SB 648 Is Not Reform—It’s Government by Exception

By Ron Rise Sr.

When government is healthy, its laws are simple: general rules, openly debated, applied evenly, and restrained by due process. When government is sick, its laws grow clever: written for a moment, for a place, for a conflict—and justified by urgency. Senate Bill 648 looks like the second kind.

Thomas Paine would recognize the danger immediately. A free people do not fix turmoil by granting new powers that bypass the people’s choice. Thomas Jefferson would add the deeper warning: if you must expand power, bind it tightly—because power, once given, rarely returns unused.

SB648 is offered as a remedy for a town’s disorder. Yet it is written as a law of exception—defined by planning district and a narrow population band. If a reform is just, it should stand as a general law. If it must be aimed by classification so that it hits one target without naming it, citizens will not trust it, and other localities will resist it. In a republic, we do not govern by dart; we govern by principle.

The first and most serious problem is Section 1. It compels suspension of a town officer during a felony proceeding—before any conviction—by automatic command. Supporters will say, “It’s only temporary,” or “The courts will handle it.” But in free government, accusation is not verdict, and “temporary” is how precedents are born. If the mere existence of a case is enough to force suspension, then the people’s vote becomes a conditional privilege rather than a right.

Accountability is necessary. But it must be achieved in a way that does not convert charge into punishment. Jefferson’s remedy would be process: a prompt hearing, written findings of necessity, and periodic review. Paine’s remedy would be legitimacy: never replace a public choice with an unelected one under vague authority.

That brings us to the phrase “some suitable person.” Suitable to whom? By what standard? Under what limits? An appointed substitute in an elected seat is not a small thing. It moves power away from the people and into the hands of a few. If an interim replacement is truly needed, it should occur through chartered, locally legitimate procedures—not a broad invitation for appointment.

Section 2 and Section 3 carry a different risk. An independent study of debt, infrastructure, utilities, and major liabilities can be healthy—indeed, many towns could benefit from a clear baseline. 

But the bill provides no funding and demands a study broad enough to become expensive and distracting if not tightly scoped. If the goal is truth, then the deliverable must be more than a narrative report: an asset condition baseline, a ten-year capital plan, a utility rate and debt stress test, a prioritization rubric, and clear options for charter governance—with tradeoffs stated plainly.

Finally, Section 4 risks turning town government into a courtroom routine. Restricting votes to items published days in advance may sound like transparency, but pairing it with resident standing, priority docket treatment, and attorney-fee awards invites procedural lawsuits as a political weapon. This is not common sense. It is faction by design. Neighbors will pay the bill in legal fees, delays, and paralysis.

Paine would ask a simple question: does this law strengthen the people’s control over their government, or does it weaken it? Jefferson would ask: if it must be done, are the safeguards strong enough to prevent abuse by the next person with power?

Purcellville—and every town—deserves accountable government. But we should not purchase order by weakening representation, and we should not trade liberty for the convenience of a shortcut. In the end, the best remedy for disorder is not a clever statute aimed at one place. It is a principled law, applied generally, restrained by process, and anchored in the consent of the governed.