All results / Stories / Kenneth R. “Ken” Plum, State Delegate (D-36)
Commentary: A Faithful Budget
This column is being written before the results of the election are known. Regardless of the outcome, however, the winners will face tough challenges. Growing numbers of persons unemployed and in poverty require consideration and response even as budgets get more difficult to balance.
Opinion: Commentary: An Amazing Year
With more than two months remaining in 2020, I can already say that it has been an amazing year in Virginia’s history.
Opinion: Commentary: A Civic Duty
As we probably learned and as we teach our children, voting is the most important of civic duties.
Column: Not Up to the Challenge
It is not easy to admit that you are not up to a challenge that hundreds of your constituents face each day, but that’s what happened to me last week. ProgressVA sponsored the “Live the Wage Challenge” asking elected officials, community leaders, advocates and everyday citizens to walk in the shoes of a minimum wage worker by living on a minimum wage budget for one week.
Opinion: Commentary: Relief Is on the Way!
Relief seems to be on the way for some of the drastic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with the discovery and manufacturing of several vaccines and the incredible rate at which the vaccines are being administered.
Reform the Reforms
Reform would re-direct education expectations to ensure that every child was a successful learner.
Not unlike a raw material fed into one end of the school factory, the children are expected to come out the other end as a defined product. Teachers are the assembly-line workers with strict product specifications their students are expected to meet with the teacher’s rate of pay increasingly dependent upon the students’ performance.
Opinion: Commentary: Ending Election Fraud
My earliest experience in government and politics came when I was a senior in high school.
Column: The Nature of Virginia
Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe hit the ground running when the day after his election he announced his transition team and a webpage at which he solicits ideas and suggestions and invites resumes from those who want to work in his administration: http://action.terrymcauliffe.com/page/s/transition.
Commentary: Mental Health Needs Go Unmet
Under provisions of the Code of Virginia that were strengthened after the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, an individual who has a mental illness and is likely to cause “serious harm to himself or others” or who has “a lack of capacity” to protect himself from harm or to provide for basic human needs and “is in need of hospitalization or treatment,” may be held under a temporary detention order.
Commentary:Paving the Way
The Reconvened Session of the General Assembly that met last week concluded work for this year on the most significant funding program for transportation infrastructure approved by the legislature since the historic special session in 1986.
Commentary: Helping the Working Poor
In the season of giving when thoughts turn to what can be done to help friends and neighbors in the community who do not make enough to make ends meet, there are many efforts to help them with a basket of food at the holidays, a food and clothes closet and other well-meaning and important giving programs.
Column: Keeping Up to Date
My experience is that the annual summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) provides the best continuing education I can get as a legislator.
Commentary: Leaving a Lasting Legacy
Events of the past couple of weeks remind me of the wonderful people in our community who tirelessly and endlessly work to ensure that others have a good quality of life. A good friend and former colleague of mine, Elizabeth Link, passed away after a bout with cancer.
Commentary: Time to Stand Up
The General Assembly has adjourned its annual session. In future columns I will write about bills that survived the Governor’s veto pen and those that did not.