You General Assembly Continues and Really, Really Starts to

PLOW NEW GROUND

 

DATE: Thursday, March 30, 2006

 

THE SPECIAL SESSION

You have read or heard about the Special Session of your General Assembly which the Governor called for Monday, March 27. The need for this Special Session is only partially plowing new ground. But some of the actions taken this week by the Governor and the State Senate are really, really “plowing new ground.”

In the middle of Governor Warner’s term as Governor (2004) the Assembly came to the same type of impasse on the budget and the disagreement over whether there was a need for new taxes to meet the needs of the Commonwealth as the legislature is experiencing this year. You remember that 17 maverick (or were they problem solving?) Republican delegates finally broke with the “no-tax-increase” majority in their caucus and the tax increase bills were passed. With these new revenues assured, the 2004-2006 Appropriations Act was passed and approved on June 25, 2004—five days before the beginning of the next fiscal year.

While the 2004 situation was a new experience for the legislators and for the Commonwealth, the procedures they followed were according to tradition. Tax bills were introduced as separate measures from the Appropriations Act. These different pieces of legislation were passed independent of each other allowing legislators to vote nay on the tax bills and aye on the appropriations bill if they so chose (and some did just that!).

For several decades’ members of both the House and the Senate who do not serve on the budget writing committees have complained that the members of these committees were “legislating through the Appropriations Act rather than just deciding how the revenues of the Commonwealth should be spent.” As the size of the state government has grown the budget has become more and more complicated. From a 100 page document in the 1960’s where every item referred directly to an amount of money, the Appropriations Act has expanded to a 600 page (plus or minus) “book” with pages and pages of language spelling out how certain aspects of various agencies should be run.

In 2004 a new wrinkle crept into the budget bill. The effective dates of all previous even-year budgets had been from the first day of the biennial budget period, July 1 of the year in which it was passed, until the last day of the period, June 30th two years hence. However, the 2004 Appropriations Act had a Part 5 added to the bill. This section, in this instance, eight pages at the end of the final act, spelled out “enactment numbers 2 through 5.” The fourth enactment states, “That the provisions of the first enactment (the budget portion of the bill) of this act shall expire midnight on June 30, 2006. The provisions of the second and third enactments of this act shall have no expiration date.”

This means that the last eight pages of this act became a permanent part of the Code of Virginia on July 1, 2004 like all the other pieces of legislation passed during the 2004 session. Thus the increase in fees for the ABC Board, the extra judgeships created, the added public defenders, and the establishment of credits for cigarettes manufactured and exported from Virginia, all contained in enactment two and three, were established in law without being individually considered by the legislators.

OK, maybe some of the members actually knew about this Part 5 of HB 5001, but there is some question as just how many really knew about it. It is also interesting that the introduced “caboose bill—HB/SB 29” this year had no Part 5 in it. Perhaps the staffs and members of the money committees knew about Part 5 since Warner’s introduced budget that year had some important pieces of legislation tucked away under the enactment clauses of Part 5. Just little things like the establishment of the Virginia Health Care Fund, like raising the sales tax by one percent, and taking the no car tax program to 100% by 2008. You know just little changes in some state programs. Since all of these “little changes” were stripped out of the final version of the budget, some legislators were aware of this “new wrinkle” in the bill. But the questions remain, are these appropriations? No matter which way you think about it, the precedent was set and is now being used very extensively.

NOW COMES 2006

Now comes the confrontation of 2006 over how to address the “Virginia transportation crisis of the twenty-first century.” When the House killed the Senate tax bill (SB 708) for its Transportation Plan, guess where the Senators placed all of their tax bill language? You are correct. Part 5 of the Appropriations Act became a neat place for the Senate to place the entirety of its Transportation Plan. Of course, technically all of the budget and tax bills died when the General Assembly adjourned sine die without passing HB 29 or 30.

With the coming of the Special Session there comes some new actions by the legislators. First the House introduced its own budgets as HB 5001 (the caboose bill—old HB 29) and HB 5002 (the biennial budget for 2006-2008—or old HB 30). In the past the Governor has always “sent down” the Appropriation Act. On Monday morning (March 27th), the House Appropriations Committee added the same amendments it had placed on HB 29 in February and passed HB 5001.

The full House took similar action on Monday afternoon and sent only this bill to the Senate. Then they adjourned until Thursday at 9am for a “pro forma session.” (You only need two or three members to be present to convene and immediately adjourn since you do not anticipate any business being done).

Meanwhile, the Senate was much more deliberate. First it accepted the normal procedure and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman, John Chichester, introduced the Governor’s budget bill as SB 5001. Now just take a quick guess as to what was in Part 5 of this introduced Appropriations Act. There were some 51 pages of “Part 5--Enactments” numbered 2 through 13. Included are Governor Warner’s (now Governor Kaine’s) initiative to rebuild the mental health system in Virginia and Governor Kaine’s entire Transportation Plan, including all of the recommended fees and tax increases. Now this is really plowing new ground, just like the Senate had done when it put its Transportation Plan on HB 30 during the session!

The Senate Finance Committee held hearings on the transportation issue on Monday and Tuesday of this week. They struggled to find some new plan to meet their criteria to have a sufficient, sustainable source of new revenue f or the state’s transportation system and, just maybe, one which would be more acceptable to the House conferees. Wednesday morning the Committee unanimously adopted a modified plan with a center piece of allowing “regional authorities” to be created. This would allow various localities around the state to come together, create regional transportation authorities and raise certain designated local funds to meet the regions most critical transportation needs. The plan also abandoned the so-called “rack-tax” on gasoline and replaced it with a tax on terminal operators.

The Committee then plowed totally new ground. It took the one House vehicle it had (HB 5001) and amended it with a substitute that included SB 5001 (the Caboose Bill) AND SB 5002—the 2006-2008 Budget Bill. Many of the “assembly watchers” in the audience registered their disbelief. However, the Chairman, John Chichester, explained Article X, Section 7 of the Virginia Constitution states, “…no such appropriation shall be made which is payable more than two years and six months after the end of the session of the General Assembly at which the law is enacted authorizing the same.” With this as their authority, the Committee members were comfortable making HB 5001 a two year and three month Appropriations Act. Oh yes, of course, you do realize the amendments placed on the bill by the committee included the Senate’s new transportation plan under Part 5 of the Act. They had replaced the one which the Governor had in the introduced SB 5002.

THE FULL SENATE BALKS

When the Substitute for HB 5001 got to the Senate floor there was an unexpected gap in the thinking of the committee and the large majority of the rest of the senators. After a number of caucuses-- including the very unusual one in which all of the members of the Senate participated—Democrats and Republicans—the regional authorities part of the plan was scrapped, the grantors tax from the Senate’s original plan was reinstated and the terminal operators tax put in place of the rack tax. Thus, Part 5 of the bill became the modified Senate Transportation Plan. After an amendment to strip all of the new taxes from the bill wa s made by the “no tax increase” members and defeated (31-6), the bill passed 38-0. Now the House has to act. Public comments by “some of the leadership of the House” about the “revised Senate plan” don’t sound encouraging. There still doesn’t appear to be much appetite for compromise on the House side.

The good news continues to be that the conferees and the leaders of the two houses are still talking. Tommy Norment, the Majority Floor Leader, noted in his closing comments to the Senate before he moved to adjourn on Wednesday (the 29th) that he had been in telephone contact with the House Leadership and they were coordinating the next step. This “step” turned out to be an agreement to convene both houses at noon on Monday, April 3. This they will do. Will the conferees meet in the meantime—no one seems to know.

HARRY J. PARRISH

Delegate Harry J. Parrish, died on Wednesday and his passing was noted by John Chichester during the Senate Finance Committee’s meeting. The respect in which his colleagues held Harry was displayed when the Senate adjourned in his honor and the Governor ordered the state flag on the capitol flown at half mast. Harry had been the “Gentleman from Manassas” on the House floor for almost 25 years. He had also served his home town (later a city) from 1951 until he was elected to the House in 1981. He was mayor from 1963-1981—first as town mayor and then as city mayor.

Two statements from a very long article in the Manassas Journal Messenger titled “City says goodbye to friend, colleague” says a great deal about the type of person Harry was. “Despite criticism from conservative anti-tax hawks in the House, Parrish’s legislative style was one of compromise, and he was viewed as the consummate civil servant.”

The second quote is from the statement released by Governor Kaine, “…composure and dignity combined with his commitment to working in a bipartisan manner for the future of the commonwealth made him a true Virginia Gentleman.”

On the personal side, I worked with Harry from the time he came to the House of Delegates in 1982 until a few days before the end of the 2006 session when he went in the hospital. We were first colleagues (from 1982 until 1996) and then coworkers for a number of issues important to both of us. Harry was a person who put the betterment of the Commonwealth above the betterment of his party, the welfare of others above his personal welfare, and his belief in his God above all else. He will be sorely missed as a dedicated, thoughtful legislator and as a friend.

 

Links to Previous Giesen Perspectives:

March 20, 2006 March 6, 2006 Feb. 27, 2006 Feb. 17 and 19 2006 Feb. 10, 2006 Feb. 3, 2006 Jan. 27, 2006 Jan. 23, 2006 Jan. 16, 2006 Dec. 21, 2005 Nov. 9, 2005 Oct. 21, 2005 Sept. 16, 2005 Aug. 26, 2005 Aug. 19, 2005 July 7, 2005 June 8, 2005 May 27, 2005 April 7, 2005 March 10, 2005 February 21, 2005 February 14, 2005 February 8, 2005 January 31, 2005 January 15, 2005 December 23, 2004 November 19, 2004