News & Record Tough on SCC Voices But Tougher on Mining Subcommittee, Other Pols

Halifax News & Record

excerpted from "The View from Here"
January 12. 2009

by Tom McLaughlin, Editor

In the vein of “let’s not talk nice to politicians,” it was good to hear that the audience attending Tuesday night’s public hearing in Chatham on uranium mining erupted in loud applause when Jack Dunavant accused legislators who will oversee a study of the Coles Hill project of being in the industry’s pocket. Many folks believe, not without reason, that public hearings aren’t worth a bucket of spit inasmuch as the deciders usually have their minds made up before bothering to pretend to hear out the rabble. But it is helpful, at least, for the rabble to have its one moment in the spotlight, if only to let the hoi-polloi know their actions won’t go unnoticed.

Gregg Vickery, the Pittsylvania chairman of Southside Concerned Citizens (Dunavant heads the Halifax chapter), researched Virginia’s public campaign finance records (available on-line at vpap.org) and compiled a list of campaign contributions that each legislator who sits on the Coal and Energy Commission’s uranium panel has accepted from Virginia Uranium Inc. or its registered lobbyists. It’s revealing, albeit revolting, reading. Among the worthies exposed: Virginia Beach Senator Frank Wagner, a leading proponent of uranium mining, $4,000 in VUI-related donations; Delegates Charles Carrico and Tim Hugo, $6,500 each; even Del. Watkins Abbitt, hero of last year’s effort to kill a uranium mining study bill in the House of Delegates, $2,500.

One can always argue, of course, that campaign donations are determinant of exactly nothing, that this is merely how the legislative game is played, with politicians raising money from so many sources that they are no longer beholden to any one of them. It should be noted that Vickery’s figures include not only contributions by Virginia Uranium Inc., but also by VUI’s lobbying firms, which have many other clients they represent at the Capitol. By this reckoning the dollar pool expands considerably, perhaps beyond use in calling out legislators for doing the bidding of any one industry. Watkins Abbitt, for instance, has received no direct campaign contributions from VUI as best I can tell. But Abbitt has received $2,000 from the big lobby shops that represent VUI and sundry others; sources include the law firm of Hunton & Williams (employer of former Danville delegate Whitt Clement, who is the brother-in-law of VUI president Walter Coles), Kemper Consulting Inc. and Vectre Corp. Does Abbitt’s acceptance of this money, however tenuously connected to VUI, mean he will double-cross the region when a decision on Virginia’s mining moratorium is made? It remains to be seen.

One can certainly criticize Jack Dunavant, who a few short months ago was hailing Abbitt as a hero in the uranium fight, of tarring legislators with too broad a brush for their willingness to accept VUI-tainted contributions. The bigger point that needs to be made here, though, is simply that the entire political process is corrupted by big money, and anyone who denies that reality is a liar or a fool or both. Richmond is a pay-to-play town, notwithstanding the wounded expressions Tuesday night among legislators accused of selling out their souls for thirty pieces of silver.

It will take an enormous outpouring of opposition, including the angry, pitchfork variety that Dunavant, Vickery et al do so well, to beat back the corporate interests that have decided they can make a killing at Southside Virginia’s expense. It’s fine to go along with a mining study, but no one should be deluded into thinking the outcome of such a polite process will stop the Coles Hill project in its tracks. Ultimately that will take the one commodity that can compete head-to-head in the political realm with the almighty dollar — fear of retribution at the ballot box.

One final note on the linkage between political money and motivations: Vickery’s list of politicians allegedly sitting in VUI’s pocket focused solely on the legislators who serve on the uranium study panel. If one were to apply the same standard to one Del. Clarke Hogan, who Dunavant has hailed as the last honest man in politics and governor-in-waiting, then one would discover that Hogan has received, directly or indirectly, thousands of dollars from lobbying firms and individuals connected to Virginia Uranium Inc. (Both Walter Coles and Henry Hurt, VUI investors, have contributed to the Southside Leadership PAC that Hogan continues to operate with Danville Del. Danny Marshall and Pittsylvania Sen. Robert Hurt. Hogan also has received $2,000 since 2007 from Kemper Consulting, which represents VUI.) We already know that Hogan invited a uranium lobbyist to the family vacation home in Maine this summer to discuss, oh, just guessing, the finer points of steaming a lobster. Is it conceivable that Dunavant might need to adopt a more consistent standard before accusing some legislators of acts of political prostitution and not others?

http://www.thenewsrecord.com/2009webfiles/20090112view.htm