You're right, I did not read to end and will take my beating for that; however, I did read the VA Constitution and saw nothing in there saying that fines for out-of-state motorists must be used for public education. In fact, I didn't see any reference at all to fines for out-of-state drivers. We all know that just because an AP reporter says it, doesn't necessarily make it so.
There is some reason, of course, that it wasn't applied to out-of-state drivers. Maybe their hands are tied in some manner. Maybe they don't want to discourage people from travelling through the state. Maybe they were afraid of a challenge under the commerce clause of the US Constitution.
Interestingly, I did see two provisions of interest in the VA Constitution that could impact this matter. I'm paraphrasing, but the first says that there can be no excessive fines and the second says that people in similar circumstances must be taxed in a similar manner. This is either a fine or a tax or a combination of the two and it would seem to violate one or both of those provisions.
Anyway, there are enough arguments against the constitutionality of this law that I don't see how it can stand. The most amazing thing is that the Legilature had the audacity to enact it in the first place. Of course, maybe they took their cue from McCain-Feingold.
The Literary Fund ammendment requires that ALL fines for crimes against the commonwealth go to the Literary Fund to support education. Doesn’t have anything to do with whether the person fined is a citizen or not.
So they couldn’t increase fines to pay for road work, because they would go straight to the NEA. So they levied administrative fees on Virginia driver’s license holders that have violated traffic laws. Too clever by half.
Virginia voters need to re-ammend their constitution and undo that NEA wetdream called the Literary Fund.