Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposal to defer a quarterly payment into the pension plan for state workers next spring may be just the first step toward a shift that could require workers to contribute a portion of their paychecks toward their retirement. “He is going to look hard at state employees making a contribution to the system,“ Secretary of Finance Richard D. Brown said. “At the end of the day, it may well be that state employees will be making a contribution.“

State legislatures around the country are becoming older and more diverse, a recent study by the National Conference of State Legislatures has found. The average age of a state lawmaker is 56, and nearly half of those serving in state legislatures are between 50 and 64, according to the study, which charted the age, gender, ethnicity and occupation of the 7,382 men and women who serve in all 50 states.

“Layoffs are not particularly good ways to reduce expenses, as the cost to let the employee go (severance etc.) and the potential cost of rehiring and retraining a new person when the crunch eases is high. The resulting lack of morale in the remaining employees also hurts operations. A hiring freeze and attrition will yield more dollar savings.“

A defiant Del. Phillip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, says he has no intention of resigning, as five statewide office-seekers have urged. “Their collective opinions have not lessened my resolve to continue serving the people of the 93rd District,“ he said in a statement. Hamilton is under fire for pursuing a job at a new teaching center at Old Dominion University before he put in a $500,000 budget amendment for the center’s creation. E-mails also show Hamilton suggested his salary ($40,000) for the part-time job at ODU.

Newport News Del. Phil Hamilton displayed a measure of character when he owned up to e-mails implicating him in an unsavory deal with Old Dominion University. “Everybody who has ever said a positive thing about me, I’ve let them down,“ Hamilton admitted the other day. He also noted that he had failed to live up to his own standards. House Speaker Bill Howell—who has asked for an ethics investigation—agreed, terming himself “deeply disappointed” to learn that Hamilton, a Republican, had sought a position as a paid contractor with the very teaching center for which he later obtained state appropriations. But Hamilton’s use of his elected office and the taxpayers’ money for his own personal gain is more than disappointing. It is wrong.

Edward Emerson Lane, a longtime member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Richmond and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for attorney general in 1977, died Wednesday at his Richmond residence at age 85. The Richmond native had suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Lane, a Richmond lawyer, was chairman of the powerful budget-writing committee, the House Appropriations Committee, from 1973 to 1978.

Circumstances have changed since April, when Gov. Timothy M. Kaine pardoned Arthur Lee Whitfield, who served 22 years in prison for rapes that he didn’t commit. The Virginia Beach man recently was diagnosed with liver cancer. So the General Assembly, meeting in special session yesterday, agreed to give Whitfield $632,867 as compensation for his years in prison.

The devil will be in the details as Virginia faces a new round of $1.5 billion in state budget cuts. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s address to the General Assembly’s money committees yesterday was light on details, such as how many state workers could lose jobs and which governmental services will see the greatest cuts. Kaine used broad strokes to paint a bleak fiscal landscape—a $1.2 billion projected revenue shortfall in the fiscal year that began July 1. Coupled with a leftover shortfall from fiscal 2009 of roughly $299 million, Kaine and lawmakers must slash state spending by about $1.5 billion.

In a day of fits and starts, the General Assembly passed a bill yesterday designed to ease a potential logjam in Virginia’s courts after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. “It is not perfect and will not solve all the questions raised by Melendez-Diaz,“ House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, told his colleagues, referring to the high court’s opinion.

Legislators expect Gov. Timothy M. Kaine today to propose cutting Virginia’s budget by up to $1.5 billion. Lawmakers and aides in Capitol circles were suggesting that Kaine might split the difference between previous revenue forecasts and settle on $1.3 billion.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine today projected a $1.2 billion decline in state revenues for the fiscal year ending next June 30.

Other exonerations and awards In the past 20 years, at least 14 people have been exonerated of serious crimes in Virginia—primarily by DNA testing—and most have been awarded compensation by the legislature. YearYear
NameconvictedclearedCrime Jurisdiction Compensation
David Vasquez19851989Murder, Rape Arlington Co.$117,000

Arguably no one imprisoned for a crime they did not commit can be fully indemnified, though legislators are expected to do what they can today for Arthur Lee Whitfield. In 2004 after 22 years behind bars, Whitfield was released by the parole board when DNA testing failed to turn up his genetic profile in evidence saved from two Norfolk rapes that occurred the night of Aug. 14, 1981. The testing implicated a man already in prison for other attacks.

Lobbyist spending is down sharply in Virginia, perhaps reflecting a lag in issues and the economy. For the latest reporting cycle—May 2008 to April 2009—full-time professional lobbyists spent $15.4 million influencing the state’s part-time legislators, according to Virginia officials and an online watchdog of money in politics. That’s a decline of nearly 25 percent from the previous cycle, according to the secretary of the commonwealth’s office and the Virginia Public Access Project. Because of the recession, there has been a continuing focus on the Virginia budget by interest groups and their paid advocates, including an anti-tax group, Americans for Prosperity. It spent almost $127,000.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring the testimony of forensic examiners is raising concerns that evidence testing in criminal cases will be slowed. The Virginia Forensic Science Board was told yesterday that the number of subpoenas received for examiners more than tripled in the first full week following the justices’ June 25 decision compared with the last full week before.