It’s too bad that he’s busy chasing an impossible dream because Jim Gilmore would not be a bad choice for a new chair. What I think they really need is a chairman with immediate authority. An elder statesman who knows the party’s landscape intimately and and can put that house in order forcefully and quickly.

Posted by Jack on 12 June 2007 @ 4pm

I read speculation at the time that Gillespie had been appointed in part because his national connections would help George Allen run for Warner’s senate seat. I wonder if this means Allen has given up on that, or just that the in-state effects of Gillespie’s tenure were already looking disastrous enough to offset any out-of-state assistance he might bring in.

Posted by Jim E-H on 12 June 2007 @ 4pm

Like you, I thought when Gillespie took the job it was a huge demotion; and something he was doing to tie him over$$$.

Maybe Bush is going to appoint him to replace Barlett (although I doubt it).

Posted by Mimi Schaeffer on 12 June 2007 @ 5pm

I think Ed was too busy counseling Crazy Al to pay attention to the meltdown.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in the Bush administration.

Posted by Mark Brooks on 12 June 2007 @ 7pm

The Democrats in Virginia better not be counting on the disability vote if Kaine continues down the road of scapegoating people with psychiatric histories. There is a cross-disability coalition of voters who voted for Kaine because he was strong on disability rights, right now I see disability advocates either voting Republican or staying home on election day for state delegates and senators.

Posted by Alison on 12 June 2007 @ 10pm

Alison,

You have got to be kidding me. You’re saying that the Democrats will be in trouble this fall because they aren’t going to have the schizophrenic vote? Get real. Tim Kaine is just enforcing existing laws preventing people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from purchasing a firearm.

I have a hard time imagining disabled voters as a group rallying to the cause of mentally ill people who will no longer be able to illegally purchase firearms as easily as they might have otherwise.

This NRA member is extremely happy with the way that the Virginia Democrats responded to the Virginia Tech shootings. With reasonable policy that addressed the actual problem rather than the broad anti-gun hysteria that many expected. Things got hairy and Tim Kaine kept a cool head. That is a guy who we can trust on gun issues. Maybe the Democrats will lose a few absentee ballots from the local asylum. But they have more than made up for it among Second Amendment voters.

Posted by Jack on 13 June 2007 @ 9am

Than you don’t understand the cross-disability rights movement. This isn’t about Kaine enforcing existing legislation, it’s about him scapegoating all people with mental illness for the actions of one, for meeting with representatives of the South Korean community to reassure while continuing to blame a complex situation and tragedy on one group of people and not looking at the larger context such as security, police response and training and whether the man in question was actually mentally ill which is not a known fact at all. He may have been Autistic with Aspergers and we may never know that because the propagandists for forced treatment and for increased prejudice have the ear of the Govenor and the media both. Or he may have just been a bad person, you know?

There is no clear cause and effect. There is no reason to bar everyone who has ever had a mental illness from owing a gun because people with mental illness are less violent than people without contrary to popular propaganda. I am not an NRA member and don’t support the NRA so I really don’t care about the gun control measure except as it is used to say we have solved a problem by barring a marginalized group of citizens from buying a gun. Virginia already reported more people for psychiatric reasons than any other state in the country. It didn’t help and it won’t help to report more, what it will do is encourage the kind of open belittling of people with psychiatric disabilities that you just displayed in your response. More prejudice is not what anyone needs. And more ignorance–asylum??? Please.

Posted by Alison on 13 June 2007 @ 2pm

Sure enough, he’s replacing Bartlett.

http://cbs13.com/topstories/topstories_story_164120810.html

Posted by Elizabeth on 13 June 2007 @ 3pm

Alison,

Kaine did not bar everyone who has a mental illness from buying a firearm. He made it harder for people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from breaking an existing law that prevents them from buying guns.

This is not ‘everyone who has a mental illness.’ This is just those who behavior has become so outlandish or dangerous that they have been judged a potential danger to themselves or others.

I am going to guess that you are not a gun owner and are not accustomed to handling firearms. You have to understand that when you are holding a loaded firearm, you potentially have death in your hands. It is a responsibility that the vast majority of people handle extremely well. But it all depends on mental competance. Allowing firearms to people who have been involuntarily committed to asylums would be like issuing drivers licenses to the blind. I realize that blind people don’t like to be discriminated against and I certainly wouldn’t want to do that lightly but somewhere we have got to draw the line between making people feel better about their disabilities and ensuring some baseline level of public safety. Most people would probably agree with me (and Tim Kaine) that keeping guns out of the hands of, say, schizophrenics or manic-depressives on the bottom end of an annual, violent mood swingis right about where that line is.

Posted by Jack on 13 June 2007 @ 5pm

You’re right, I’ve never held a gun in my hand, wasn’t even allowed to own a toy gun as a child. As I said, I’m not against gun control and enforcement of existing law. If Kaine had done that and ALSO said something, anything, to make clear to the public that he does not believe that most people with mental illness are dangerous, I would be a very happy voter. But he did not. He did not even declare May is Mental Health Month this year. He has not reached out to people with mental illness who are terrified of the coming legislative backlash at all.

I personally did get a reply from his Secretary of Health and Human Services and that was very nice, but in general, people are very scared about losing a lot of civil rights unconnected to guns including the right to decide whether or not to seek treatment and where and from whom, the right to decide whether or not to inform family, friends and employers about their mental illness, the right to not lose their liberty for 6 months without being a danger to self or others or substantially unable to care for self–there is a big push on to make it easier to commit people for up to 6 months despite the fact that over 80% of Virginia commitment hearings as of the last state wide study end up with the subject of commitment in the hospital. Some people seem to want to make that figure 110% and those folks are on my taskforce on commitment of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

Posted by Alison on 13 June 2007 @ 8pm

Jack, it’s not about “making people feel better about their disabilities” and you know that. That said, yes, there is a strong state interest in ensuring that firearms are not in the hands of those who cannot handle them.

Alison, I think you’re projecting a lot more onto this bill than is there. I’m very sympathetic to everything in your second paragraph in that last entry, but it’s really got nothing to do with Kaine’s present action.

Posted by MB on 14 June 2007 @ 5pm

No, it has to do with his inaction, his inaction being his failure to reach out to the community of people with psychiatric disabilities in any way at all at this time of backlash despite being asked to by representatives of disability organizations and his failure to make any statment to calm down the hatred and hysteria about people with psychiatric disabilities that has ensued and continues. A leader leads even when it is not popular to do so in my opinion.

Posted by Alison on 14 June 2007 @ 9pm

Alison: The governor can only fund the programs he has money for. What you need to acknowledge is that when Kaine was fighting so hard to protect the general fund budget surplus he was attempting to preserve the $450 million in mental health services that Governor Warner had previously directed from the general fund surplus.

So when you hear Republicans saying that the budget surplus should be spent on transportation…you know who is really goring your ox. He-With-No-Name, who degenerated into a homicidal maniac and murdered 32 people may finally provide folks like you who are passionate about this issue with the answer as to why mental health funding matters…your glass is half full dear.

Posted by Bubby on 15 June 2007 @ 8am

I’d be a lot more interested in a discussion about quality of and access to mental health services for Virginians rather than some sort of alarmist nonsense about a ‘backlash’ against people with mental health problems. From what I have observed services in VA, or at least the Richmond area, are dreadful. People with real needs aren’t able to receive prompt or humane care. I’m hoping that the incident at VA Tech will shine a stronger light on this issue. Sorry Alison, I don’t think most people are reading Kaine’s response to the Tech tragedy as a threat to people with mental illness. Frankly, enforcing measures designed to prevent people who have been deemed to be a threat to themselves or others by a judge from getting their hands on a firearm protects those mentally ill individuals as much as anyone else.

Posted by Triscula on 15 June 2007 @ 6pm

I don’t argue with folks who use bait like “alarmist nonsense”. If you ever want to have a dialogue without flame bait involved, let me know.

Posted by Alison on 15 June 2007 @ 8pm