House Debates SB 6009 (Saslaw bill)
Posted by Chap at 7/9/2008 3:19 PM and is filed under uncategorized 
Back at the State Capitol today. Hurry up and wait ...
The House has been engaged in an interminable debate on the bill (SB 6009) we passed two weeks ago. Speech, recess, speech, recess.
The House Dems are trying to amend the bill to remove the statewide gas tax increase. The Repubs are trying to avoid giving them that opportunity.
It's now 4:15 pm.
Hopefully we'll get a bill sometime before this evening. I only brought one suit, as I was in trial this a.m. and had to leave for Richmond right after closing argument.
I'll update as events warrant ...
Update at 7:54 pm
The House has spiked the Saslaw bill. As far as I can tell, they are adjourned. No statewide plans are coming out (unless I'm missing something). What a mistake.
In the Senate, we are voting on judges, which is always a way to fill free time at the State Capitol.
Update at 11:50 pm
It's almost midnight and we're in Twilight Zone territory. I just got out of the Transportation Committee meeting where we voted on a dozen bills that passed the House. The ones we passed mostly dealt with highway maintenance. The bills dealing with new $$ have been referred to Finance which is meeting now.
No telling when this day ends. Whatever gets out will likely be small potatoes.
Chap, It's too bad all Virginians have our interests and quality of life so abused by the need of the Virginia GOP to conduct their 2009 campaign kick-off instead of fulfilling their responsibilities. Their criticism of Kaine for "wasting time and money" holding this special session reminds me of someone blaming a shooting victim for getting in the way of a speeding bullet.
Paul:
I agree that the Virginia GOP is acting badly. They are refusing to address the statewide problems in transportation. The gas tax (measured in cents per gallon, not a percentage of the cost) has not been increased in 20+ years. Total sales of gas have increased but not the number of cents/gallon. Bottom line - the gas tax, long believed to be the backbone of Virginia transportation funding, has been decreasing in effectiveness for two decades. Why? Well, the idea-free Republicans simply ignore the problem while proclaiming themselves to be anti-tax. Their latest banter is that Vehicle Miles Driven is falling and, therefore, congestion may ease of its own accord. The problems with this argument are too numerous to fully list in a 3000 character post. However, here are a few - maintenance cost coverage, infrastructure repair, fewer miles driven means less gas tax (not just slower growing gas tax), overall congestion does not equal specific choke points, etc.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party of Virginia is far from clean on this issue. Although action-oriented, the Democrats sometimes "gin up" cures that are worse than the disease they are treating. The NoVA HOT lanes deal is a case in point. Here is an excellent, recent analysis of that deal:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2458.asp
This is a win-lose contract. If congestion really falls then the citizens and politicians win and the private companies involved lose. If congestion increases then the citizens and politicians lose and the private companies win.
Guess what?
The private companies appear to have won the contracting war. Gov. Kaine and VDOT have given away too much and we (the people of Northern Virginia) are going to pay the price.
This is what happens when intransigence (on the part of Republicans) meets excessive experimentation (on the part of the Democrats).
Having said all that, I still hold the Republicns more responsible for this fiasco than the Democrats. I believe that 3 key efforts are needed:
1. The Democrats, at the state level, must clarify this fiasco in the run up to the 2009 election in NoVA. This mess should be enough to lose NoVA for Republicans for the next 30 years. However, this will only happen if NoVA's Democratic GA members start running away from this hideous toll deal right now. It will too late once the tolls are in place. Blame Kaine, blame VDOT, blame the fates but blame someone and run away from this disaster. The Republicans are already saying Kaine gave away the store (maybe true).
2. The Democrats must go after the Republican stronghold in Hampton Roads. They have all the same transportation problems and all the same Republican non-answers. Meanwhile, they remain too much of a Republican stronghold.
3. The NoVA Democrats and the Hampton Roads Democrats (perhaps with state politicians from Charlottesville) should form a unified front against the state Republicans.