Kaine chops citizens' right to petition government

Brian Kirwin reports on Tim Kaine's removal of a vital part of a bill that was passed unanimously by the House and Senate:

Has our Governor lost his mind?

Gloucester citizens circulated petitions to recall members of their Board of Supervisors, and a judge responded by slapping the citizens with $80,000 of court costs for exercising their first amendment freedoms “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Judges in my lifetime are impossible. They read things into the Constitution that were never there, but ignore things that are written in plain English.

Tamara Dietrich of the Daily Press wrote an excellent column here, and she makes a great point.

Kaine omitted the part of the bill that protected anyone who signed or circulated the petition from “any costs associated with removal proceedings conducted pursuant to the petition, including attorney fees incurred by any other party or court cost.”

He omitted the point of the bill, one that passed both the House and the Senate unanimously.

Kaine actually added procedures where citizens could be nailed with giant legal bills, including paying for those they tried to boot from office.

Brian goes on at Bearing Drift to explain what the governor did to the bill ... a slap in the face to any law-abiding citizen who wants to exercise their right to speak out.