Special Session II 2008 — Your Legislators Came Back From Recess on Wednesday, July 9 — Results: More Partisanship

THE FINAL DAY OF SPECIAL SESSION II — CONDUCT

At around 1:40 a.m. on Thursday, July 10, 2008, your legislators called it quits for Special Session II (SS II) and wearily left the capitol. Many just drove home after the session ended and the sine die adjournment gavel had banged down. Others had been on their cell phone making room arrangements once the session passed

11:05 p.m. Wednesday night without an “early” end in sight. Do remember that a legislative day ends when the presiding officers bang the gavels for adjournment. The adjournment can be for a recess to a time certain or “sine die” which brings an end to the whole “kit and caboodle.” So now the third effort in as many years to “fix the transportation crisis in Virginia” comes to an end.

For those of us who watch the legislature at work on a regular basis and who have maybe even participated in some legislative debates, the final day of SS II was an interesting example of the democratic process. True, no legislation to help fund future transportation projects in Virginia was passed, no deals were cut, no consensus was reached, and the state’s taxpayers footed a bill of well over $18,000 a day for the five day special session.

Yes, the debates were at times very partisan, the comments sharp, and the retorts caustic, but the decorum of the two bodies was maintained throughout the day. In fact on several occasions the answers to questions were humorous and entertaining. All of the participants conducted themselves in a gentlemanly and gentlewomanly fashion. There were no fist-fights, no pulling of guns, no challenges to duels, and no canes wielded in anger. For a number of reasons it was just impossible for a simple majority of this group of 140 elected officials to agree on a single solution to the problem.

The public and many members of the media will decry this session as a complete failure and a terrible waste of the money. No agreements were reached. So is this an inefficient way to govern? Perhaps it is not. But if you just want efficiency in your government, then please go to a country with a dictatorship or a benevolent monarchy (if you can find the latter). That’s where you get efficiency in government. Just also remember that you will give up a whole lot of other freedoms in exchange for “efficiency.”

THE FINAL RESULTS OF SS II 2008

The General Assembly’s Special Session II of 2008, as noted, adjourned in the wee hours of Thursday. Of course, the media has tagged G.A. SS II 2008 as the “do nothing session” of the General Assembly. It is very true no major transportation bill emerged from the session, therefore it is obvious the Legislative Leadership, particularly the House Republican Leadership, didn’t do its job!

As indicated in the GP of June 30, there were five groups at work during this Special Session. Two of the groups apparently did come to some consensus between the first five days of the session (June 23 thru June 27) and the sixth day (July 9). The Joint Senate and House Democratic Caucus met at the Homestead July 7, 8, and 9^th for a “retreat.” The mountain air of Bath County is apparently very conducive to reaching compromises. So these two groups were ready for action when they arrived in Richmond some three hours after leaving the invigorating atmosphere of the remote part of Senator Creigh Deeds’ (D) 25^th District — Hot Springs .

Word of the compromise on the part of these two “groups” preceded them to Richmond. Now isn’t that a surprise? It also was known by the other groups — the House Republicans, the Senate Republicans, and the Governor’s Administration — prior to the reconvening of SS II. These factors played into the floor debates on the afternoon of July 9.

Another factor which was to enter into the floor debates had occurred while the Joint Democratic Caucus was working on its compromise in the confines of the Appalachian Mountains. The Governor was publicly complaining about the House Republican Leadership not giving his proposal a full hearing before the full House. HB 6026 introduced by Delegate Ward Armstrong — (D) Martinsville and House Minority Floor Leader — was the Governor’s plan as devised by the Governor and his administration. HB 6026, as you will recall from your deep reading of the June 30 GP, failed to be reported by the House Rules Committee at its first hearing. The Committee had taken the vote to “PBI” HB 6026 on Thursday morning, June

26.

The Governor’s public statements were clear --he was certain there would be some Republican delegates who would vote for his proposal if given the opportunity. In fact, he even implied HB 6026 might pass if put before the full membership of the House.

When you are trying to solve a problem which obviously will require some major compromises do you really “throw down the gauntlet” to your major opponent? In the political arena, this kind of public chiding of the actions of your opponent normally brings more partisanship into the picture. Thus the stage was set for a full series of parliamentary maneuvers, partisan floor debates, party-line votes and, in the end, no significant progress.

The Republicans found a way to give the Governor his wish. The Rules Committee met shortly after the House convened at 1 pm and quickly recessed. Since HB 6026 had been PBIed by the committee only 1 legislative day prior to July 9 (you know, the legislature doesn’t go be calendar days but by “legislative days,” that is, days in which the GA is actually meeting!) the committee could reconsider the motion if such a motion was made by a member who had voted on the prevailing side. Since all of the Republican members had voted to Pass the Bill by Indefinitely (PBI), there was no problem getting the vote reconsidered and then adopting a motion to “report the bill to the floor without recommendation.” These motions were made over the objection of the Democrat members of the Committee, to no avail.

On the floor, Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, quickly got his motion to “Suspend the rules, dispense with the Constitutional Readings and take HB 6026 up out of order” on the floor. The House Minority Floor Leader and chief patron of the bill (Ward Armstrong) objected. He pointed out he was not notified that his bill would be taken up in the Rules Committee that morning. This is a courtesy normally extended to the chief patron of a bill. Of course, sometimes a meeting is called with very short notice and the Chairman of the Committee (in this case that’s The Speaker, Bill Howell) or the Clerk of the Committee (in this case the Clerk of the House, Bruce Jamerson also clerks the Rules Committee) just doesn’t have time to notify everyone of the agenda of a called meeting. Maybe, just maybe, some things had been decided in a closed caucus meeting held earlier in the day.

Ah, but two can play the parliamentary game. A motion to suspend the rules, etc. requires an ascending vote of 2/3^rd of the elected members (67). So when the vote on this procedural motion was 57 to 40, The Speaker had to rule the motion failed.

As a result, HB 6026 is still on the calendar but on first reading. The motion to re-refer the bill to Rules passed easily.

Now the platform was set for the Democrats to present their “joint compromise” using SB 6009, the “gas tax increase bill” as introduced by Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, the Senate Majority Leader and passed by the Senate on an earlier day of SS II. Well, the Democrats hadn’t waited until the proper time for floor debate on their amendments to SB 6009. During the “morning hour” a number of the House minority party had risen for “points of personal privilege” and expounded on the merits of this revised plan. Perhaps Delegate David Englin, D-Alexandria, put it in perspective for the Republicans by stressing the amendments would strip the bill of the gas tax increases and would include the reduction in the sales tax on food. “Thus,” David emphasized “with the amended bill we will have the ‘Saslaw lite’ bill!”

Ward put his amendments on the clerk’s desk and, I believe, expected to address them as the bill was taken up. But the Speaker informed him and the other delegates that there were other amendments which were more extensive and would be considered first. Delegate Clifford L. “Clay” Athey, Jr. (R-Front Royal) had put in a floor amendment in the nature of a Substitute for SB 6009. There was no need for the members to shuffle through the piles of paper on their floor desks to see if the clerk’s office had distributed copies of the substitute. Clay explained all they had to do was refer to their copy of the introduced HB 6026 and they would have his amendment in its entirety. The Delegate had, in effect, re-introduced the Governor’s original bill in the form of a substitute to SB 6009.

This parliamentary strategy was another effort on the part of the majority Republican Caucus to get the Democrats on record on the Governor’s proposal. From past experience, however, this is a dangerous move on the part of a “no tax increase” advocate such as “Clay.” The public doesn’t understand and frequently doesn’t approve of these kinds of parliamentary games. Can you imagine an aggressive opponent in 2009 holding up a copy of this “Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute” with Athey’s name as the patron and rattling off all of the tax increases it includes? He or she could keep Clay on the defensive the whole campaign trying to explain the intricacies of this partisan maneuver.

In the end the Republican leadership got what they wanted (and what the Governor claimed he wanted) which was a recorded vote on the Governor’s proposed program “to help solve the transportation crises.” The 0-98 vote against adopting the amendment might not have been exactly what the Governor expected. On the stump, of course, the Democrats will explain their vote, acknowledging that they had a “better, more realistic plan” coming up right after this vote. The Republicans are maintaining this proved the Governor’s plan had “no” support in the House just as it had “no” support in the state’s Senate. A bit of a stretch, no doubt, but then all you have to show the audience in a debate is a copy of that recorded vote!

The Democrat amendments to SB 6009, which imposed on the bill the compromise which the Democrat Joint Caucus had devised during the retreat, were adopted on a 95-1 vote. Independent Watt Abbitt voted no. The other “independent,” Lacey Putney, was absent — rumor had it he was watching a tennis tournament somewhere in Great Britain.

As a Republican delegate, how do you justify a vote in favor of these Democrat amendments, some of which do raise taxes? Well, you know, the substitute was less egregious than the base bill, therefore, “… I supported the amendments just in case the bill passed. I certainly didn’t want to burden my constituents with a 6 cent raise in gasoline taxes with gas prices the way they have been. These amendments deleted the gasoline taxes, which the Democrat Senators wanted, and it also took off the state portion of the sales tax on food. It was a better bill than what the Senate sent over to us --still not good, but better.”

It didn’t matter. The Republican majority with the help of four Democrats, laid this effort at a transportation solution to rest on a 39-59 vote.

The final effort by the House to achieve some kind of progress on the transportation issue was the passage of a substitute for Delegate Phil Hamilton’s, HB 6055 --“the Regional Bill.” Delegate Glenn Oder, R-Newport News, consulted with Hamilton and others in the Republican leadership in an effort to offset some of the criticism which the original HB 6055 received from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) and other Northern Virginia entities about the lack of funding for their particular region. The Oder substitute provided for some funds going to NOVA based on economic development generated from the Reagan and Dulles Airports. These funds would flow to the NVTA for use on transportation projects in northern Virginia. Like the Hampton Roads formula, these new dollars would be redirected from revenues that normally would go into the General Fund.

The patrons of this unique approach to generating new revenues for the two most congested portions of the state could not determine the exact amount of funds that would be raised for each of these regional authorities. After all, the growth required to make that assessment hasn’t happened yet. The bill did, however, cap those funds going to NVTA at $600 million and those going to the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority at $300 million (an increase of $50 million per year from Hamilton’s original bill.)

The House adopted Oder’s amendments on a 52-42 vote, mostly on a party line vote. Final passage was a little closer, 51-45, with three Republicans voting against the bill. Late in the evening, the bill was communicated to the Senate and referred to the Senate Finance Committee. It is still at rest there. The Senate Democrat Majority had stated it would not consider any bill that didn’t address the statewide transportation needs. The Administration had stated a similar position, so this new, unique method of funding “regional portions of the state” with “general funds” didn’t get a hearing in the Senate.

Early Thursday morning everyone decided it wasn’t worth dragging on any longer and your General Assembly adjourned sine die.

THE BLAME

During his morning hour comments, Delegate Albert Pollard, D-Northern Neck, lamented, “…the highway funding system is broken. The question for us is how do we fix the problem? There seem to be two kinds of people here, those who want to fix the problem and those that want to shift the blame!”

Since July 9, editors, bloggers, columnists, and other experts have blasted the General Assembly’s special session as a “colossal failure”, a “waste of tax payers money,” a “travesty,” and the list goes on. SS II certainly did not solve the transportation crisis or even address a “little bit of it.” So, yes, the legislators did not accomplish what they were called to Richmond to do. But before we heap scorn and abuse on all of the legislators, let’s remember the legislators didn’t call the special session, the Governor did.

True, Governor Tim Kaine had announced during the regular session of the Assembly that he would probably call a special session to deal with transportation, particularly after the Supreme Court struck down the regional plans put into practice in 2007 through the passage of HB 3202. During the spring months, it is my understanding he did consult with the leadership of both houses. These consultations included both Democrat and Republican Leaders. But, it is also my understanding (from members of both parties who attended some of these meetings) that the majority of the time was spent listening to the Governor’s recommendation for “the fixing of the transportation problems.”

Observing the recent occurrences from a distance, it appears to me the Governor thought he could put forth a plan, sell it to the public with town meetings, and the public would put pressure on the legislature to pass his plan. In this instance the Governor’s advisors may not have served him well. The Democrat Legislative Leadership didn’t enthusiastically endorse The Administration Plan, and I believe before you as Governor call a special session of the General Assembly you have to have at least your own troops lined up to be supportive of your program. From the results of SS II, this doesn’t seem to have been accomplished.

The Virginian-Pilot had a particularly critical editorial on July 11 in which the editor essentially blamed “Speaker Bill Howell and his lieutenants” for being the principal architects of the political stalemate that “leaves Virginia with little hope for progress (in transportation).” The House Republican Leadership certainly played partisan parliamentary games in SS II and was part of the problem rather than the solution.

In reviewing the situation realistically, as I hope this and previous GP’s have done, the statement in the editorial on which I hope people will focus is, “Every leader in Virginia bears a portion of the blame for this debacle…” Perhaps The Governor, as indicated in an earlier GP, could have followed a more productive path to calling a special session, as did some of his predecessors. The Business Community could have come out more aggressively to back a particular approach to solving the problem. Local government officials who endorsed the regional plans put forth in HB 3202 didn’t seem to step forward with an alternative plan prior to SS II.

The state of the economy and the high fuel costs certainly haven’t helped. Our citizens appear to be more worried about paying their bills than getting the transportation systems fixed. Of course, a good transportation system contributes to a healthy economy, but sometimes it is hard for the voting public to grasp the connection. The “breather” which it now appears the legislature and the Governor will take from trying to solve the transportation “crisis” may give every faction in this drama an opportunity to re-access their position, seek new approaches to solving the problem, and develop a greater appreciation for the position of others. Heaven knows, maybe then all five of the governmental groups can agree to a strategy to help the people.