Portsmouth’s charter oops

My latest op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot Thursday. The Portsmouth charter mistake is one that I think points to a larger problem: the legislature’s tight hold on localities. If they weren’t so busy voting on such stuff, they might actually have time to consider the larger issues facing our Commonwealth, transportation being at the top of that list. Instead, they are voting on whether a locality can move its elections to November, a move, I might add, that they have been encouraging.

That two candidates have to file suit because the charter refers to a fictional date – when the polls close on the first Tuesday in June – unnecessarily ties up the court system.

Give the localities more latitude, General Assembly. This ain’t the 1870s.

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