can also be found in another mountainous state: West Virginia.

Lest anyone forget, West Virginia was a solidly Democratic state until Al Gore and John Kerry were nominated by the Democratic Party in 2000 and 2004. A legacy of coal-field patronage and low-wage labor resulted in a highly-unionized workforce and economically progressive politics. Until Obama’s “War on Coal”, it was unthinkable that West Virginia would make efforts to appease the staunch Republican appendage of the Eastern Panhandle, closest to Washington, DC. It already had competitive advantages in being home to the states’ highest average incomes, federal employment, two interstate highways, and a commuter rail line. But nobody can bring back coal: Virginia’s recent elimination of a coal production tax credit, which was was cut for economically ineffectiveness (the environmental reasons are still too touchy to mention), was but one signal that coal is dead or dying, and that clear minds needed to create a new strategy for economic growth in Appalachia.

West Virginia’s Governor Jim Justice (himself a Democrat turned Republican) passed a Right-to-Work bill, once unthinkable in a strong labor state. More interestingly, he has proposed eliminating the state’s income tax. Just west of Washington Dulles International Airport, the freeway splits. The left turn is for Route 7 /Harry Byrd Highway, into the prosperous horse-and-wine country, which is also growing as suburban bedroom communities. The right turn for Route 9 is the road less travelled. The narrow, meandering road heads into the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, which lies directly north and parallel to Route 7. Using radically pro-growth policies, and seizing on the current political turmoil and stagnant growth in non-metropolitan Virginia, Governor Jim Justice’s goal is to make his road the more travelled road. The experience of New Hampshire shows this to be a real possibility.

 

 

Harry Byrd: The Bigot Who Closed the Black-White Wage Gap.

Harry Byrd, a segregationist who ran Virginia's political machine in the mid-20th century, is losing his place near the seat of government in Richmond, VA. A statue erected in 1976, featuring the long-term Senator sizing down the federal budget, is expected to be removed from outdoor display. How did he fall out of grace so quickly?

Too recently, White Supremacists dominated the Deep South. In contrast, segregationists were
"racial moderates" in the South, as they were called in their time. Politicians of the later group were often socially conservative, and fiscally liberal, the "Blue Dog" epitaph today. Public health and education improvements occurred in the mid-20th century by a separate and somewhat equal policy. 

 Atlanta, Memphis, and Washington DC hold America's 3 historically black medical schools. These cities, in general, were forward-looking and not in touch with racial attitudes in their surrounding region. Graduates of Black professional schools built a self-sufficiency in border state Black communities that leaders like Frederick Douglas  and WEB DuBois imagined. 

 

Yet in the heart of the Jim Crow era, many African-Americans worked as peanut, cotton and tobacco sharecroppers under the peonage system in "Black Belt" counties. Predominately Black urban occupations such as movie attendants, domestic servants, and shoe-shiners were exempted from minimum wage laws. (This shortcoming was symbolically closed in recent years). 

Federal directives on equal employment in the defense sector during and after World War Two played a key role in leveling the harsh discrepancy between Black and White income. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, a Democrat, maintained cordial  relations with President Eisenhower, the later of whom was able to push civil rights bills through a recalcitrant congress in 1957 and 1960. This relationship made Virginia a powerhouse in infrastructure (Dulles International Airport was build with federal funds), technology,  and the defense industry. In major Virginia cities, college expansions were paired with the opening of a Black college. Hospitals opened or were renovated in underserved communities (Credit to the US Government's Hill-Burton Act of 1946). The racial wage gap compressed further.

Source: Virginia Pilot

With an emerging black middle class came legal action that closed the chapter on Jim Crow. Strength of conviction and legal connections led plaintiffs to sue for equal rights. Cases include Morgan vs. Virginia (1946), desegregating interstate transportation; Boynton vs Virginia (1960), reinforcing the 1946 case; Davis vs Prince Edward County, which became part of Brown vs Board of Education (1954); and Loving vs Virginia (1967) on interracial marriage.

If there is evidence that the latter generation of segregationists delivered for minority citizens, it is found in voter turnout. The same Southern Democrats who defended segregation often gained support of Black voters towards the end of the 20th century. Governor George Wallace and Senator Al Gore, Sr, are two examples.

Virginia Pilot Link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pilotonline.com%2Fnews%2Fvp-nw-racial-income-gap-virginia-20200915-b5t4cl7p6fa7hkdtufpwrnj34e-story.html&psig=AOvVaw1LnHGSMJxgd3yiDhRFqXd8&ust=1612839349840000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAMQjB1qFwoTCMisp_ek2e4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

Ride the New Current: Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

 When you type “Virginia Electric Ch...” into a search engine, results for the Electric Chair come up. Electric Charging Stations, the wave of the future, are an afterthought. As far as the adaptation of green transportation solutions go, this is a sad state of affairs, but an opportunity.

DC Fast chargers (DCFC) operate on 450 volt power, which is provided to every commercial and industrial property. There is no fuel leak hazard or noxious fumes. There is no logistics chain- no fuel laden hazmat trucks. The downside is that these fast chargers cost $50000 each, currently. This is one-tenth the cost of a new petrol station, but a price that prevents rapid proliferation.

Drive Electric Virginia has set a goal of making charging stations available to 95% of residents, within 30 miles of their home. This is a barebones system. A short term goal should be saturation in suburban and urban areas, and a charging station at every freeway interchange.

Multiple car and charging station manufacturers are condensing on a standard type of charging outlet, and electric car manufacturers, even Tesla, are providing adapters to their early-adopting car owners. Say goodbye to proprietary standards in the next 5 years or so.

EVgo Triples Fast Charging Network Through The Drive Electric Virginia Program - EVgo

Nuances of Law and Order

This year, urban protests and general unrest in society created a mixed reaction in the electorate. In some parts of the country, Trump’s rhetoric of liberal politicians “destroying the suburbs” fell on deaf ears. Elsewhere, it was a resounding success. I have a theory why: as we near the middle of the Suburban Century (summed up by Mark Clapson in 1992), what happens in the inner-city does not physically or vicariously affect the lives of citizens in diverse, self-contained and far-flung suburbs.

Virginia Beach, VA

The Virginia Beach Oceanfront serves as the quintessential, walkable downtown for a military-heavy suburb. This spring and summer, tensions were high as protestors called attention to longstanding law-and-order policing on the beach. Over the Labor Day weekend, local group BLM 757 held its “Shut Down the Oceanfront 3.0” protest. True to form, the police gave citations to protestors who drifted from the sidewalk into the street. As a result of afternoon and night-time activity, families chose alternative locations for rest and relaxation; combined with COVID, this proved harmful to the ecosystem of local beachfront businesses.

At election time, Virginia Beach voted for Joe Biden and Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat. On the same ticket, incumbent mayor Bobby Dyer, a Republican, was re-elected with 57% of the vote; and “RK” Kowalewitch, a conservative whose campaign signs read: “Law and Order”, won another 5% of the electorate.     

 

Suburban Richmond, VA

The Virginia State Capitol and Supreme Court building in Richmond were targeted by protestors as symbols of conservative political leadership. With much of downtown boarded up, the city provided a backdrop for political advertising. The jarring images did not ‘tip the needle’ in nearby Henrico and Chesterfield counties, who chose Biden and Representative Abigail Spanberger (D) by large margins. Both counties are home to a mix of employment options; heavy industry, light industry, service and some professional work. Freeways criss-cross these suburbs, linking towards northern and southern markets, and the international airport and deep-sea port of Hampton roads. Richmond, home to state government, several universities, and museums, is somewhat irrelevant to new suburbanites. Overall, there was no partisan change in Virginia’s congressional representation this year.    

 

Suburban Atlanta, GA

The land that served as a springboard for one-time House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and other conservative Republicans, helped to tip Georgia for Joe Biden. For 20 years, the Greater Atlanta area has been the nexus of a New Great Migration of African-Americans from the North to the South; the impact in politics, seen by the flipping of congressional seats, is very recent. Atlanta is a city of the New South; sprawling development centers on its record-breaking international airport and its freeways. The firewall between city and suburbs may be crumbling: while decades ago, suburban Gwinnett County blocked subway construction, a referendum for a transit tax may have passed, pending recount.

 

Los Angeles, CA

California is no friend of Donald Trump. But recent years of excessive solicitude given to drug pushers, car thieves and vandals struck a nerve in working and middle-class communities across racial lines. Since the Rodney King riots of 1992, Asian-American small business owners have been concerned about inadequate police protection offered to their communities. Legislation to “defund the police” dug up old pain. Voters in the state narrowly reaffirmed limits on affirmative action in the state, which were first put into effect in 1996; and sent new Republican representatives to Congress.  

 

Long Island, NY

During the George W. Bush years, as war deaths mounted, these traditionalist, conservative-of-the-gut counties questioned its allegiance to the GOP. But this year, as in 2016, their hometown son, Donald J. Trump of Queens, NY, did not produce the electoral revulsion seen in other suburbs of similar educational and demographic profiles.

While it appears that North Shore Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) will retain his long-time seat, his Republican opponent led in early counting. On the blue-collared South Shore, Andrew Garbarino (R) is expected to succeed retiring Rep. Peter King. Lee Zeldin (R) holds his seat in affluent Suffolk County. Nichole Malliotakis (R) has unseated Max Rose (D) in representing Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. These latter three seats were considered toss-ups going into the election. The Long Island suburbs are home to well-paid public servants and tradespeople of a vibrant New York City; COVID shutdowns and Bill de Blasio’s social permissiveness cast a malaise across white-ethnic New York. Upward mobility of strivers, from immigrant grandparents to civil service to Wall Street, created an unwavering patriotism and belief in the institutions of America. This legacy was challenged in 2020 by politicians on the left, who maintain that this upward mobility was not fueled by grit, but by systemic racism and unchecked privilege.     

The Mathews Men Today

 

East of Gloucester, Virginia, I followed the road less traveled into Mathews County. It is a rural area along the lower Chesapeake Bay, and whose settlement by the English dates to the early 1600s. The Methodists still employ a travelling minister, preaching at small, white-walled clapboard churches at the crossroads. The Baptists also have a presence in this area. Post offices are located at each hamlet, measuring no more than 200 square feet apiece. The average home is an early 20^th century sturdy-sized residence on a small farming plot. Manors are titled in the English style, with names like “House of Payne” and “Moon Pi”.  Washingtonians vacation here, drawn by the quaintness of a timeless county. I bought a cantaloupe (“Local ‘Lopes”) sold on honor from the back of a pickup truck parked in Mathew’s town square.

What drew me here was a phenomenal story of the Mathews Men, or local watermen who served their country as merchant mariners in World War Two. Over the course of history, necessity drove man to sea. As agriculture was commoditized in the early 20^th century, and with a rural depression beginning in 1920, seafaring was a path to economic security for men who were adept at sailing boats on the Chesapeake Bay; and whose wives had the strength and fortitude to lead the family and manage the farm during their husbands’ long absence at sea.

World War Two heralded the end of an era in the maritime culture in Coastal Virginia, and the beginning of the new. During the War, inland shipping, already on a decline during the Great Depression, was supplanted by improved highways and construction of the Big Inch oil pipeline from Texas oil fields to New Jersey refineries. While some fishing boats continue to ply from the peninsula, fortunate proximity provided another lucrative line of work. In 1952, the Coleman Bridge opened, connecting the backwater of Mathews County to job opportunities at the shipyards in Newport News, the Fort Eustis Army Base, and the Langley Air Force Base. Mobility was further enhanced with the opening of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in 1957, allowing highway access to commercial heart of Norfolk, Virginia. Electricity and indoor plumbing had arrived shortly before this fortuitous decade.

Even with these improvements, the disjointed, unsigned roads would have intimidated outsiders until the arrival of GPS navigation. It was on one detour that I came across the cemetery in Onemo, where the extended Hudgins family is buried. The hamlet bearing this family’s name is several miles north. On several tombstones of master mariners were etchings of the fishing boats they had owned and operated. Buried here were souls “known only to God”, presumably lost mariners recovered from the Chesapeake Bay. Confederate flags marked the tombs of Civil War veterans- the war had taken an awful toll on young men, leaving a number of women of the generation unmarried. Even so, the Hudgins were known for their racial tolerance: seafaring was a multicultural pursuit even in those days.  

The hands-on seafaring experience that honed the Mathews Men has been superseded by increased technical sophistication and academic rigor. While the sons and daughters of Mathews continue to sail as deckhands and oilers onboard oceangoing ships, the town no longer raises ship’s captains in the way that New England towns still do. In the 1960’s, building on the work of existing deep-sea maritime academies, the Great Lakes Maritime Academy and the maritime program at Texas A&M in Galveston opened to serve the focused educational needs of inland and near-coastal mariners. Although the “Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy”, a trade school in Norfolk, Virginia, serves Navy and Coast Guard sailors transitioning into the civilian maritime sector, there is no collegiate- accredited maritime program in Virginia, or any Atlantic state south of New York. Mathews, Gloucester, and the surrounding region possess a maritime heritage predating the American Revolution. This is something worth preserving.

 Read: The Mathews Men, William Geroux, 2016. 

Dedicated to Trenton Lloyd-Rees, Maine Maritime Academy, Class of 2019.

Cancelled: School Resource Officers?

The School Resource Officer is the latest victim of #cancel_culture. Our schools are over-policed, they say. I beg to differ. Somewhere in America today, a young man is hatching a plan to kill people in a public place. That’s not me talking; it’s the gruesome statistic that these attacks are premeditated and predictable.

How quickly have we forgotten the televised body counts of school children? Between Columbine (1999) and Newtown (2012), many across the political spectrum hoped to wish the problem of school violence away. Not worth the cost, metal detectors criminalize inner-city youth, they said. Unfortunately that is not a responsible option today.  America has not put a high value on the development of youth. As far as school lunches are concerned, ketchup is a vegetable. Schools are often underfunded, or in large cities, the school funds misappropriated. Lapsing on recent school security advances would be par for the course.

The Director of National Intelligence has identified school violence as a significant national security threat, and it would be fitting for the Department of Homeland Security to devote some attention towards improving school security, as they have for airports and seaports. So far, however, these efforts have been led by individual states. In recent years, states like Maryland and Virginia have raised the school leaving age from sixteen to eighteen, seeking to leave no child behind from getting a high school diploma. Recognizing the risk of keeping unmotivated, and possibly troubled, teenagers in school, clear mitigation efforts were made. These include an increase of information sharing between government agencies, and to separate known dangerous juveniles from the general school population. Outcomes include hard measures like hiring school resource officers, and soft measures like training for teachers and the school community to take threats seriously, encouraging dialogue between students and authority figures, and acting on early indicators such as a disciplinary record of assault.

The School Resource Officer is partly a counselor and partly a police officer. They give a guiding hand to the wayward, and observe for inside threats (a cop can tell who is concealing a knife or handgun in his pants by observing his gait). In rare cases, they are the first responder to an emergency. This is why you can’t swap them one-for-one with a social worker. When an attack is successfully counteracted, it doesn’t stay in the news for long, and it’s nothing to celebrate. Only in America would a kid with a mission of menace reach the final line of defense. So to the school boards seeking to abolish the role of School Resource Officer, what do you think you are doing? While we can hope for a better day of peace and respect of others, the present conditions must be addressed today.

That Revolution Talk

This year, Virginia joined a list of states whose rural leaders are talking of divorcing from their big-city counterparts. This talk of breakaway rests on perceived lack of political representation in state government, and different cultural values from the big cities. Upstate New Yorkers want to do away with New York City. Eastern parts of Washington and Oregon seek to break away from cosmopolitan and left-leaning Seattle and Portland.

More serious and detailed secession plans include an economic strategy. Some rural and libertarian-leaning Californians talk about splitting their state in two: under most proposals, Southern California would claim prosperous Silicon Valley, just south of the northerly city of San Francisco.

In Virginia’s most radical proposal, dubbed "Vexit", Arlington County and its 235,000 urbanized residents would return to neighboring District of Columbia, as it was between 1800 and 1846. Arlington residents made it clear that they did not want to join DC, giving their own stereotyped gripes of big-city problems. A trimmed Virginia would keep neighboring Fairfax County- which has more registered Democrats than Arlington- not for political reasons, but for economic reasons. Fairfax is home to Fortune 500 companies; and Dulles Airport, Virginia’s global hub with non-stop flights to Tel Aviv and Hong Kong. Without Fairfax, some commentators claimed that Virginia would become another rural, poor, Southern state.

A smaller proposal would shift several border counties across the line into West Virginia. When the mountainous state was created during the Civil War, border counties were invited to join West Virginia by referendum, and according to its governor, the invitation is still open.

Virginia’s secession talk has more gravitas in conversation than elsewhere, for the state has already split four times, and rejoined twice:

1792- Kentucky split from Virginia

1800- Alexandria, Virginia annexed to Washington, DC

1846- Alexandria returned to Virginia

1861- Virginia leaves the US for the Confederacy

            1863- West Virginia split off as a Union state

            1870- Virginia rejoins the US  

What propelled the secession talk in Virginia? Democrats introduced and voted on an “assault weapon” ban. It passed the House of Delegates, but failed by several votes in the State Senate. Apparently, this was too close of a call for gun-toting patriots. 

Virginia Gun Enthusiasts Create Better Democracy (and not from the cartridge box)?

Prolonged Debate on Gun Control Bills led to resurrection of Fair Redistricting Amendment. Here’s how it played out.

Gun Control Lobby cost Virginia low-wage workers income increase in ’21 and ‘22

Flush with Mike Bloomberg cash, Democratic leadership made gun control bills the number-one priority for the January & February legislative session. They did not anticipate pushback from citizens, local jurisdictions and especially the Virginia Senate, which required rewriting and reconciling bills.   Debate on an increased minimum wage fell off the schedule of the two- month legislative session. Two points apply here:

No minimum wage bill would have passed this year, without exceptional intervention by the Virginia Senate.

Had the minimum wage bill been discussed as a priority in January, before the COVID crisis, the timeline of wage increases would have started in July 2020 instead of 2021.

What was the exceptional intervention? In exchange for Virginia Senate extending the legislative session to allow a vote on the minimum wage increase, the House of Delegates would allow a vote on the Fair Redistricting Amendment.

Fair Redistricting Amendment

It is not easy to add an Amendment to the Virginia Constitution, and it almost died this year. Last year, in the uncertainty of upcoming elections, both parties favored a Fair Redistricting Amendment, the first east of the Mississippi River. It had to be reapproved this year, and the Virginia Senate was favorable.

The 21-19 split of the Virginia Senate, currently favoring Democrats, requires collegial relations between the two parties. Embracing the Fair Redistricting Amendment diffuses tension: The foremost prize of partisan redistricting creates an incentive for the nominally-minority party to take advantage of another member’s short absence- which did happened back in 2014. These absences from the legislative session may include sick days, important meetings for their small business, family weddings and hunting trips.

Democrats in the House of Delegates, who have a stronger majority, are legislating like there is no tomorrow- they even acknowledge the likelihood of a voter backlash in 2021. Republicans and a handful of Democratic legislators, held to their campaign promises, narrowly passed the bill through the House of Delegates this year. It would have been tabled without debate, had it not been resurrected as a bargaining chip.   

The Democratic Party of Virginia has since come out against the Amendment on vague civil rights grounds- the Black Caucus would prefer Democrats- instead of a bipartisan committee and Virginia Supreme Court- to control redistricting- even though it is likely to pass voter approval in November. Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican in a heavily-Democratic state, has been looking to the Virginia fair redistricting developments as a model for his own state.

Private Sales without Background Check to become a Felony, Gift Transfers Unaffected

Virginia is a very economically diverse jurisdiction, and this bill did not sit well with rural and small-town voters, who made their voices heard in the mid-year municipal elections. With the average gun pricing between $500 and $1000, this new law to regulate private sales has hit at the heart of arguments over economic injustice. While the average resident of Fairfax County can afford to give guns as gifts, a gun purchase represents two weeks of income in a rural country.

The background checks are available from any licensed gun dealer for $15.00, or at a gun show for $2.00. Nevertheless, it will likely be challenged in court under equal protection claims.

Minimum Wage to eventually increase to $12 per hour, will lock in wage gains from tight labor market.

The minimum wage in Virginia is currently $7.25 per hour. Unskilled labor in low-cost parts of Virginia currently demands $10.00 or more per hour, so effects of stepped increases will not be seen until 2023. The House of Delegates sought to double the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour, a proposal rebuked by the Virginia Senate and Democratic Governor.

State Capitals and Railroads: A Historical Symbiosis

Where’s your state capital? If on the East Coast, look for the train station. Railroads and majestic state capitals were built in tandem. As reliable streetcars were not available until the 1890’s, state capitals had to be located near downtown hotel and restaurant districts, and to mainline railroads reaching across their respective states.   

Washington, DC’s Union Station was built in 1906 six blocks north from the US Capitol. Most of DC’s municipal offices are located six blocks west in Judiciary Square. Simultaneous projects included a tunnel for trains to pass underneath- instead of across- Capitol Hill, a streetcar terminal for service to the old downtown, and construction of the restricted-access US Senate subway.

Legislators and staff in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Richmond, Virginia also walk six blocks to their respective state capitals. 

Even though all parts of the state can be reached in a day’s ride on horseback, Providence, Rhode Island’s train station is located at the back door of the state capital.

The capital in Trenton, New Jersey is a half-mile from the train station, which serves high-speed electric trains between Washington, DC and New York City via Philadelphia.

Although the station is located on the “wrong” side of the navigable Hudson River, train service operates frequently on the Empire Corridor between Buffalo; Albany, New York; and New York City.

The very historic state house in Annapolis, Maryland, dating to 1772, used to be located at the terminal of a rapid commuter rail line to much-larger Baltimore; but was stranded after the railroad was abandoned in the 1950s. Light rail service was restored over a portion of the corridor in 1992, but ends some 15 miles from Annapolis.

Then-Senator Joe Biden commuted from Wilmington, Delaware to the US Capitol by Amtrak; but passenger trains have not served his peninsular state capital of Dover, Delaware in decades.

Augusta, Maine sadly lost their train service, which used to run in front of the state house promenade. A similar fate befell Concord, New Hampshire, where buses have replaced trains since 1967. Nevertheless, there’s always talk of restoring commuter rail service to Boston.

Montpellier, Vermont still has Amtrak service; although the hilly topography put the station a mile from town.

Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut are served by Amtrak Northeast Corridor’s “Inland Route”, as well as respective state commuter rails.

Although few trains operate here today, Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital is also within walking distance of the rail line.

West Virginia is a young state, born during the Civil War. Three passenger trains a week serve Charleston, West Virginia on Amtrak’s sleepy and mountainous Cardinal Line between Chicago and Washington, DC.

Amateur Hour- Voting During Coronavirus

Wisconsin’s presidential primary elections- and a state supreme court justice race- were held on Tuesday April 7^th in the midst of stay-at-home orders. These are the first statewide races in the US since primaries in Florida, Arizona and Illinois on March 17^th. Some commentators have related local COVID-19 outbreaks to in-person voting during the March 17^th primaries, but the medical community has not agreed with this hypothesis.  

In Wisconsin, many citizens relied on in-person voting, and waited with face masks in social-distanced lines. For health reasons, most poll workers – predominately elderly volunteers- stayed home, closing most polling places in Milwaukee and Green Bay. Long lines were observed in these cities, perhaps because many absentee ballots were not mailed to voters on time. Absentee voters had to find a witness to sign their ballot and envelope, and some citizens were reluctant to come out of self-isolation to meet this requirement. Results will be tabulated after April 13^th, which will reveal voter participation and turnout rates by city and county. There is a good chance that the media will declare this fairly low-stakes vote a spoiled election. These kinks- make that structural flaws- need to be addressed well ahead of the November elections, and preferably before the April 7^th results are finalized. Don’t take Wisconsin to the whipping post over this; the state is only a messenger of situations across the country, yet to come.

My city, Norfolk, Virginia, will be holding local elections on May 5^th. The Office of Elections recommends that citizens apply for an absentee ballot. The approved steps for requesting an absentee ballot in light of COVID-19 is a workaround, using the existing vote-by-mail request. Social-distancing absentee voters will swear or affirm, under felony penalty for making willfully false material statements, that “I have a reason or condition that prevents me from going to the polls on Election Day”, that condition being “my disability or illness”. If this doesn’t count as voter discouragement, tell me.  Because of how state laws on absentee voting are written, the use of workarounds like this will be common across the country.  

Coronavirus in Virginia

Autarky is a national policy of economic independence. In an attempt to contain the coronavirus, the United States closed the borders last Friday, with many other countries following in short order. This paleo-conservative experiment was short-lived as domestic restrictions, led by states and municipalities, took place by Monday. The strictest restrictions on social and economic life, dubbed as “shelter in place” orders, were instituted in New York and California. Applying these restrictions in America, successfully used in authoritarian China and civic-minded Italy, would’ve been unthinkable several weeks ago.

With commerce reduced to the essentials, such as groceries, the economy is grinding to a standstill. Of greatest concern is unemployment, which will cause a recessionary spiral. The service sector, operating on thin margins, has been greatly impacted. Low wage workers, like waiters, drivers, and cashiers, often do not have savings to bridge a gap of unemployment. Their absence from the discretionary consumer economy will deepen a recession. In a crunch, it is easier for a small business owner to cut payroll than to cut its rent. A major stimulus bill is moving through Congress. One key feature is cash payments to individuals. This will keep people fed, and allow for utilities, and at least a portion of rent or mortgage to be paid.

Reporting from Norfolk, Virginia, whose region reported 50 cases of coronavirus, large gatherings have been ended by state order. In the urbanized city of Norfolk, municipal services and public facilities like rec centers and libraries has been closed. Less restrictions were in place in suburban Virginia Beach.

On Tuesday’s Saint Patrick’s Day, many of the established restaurants were closed. Smaller restaurants and taverns were still engaged in a lively trade.  By Wednesday, even these establishments transitioned to take-out fare. While grocery store cashiers and delivery providers work fearlessly, the white-collar workplace, with its cubicles and close quarters, has been shut down nationwide.

At my local Navy Base, telework or administrative leave began this week. Shipboard work, like that in construction and other blue-collar fields, is continuing as usual. Open berthing and dining onboard warships poses real risks of virus transmission; one case of coronavirus was identified on the USS Boxer. Current Health Protection Condition (HPCON) guidance to the military advises non-essential group work and training be suspended. 

Public officials still encourage exercise and solitary recreation. It seemed to be the case on Friday. With an unseasonably warm Friday, young service-members gathered on the local oceanfront beach. More concerning is the Spring Break amalgamation of nationwide youth on the beaches of Florida, as reported in the Wall Street Journal and other media.

Many have wondered if laid-up cruise ships can be used for quarantining infectious patients. Remember that the coronavirus has spread rapidly through two cruise ships, likely due to shared ventilation. Two hospital ships, USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort, are built to hospital standards, and do not face this limitation.  

Hot Dogs and Handguns

Hot Dogs are sold in packs of six, and buns in packs of eight. I’m neither a hot dog nor a gun enthusiast, but I know the math doesn’t add up on a proposed 12-round limit for firearm magazines in Virginia. 12 rounds is an important number in a military-heavy jurisdiction, as it is the number of bullets needed to complete the Navy Pistol Marksmanship Test. Some legislator had their heart in the right place, but failed to ask an expert: the military’s preferred handguns use a magazine of 15 rounds, which would become illegal under proposed laws. This is the default magazine of Beretta’s M9, and the smallest NATO stock number, off-the-shelf magazine to complete the Marksmanship Test.  

The average sailor, who carries a firearm on duty, qualifies with live ammunition once per year on the Navy’s budget. Firearm instructors, however, recommend monthly practice to maintain marksmanship skills. Sailors fill this gap by going to the range after-hours with their personal handgun; this is an ingrained part of Virginia culture.

Then what about true high-capacity magazines? That question is answered. Virginia has long banned firearm magazines over 20 rounds: It applies in Virginia’s major cities and populous suburbs, when in public; and has been law since 1991*. This law is not worded in heavy-handed language used in the Northeastern states, but it nevertheless gives law enforcement the authority to stop a violent crime before it happens. If this ill-advised 12-round limit becomes law, lawful gun owners would be required to purchase slightly smaller magazines that won’t suit a legitimate and government-sanctioned sporting purpose. We will know that the legislature has placed virtue signaling over practicality and military readiness. 

* See: § 18.2-287.4. Carrying loaded firearms in public areas prohibited; penalty.

Go Ahead, Virginia, Ratify the ERA

Virginia is on track to be the 38^th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution, which would constitutionally guarantee equality of rights on account of sex.  Virginia’s approval would meet the requirement for ¾ of states to ratify before a Constitutional Amendment is added. Once this step is complete, there will be issues to resolve.

First, Congressional authorization on the proposed Amendment expired in 1979. It will have to be renewed by a super-majority of Congress.

Second, several conservative states rescinded ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. It is unclear if a ratification can be rescinded.    

Two of the most common criticism of the ERA, first elucidated by Phyllis Schlafly, are that it will constitutionally guarantee a right to abortion, and same-sex marriage. In family law, there is a fear that ERA will allow lousy, incompetent men easier access to child custody. In Maryland and Hawaii, gender equality laws were used in the courts to procure recognition of same-sex unions. However, these proved to be exceptional cases. Many states, in fact, have Equal Rights Amendments in their State Constitutions; and a number of these have not legalized same-sex marriage or late-term abortion at the state level. Sympathetic moderate and conservative groups should emphasize this unspoken point.

So far, the US Constitution has not been amended during my lifetime. The 27^th Amendment, concerning Congressional pay, was ratified in May 1992.