Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

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Dan Casey

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You may have thought from all the recent hullabaloo that all our state lawmakers would do this year is rape Virginia's public education and liberalize gun laws.

That stuff is in the works, indeed. But lots else has happened, too. So with barely three weeks left in the General Assembly session, here is a Richmond update:

• Human rights: One of Gov. Bob McDonnell's earliest executive orders was to renew an anti-discrimination order former Gov. Tim Kaine issued in 2006 that applied to state workers.

Except, McDonnell deleted a couple of words that Kaine had included. Those were "sexual orientation."

That is worrisome news for gay and lesbian state workers, who have been specifically protected against discrimination based on their orientation for the past four years.

The Senate has passed a bill (SB 66) that would write such protections into state law. But the House of Delegates will mostly likely kill it. They bottled up similar legislation in their chamber.

• Transportation: Another thing McDonnell did, as he pondered cutting an additional $730 million from state support for public schools, was to reopen the 19 interstate rest areas Gov. Tim Kaine had closed to save millions.

You might conclude from this that drivers' bladders are a bigger priority for McDonnell than education, or perhaps winter snow clearing. But at least the governor has requested a bailout from the Obama administration on the latter.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly has increased the speed limit on rural interstates. That will cost money the state doesn't have to change all those 65 mph signs -- but the total hasn't been calculated yet.

• Judgeships: It's not unheard of for the General Assembly to engage in a political vendetta (or two) against members of the state judiciary, and this session is no exception.

McDonnell did it as a delegate in 2003, back when he helped dump a black female Circuit Court judge from Newport News whom many people suspected was gay. The question about her was whether she had sexually harassed a female subordinate.

The victim this year is Circuit Court Judge William Alexander, a 26-year veteran of the bench in Franklin County.

Alexander released a special grand jury report that charged Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt with a crime and suggested Hunt's teenage daughter was running the sheriff's department.

That rankled some of Hunt's fellow Republicans in the House of Delegates, and they grilled the judge about that Wednesday in an extraordinary hearing.

Perhaps the lawmakers will appoint a warm body with a law degree who can protect Sheriff Hunt from any more bad publicity about how he may be abusing the public trust.

• Taxes: As state tax revenues have plummeted, our taxation-shy lawmakers have carefully avoided enacting any tax increases.

In some ways that is understandable, because we're in a recession and lots of people have been laid off.

But the budget-cutting in Richmond so far portends more layoffs, especially for teachers and state workers.

I don't know about you, but that seems like the wrong direction rather than the right one.