Lessons Learned (if any)
Posted by Chap at 7/11/2008 6:37 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
I got home about 4:15 a.m. on Thursday. The denouement of the Great Transportation Special Session of 2008 was predictably surreal, with committees meeting in the Old Senate Chamber after midnight to take up bills just passed from the House.
In the end, we named a couple bridges, passed some minor maintenance bills and wasted a lot of time. Nothing was done to alleviate the shortfall in revenue or change the policies that currently drive VDOT.
The real ending came at about 5 pm when the House defeated the Senate plan on a vote of 59-39. Because the House did not amend it or pass a substitute, there was nothing to be worked out as a compromise. At that point, the session was over.
What did we learn? I've been thinking about that over the past couple days.
First, it is very hard to corral 140 part-time legislators together for special session. Lawmakers were constantly coming and going. I had a closing argument in a trial that lasted til noon on Wednesday, which meant I showed up an hour late.
Second, there is a total disconnect in the House of Delegates between Northern Virginia and downstate. (The Senate is the reverse as Democrats are in the majority and we have 10 Senators that touch the Rappahannock or points north). In the House, there is zero motivation to do anything at the state level to solve problems up here. Of the 59 Delegates who voted against the Senate plan, how many have sat in rush hour traffic on Route 66 or tried to catch an Orange Line train at 6 a.m.? How about none.
Third, Richmond has been trying to impose local option taxes on Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads since 2001. It's always the same tripe ("you all want to raise taxes ... go right ahead!"). It's time to give it up. We need statewide taxes and revenues with the largest regions receiving the most money.
Fourth, we need a statewide vision for transportation. It needs to come from the top. It needs to knit together the regions of this state along the major transportation corridors (95, 64 and 81). It needs to be bigger than just an endless call for higher taxes or the usual "sky is falling" rhetoric from local politicians.
Let me give you an example ...
When I first got involved in Virginia politics in 1994, my dream was to see a high-speed train along the 95 corridor like the "shinkansen" train in Japan. You could get on it in downtown Richmond and disembark an hour later at Union Station in D.C. My innocent thought (I was 26) was that such a train could connect the different parts of the state so that people could live where they wanted and work where they needed to be.
Where the hell is it? How much more time are we going to waste on the same stupid policies? Does anyone think that pouring a few thousand more yards of concrete on the Beltway is going to solve a damn thing?
Yes, I'm frustrated. I'm angry that people in my district go to work at dawn and come home late at night -- and their tax dollar is subsidizing the entire state.
And what do we have to show for it? A lot of tiresome "no tax" sermons from the same crowd that put "In God We Trust" in every school building in Virginia (and yes I voted for that bill and yes I trust in God).
I love this old state. Let's be something better.
High Speed train you have got to be kidding talk about pie in the sky rhetoric. Come back when you mature beyond 26.
"It needs to be bigger than just an endless call for higher taxes or the usual "sky is falling" rhetoric from local politicians"
Guess what... Thats all the democrats were offering up.
Where was your transportation plan hotshot.
Please spare us the political b.s. and come back when you actually have a solution beyond typical democrat talking points.
Actually a high speed train makes mucho sense. Your comments on the other hand, Bob, make no sense.
Seriously??? a high speed train from Virginia Beach to Richmond to DC!!! Do you know how much that would cost? Why would you live and work in an entirely different metro area?
And how exactly does that help Chaps constituents? Unless Chap is considering running for higher office again already
P.S. the personal attacks are unnecessary please respond to my actual points in the future
A high speed train sounds good to me. Maybe while we are at it we could, move some freight, from trucking to rail!
Sen. Petersen:
I understand your frustration. While I don't have to live in the surreal world of the General Assembly I do have to live with the outcomes from that world. And the recent record of the General Assembly has been pretty bad. The abuser fees were passed then almost immediately repealed. Other aspects of HB3202 were found to be unconstitutional. Now, a special session has been called, held and accomplished nothing.
Of course, you know all this. In fact, your comments indicate that you see the problems pretty clearly. For example:
"First, it is very hard to corral 140 part-time legislators together for special session.".
Yes. Virginia's lawmakers should be full time politicians and forbidden from holding other employment while in office. Would you invest in a company with $35B in annual revenues run by part time executives? I understand that the state would have to pay the legislators a decent salary. In my mind, it's well worth the price to get full time focus on the problems. I also understand that people worry that politicians will lose perspective if they spend all their time as politicians. We have solved this problem for our full time governor. Maybe no more than 2 consecutive terms as senator and no more than 3 as delegate? Please don't say that the GA will be too inexperienced and nothing will get done. Nothing is getting done now.
"In the House, there is zero motivation to do anything at the state level to solve problems up here.".
You have that right. However, there is plenty of motivation to keep taking an absurd transfer of taxes from up here. Yet Northern Virginia's legislators never bring up any of these facts and figures at election time. First, NoVA should become a "no go zone" for any candidate failing to disclose, discus and oppose the ridiculous transfer of wealth from NoVA (and some other places) to elsewhere. To date, only Dave Albo has publicly made this point with facts and figures. Good for Dave.
"We need statewide taxes and revenues with the largest regions receiving the most money.".
That's right. Imposing regional "user pays" taxes is just another way of increasing the transfer payments from NoVA (and some other places). The basic argument of politicians from places like Henrico County is easy to understand - a) We already get a lot of NoVA's money. b) If NoVA wants new things they should pay for them rather than reducing our subsidy. c) We like taking NoVA's money despite having a per capita income equal to that of Prince William County.
NoVA isn't alone. Tidewater is getting ripped off. So is Albemarle and other counties in Central Virginia.
Sen. Petersen - you need a plan to bring NoVA together and, then, to ally with the other victims of Richmond. You also need to shout these points from the highest mountaintop you can find in the loudest voice you can muster.
Excellent Post overall Groveton with one caveat
Chap and Groveton, the problem with statewide tax increases is they continue to rip NoVa off.
The optimal solution is to change the funding formulas so NoVa gets its fair share
Seeing how that is pretty unlikely the Regional Ideas actually make sense to me I'll try and exaplain
In a regional concept you raise 500 million you keep 500 million
In a statewide concept say for 1 Billion. NoVa still raises 500 million but then only gets back say 300 million.
So in summary I am at an interesting crossroads. I will continue to vote Republican until there is a majority of NoVa and HR/TW legislators who can fix the funding formula. Only then should we move to have statewide funding
Feel free to comment. I freely admit I might be totally missing the boat.
Thanks everyone for the posts. I've been out for the past couple days but here's some quick points:
1. As far as a pushing a plan, I co-sponsored SB 5018 with John Edwards (D-Roanoke) at the outset of the session. It used only statewide taxes and dedicated a disproportionate share (35%) of the resulting proceeds to Northern VA. Yes, it was based on the gas tax so you can criticize that, but it's still the fairest way to allocate the burden, IMO. You get those out-of-state drivers to pay up.
2. The Senate plan (Saslaw bill) also dedicated a disproportionate share back to NoVa. The way he did that was by taking 25% of all new $$ and dedicating that to mass transit, of which 73% goes to NoVA which is the only area with a Metro system. NoVA would have received $100-170M from the bill for transit, which would have been eligible for a Fed match (so the $$ would have been doubled in real dollars). That was the best part of the bill. Losing this $$ was a big loss.
3. As far as statewide rail plan, we currently have a heavily-used commuter rail in NoVA (VRE), a planned rail line in Norfolk-VA Beach, and a faulty Amtrak service between the two. Why not consolidate these fragmented services into one superior, high-speed line? That's common sense to me. It's not going to happen tomorrow but it will happen.
4. I appreciate that there's an honest disagreement of opinion on regional plans. I'm familiar with the Albo argument that "you get back 100% you pay in." But how do you konw that you're still getting back your usual allocation from Richmond? Is one revenue source replacing another? Anyway, this argument won't be satisfied on this thread.
Thanks for chiming in everyone. Peace, Chap
This is how number 4 would actually work
Granted this is the Northern Virginia Republican perspective (yes there is actually such a thing)
1. We keep everything we put in for transportation
2. Then we quit raising the revenue as quickly at the general fund level because as has been said numerous times. EVERY TIME THERE IS A BUDGET INCREASE NOVA PUTS IN MORE THAN IT TAKES OUT.
Chap,
This is definitely an agree to disagree none of these ever need responses. Enjoy some time off with your family and don't think about this for the next couple months. You deserve it. After all its a part-time legislature right...
At the risk of stating the obvious ...
We are going to take this issue back up in January. You can count on that. Thanks again, Chap
Chap, What impact were Grover norquist's 2 letters? Vogel parrots Bolling's talking points verbatim here. I especially like that those who dismiss Kaine's numbers include revenue from oil that hasn't been drilled, if so in what quantity?, at what rate, when will it start? Balderdash!