It's Lawmaking Time In the Old Dominion

"You don't want to get so broad that you lose your focus," Skinner said. "As big and as complex an issue as transportation is, it seems sensible to just try to focus on that."

Similarly, Kaine is not planning to immediately pursue a campaign promise that was of great interest in Northern Virginia: curbing the rapid rise in real estate taxes.

In March, Kaine called for a state constitutional amendment to allow local governments to exempt as much as 20 percent of a home's value from real estate taxes. Homeowners in the Washington suburbs had just received their tax bills, a number of which had more than doubled over the previous five years.

But Kaine's tax relief plan, like the transportation trust fund proposal, would require the assembly to pass a resolution supporting an amendment this year or next and then again in 2008, then present the amendment to voters.

Kaine aides said that because the governor-elect will focus much of his time on transportation, he will launch the tax relief effort next year.

Several lawmakers have said they will offer bills to restore the authority of local governments in Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area to use cameras that monitor whether drivers stop at red lights. Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax) is drafting such legislation.

The law authorizing the cameras expired last year despite efforts by lawmakers from Northern Virginia to extend it. Advocates of the technology say that it helps reduce serious accidents, but opponents say that its benefits are not clear and that the cameras are an invasion of privacy.

Kaine believes local governments should have the authority to install the cameras if they want, putting him at odds with many Republican lawmakers from rural areas.

The debate -- so prominent in Northern Virginia -- over whether the state should impose more restrictions on illegal immigrants also will probably continue during the session.

Kaine's stance that the enforcement of immigration law is a federal responsibility is likely to put him in conflict with conservative legislators, such as Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who want to impose new state restrictions on illegal immigrants.

Albo is developing a proposal that would make it a violation of state law for an illegal immigrant to be in Virginia. He said he is having some difficulty working out language that would help law enforcement officers distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

"One thing I don't want to do is have legal immigrants sitting in jail for two months," Albo said. His bill is still being drafted.

Kaine is against any bill that would put more responsibility for enforcing immigration laws on local police. That issue came up in the campaign when his Republican opponent, Jerry W. Kilgore, entered the debate over whether to create a taxpayer-supported center for day laborers in Herndon.

Kilgore said that public funds should not be used to support facilities that might serve day laborers in the United States illegally.

Kaine said it was not the role of state or local governments to enforce federal laws on immigration.