With so much going on at the General Assembly, it would consume the entire page to exhaust comment on every item. Herewith, then, a few brief judgments on items noted in passing.
Thumbs up for the House vote to repeal mandatory vaccination of middle-school girls against HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. Passage of the mandate was owing as much to lobbying by powerful pharmaceutical interests as by prudence. Parents worried about their young daughters engaging in risky sexual practices can still have them vaccinated. As is frequently true, in this case permitting people to opt in is preferable to making them opt out.
Thumbs down for lawmakers' decision to retain management of menhaden stock rather than hand it over to the professionals at the Marine Resources Commission. Menhaden are the only fish handled in this way. They are used to make pet food and fish oil, principally by Omega Protein — a company barred from the waters of 13 out of 15 Atlantic coast states. Virginia is one of the two exceptions (North Carolina is the other). The health of the fish population is a subject of debate, and the debate is better resolved by scientific experts than politicians: Omega Protein has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign coffers of Virginia politicos, including Gov. Bob McDonnell, whose inaugural fund received $25,000.
Thumbs up for efforts to make the foreclosure process in Virginia more transparent and navigable for homeowners. As this newspaper reported on Sunday, Virginia's foreclosure process often is so rapid that it ends even before homeowners can gather the paperwork to fight the bank. The borrowers do not deserve to win the argument (or lose it). They do deserve their day in court. (And the surest way to reduce the number of foreclosures is to revive the housing market so that housing prices move up ahead of the loan values.)
Thumbs up also for efforts to permit hunting on Sundays. Like the state monopoly on liquor sales and the prohibition on regular in-home poker games, the last of the state's blue laws — declaring "a rest day for all species" — is an anachronism. It harkens back to the days when the blue-rinse brigade didn't want the menfolk risking hellfire by skipping church. Maybe the menfolk shouldn't be doing that — but that's a discussion for them to have with their wives, not with the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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