Around The State

May 17, 2008

Race for the Hill

They are both former governors whose administrations were defined by financial issues. They both sort of ran for president this year. And they both would like to succeed John W. Warner in the U.S. Senate when he retires next year.

Other than that, Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore are about as different as Virginia politicians can be.

Warner left office on a high note with voters. He proved innovative in his approach to priming the pump of economic development. As his signature achievement, the Democrat claimed a major tax increase to put the commonwealth's fiscal house in order.

As for Gilmore, his ticket to office was a bumper-sticker call for repeal of the car tax. As good as that sounded to many voters on the campaign trail, the commonwealth has been trying to balance the books ever since.

Even without that black mark on his record, Gilmore would be facing long odds in this year's election. First, he has to push back a challenge for the GOP nomination from his right flank.

Then he'll have to shake off the effects of a presidential run that came close to turning him into a laughingstock.

Warner isn't totally in the clear either. His on-again-off-again run for the White House was reminiscent of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's Hamlet-like indecision on whether he really wanted to run.

So off we go with the Democrats favored to add a Senate seat from the increasingly purple state of Virginia. But keep in mind it's a long way to November.

- Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

Rule of law

Illegal-immigration hawks make a great show of concern about the rule of law. It's not immigration they object to, they say - it's lawbreaking.

Immigrant-rights advocates are sometimes skeptical of this claim. They say, or strongly imply, that illegal-immigration hawks are really just callous racists who don't care about the consistent application of the rule of law at all.

Some immigration hardliners might in fact be bigoted; it doesn't have to be entirely either/or. (That is, some immigration hawks might be callous racists who don't care about the rule of law; some might be callous racists who do care about it; and some might be compassionate nonracists who care strongly about the rule of law.)

Here's a good test case: "Fishing company operator sentenced to jail for hiring illegal immigrants," reports the Virginian-Pilot:

"The vice president of a Newport News fishing company was sentenced today to 90 days in prison on top of nearly $7 million in fines and forfeitures that she and her company have agreed to pay to settle charges that the company employed illegal immigrants on its vessels."

A hefty majority of immigration hawks are likely to cheer this news. Some of them will cheer because this enforcement of the law will help discourage illegal immigration. But plenty will cheer because they are equally pleased that a lawbreaker who is an American citizen is getting her just deserts.

- Richmond Times-Dispatch

Watermen deserve relief

Whether Chesapeake Bay watermen win a federal disaster declaration, and the money that might flow from it, Maryland and Virginia still have an obligation to see them through the crab crisis the states helped cause and are now trying to solve.

When the states announced new limits on harvests earlier this year, and promised more to come, they were finally reacting to the latest symptom of a long-standing problem.

The Chesapeake's woes are rooted in the fertilizer that farmers put on crops and suburban homeowners deposit on lawns; the outflow from inadequate sewage treatment and broken septic systems; the chemicals that run off roads and parking lots each time it rains; the detergents used to clean dishes and clothes. All that stuff, when it washes into waterways, disrupts the ecosystem of the bay and the economy it supports.

The governors have taken the extraordinary step of asking for a federal disaster designation, a first step to get Congress to appropriate money for crabbers and the businesses that depend on them. But the Commerce Department could decide the crisis was avoidable, or a cash-strapped Congress could do nothing.

The federal response doesn't satisfy the obligation Maryland and Virginia and their citizens have to the watermen downstream from their lawns and businesses and farms. The tremendous growth in the suburbs of both states has done serious harm to the Chesapeake Bay and, by extension, to the watermen. The least all those new citizens can do is help their neighbors in a time of need.