Squabbling Legislators Launch Assembly Session That Will Focus on Transportation
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006
RICHMOND, Jan. 11 -- In the crowded confines of a temporary Capitol and amid jokes that he will be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of a job he loves, Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) said goodbye to Virginia on Wednesday night.
Warner bid farewell to lawmakers in a wistful speech that recalled four years he said were characterized by bipartisanship and fiscal discipline. Left unmentioned in his final State of the Commonwealth address was a new campaign that could take him into the 2008 presidential contest.
"Virginians have told me three things," Warner said. "That results matter, that they're proud of the direction we're going, and a third thing: You know, they really appreciate it when we work out our differences and work together to get things done."
The businessman-turned-politician, who can still be called "His Excellency" for a few more days, said lawmakers in both parties deserve to share the credit for an improving state economy, higher student test scores, more jobs, stronger colleges and a more efficient state government.
But Warner said he is proudest of "something that can't be measured" and praised "a cooperative spirit that, actually, no balance sheet shows." Referring to bipartisan efforts to pass legislation, he said the public believes "we changed the tone in Richmond."
Warner will soon hand over the Executive Mansion keys to Democrat Timothy M. Kaine in an inaugural celebration that will take place in Williamsburg for the first time in more than 200 years. The state's historic Capitol is undergoing a complete renovation.
But Wednesday night was Warner's time to bask in the glow of what even staunch adversaries acknowledge was a sometimes rocky but ultimately successful four years as the state's chief executive.
Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax) said Warner's success in pushing through tax increases in 2004 was "a monumental achievement" even if he and other Republicans opposed it. "He certainly has bragging rights," Albo said.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) was one of Warner's most persistent critics. After the speech, Griffith said, "He's worked hard for the people of Virginia and he's done some good things, but there are some things I would have liked to have seen done differently."
Warner used the 31-minute speech to lobby one last time, pressing the 100 delegates and 40 senators to accept the major proposals in his final budget. Those include cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, boosting college research, revamping the mental health system and providing money for road and transit projects.
"There is work yet undone," he said. "None of these are my priorities alone . . . . My hope is that they are your priorities and that you will see them as the people's priorities."
Warner has formed a federal political action committee and has begun to assemble a political staff to guide him as he travels around the country to states that hold early presidential primaries. He joked to one state senator this week that he planned to "check out the skiing in New Hampshire."
Del. John S. "Jack" Reid (R-Henrico) said after the speech that "I didn't know if I was in New Hampshire or Ohio or Virginia."
Once Warner leaves the local scene, however, attention will shift back to Kaine, who campaigned as the heir to Warner's legacy and now has the daunting task of maintaining the bipartisanship that allowed Warner to succeed.
Feelings of goodwill between the political parties appeared scarce as Virginia's lawmakers returned to Richmond on Wednesday morning and immediately began squabbling.
Democrats in the House of Delegates, who picked up their 40th seat in a special election in Lynchburg on Tuesday, reacted angrily to proposed changes in procedure announced by the House Republicans, who hold 56 of the 100 seats in the chamber.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders in the House and Senate clashed over procedural rules, and Republicans in the Senate argued about whether to punish Sen. H. Russell Potts (R-Winchester) for his decision to run as an independent in the gubernatorial election last year.
The Senate voted narrowly to keep Potts as the chairman of its Education and Health Committee, where much of the session's social legislation is likely to be reviewed.
Once past their bickering, lawmakers convened a legislative session that will usher in the Kaine era and feature a clash of ideas about how to relieve traffic congestion.
The gavels fell in the House of Delegates and the Senate precisely at noon, but for the first time in more than 100 years, they did not echo in the Capitol. Because of the renovation, the delegates and senators crammed into temporary quarters in the nearby Patrick Henry Building.
On Saturday, Kaine will be sworn in as Warner's successor and will immediately face an intractable problem: how to pay for and build a 21st-century transportation network that allows traffic to flow freely in the urban areas and brings the promise of jobs to the state's far-flung rural communities.
In town hall meetings across the state, Kaine has vowed to tackle what he calls the "most urgent" issue facing the commonwealth. But that generality now comes face to face with the reality of hammering out detailed legislation with lawmakers who often have dramatically differing political philosophies.
In the Senate, leading Republicans are said to favor tax increases to pay for new road and transit construction. In the House, senior Republicans oppose tax increases and are looking to find money for transportation by trimming other state programs.
The trick for Kaine will be to find a middle path acceptable to both sides.
In addition to transportation, the General Assembly will also tackle myriad other issues. Lawmakers submitted more than 4,000 requests for bills to be drafted this year, a record number.
They include proposals to tighten criminal sanctions, spend more money on college research and environmental cleanup, and slow the growth of health care costs. Others include bills to ban in vitro fertilization for unmarried women and set new standards for abortion clinics. Annual attempts to impose a moratorium on the death penalty could get a boost from recent cases in which convicts have been cleared by new DNA tests.
Those social issues could put Kaine to the test. He campaigned successfully by emphasizing his conservative principles on abortion, and he deftly avoided the question of whether he would support a death penalty moratorium.
A House committee wasted no time in passing a resolution Wednesday that seeks a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Opponents of the measure reacted angrily because the hearing was uncustomarily held on the first day of session.
Along with the weighty issues are light-hearted ones. One freshman delegate has proposed that people convicted of littering on highways be required to perform 100 hours of community service while wearing a blaze-orange vest bearing the words "I am a litterbug."
Before they could get to bills, however, lawmakers had to resolve disputes over the basic rules that guide their deliberations.
In the House, rules pushed through by the Republican majority strengthen the chamber's subcommittees, giving them new power to kill legislation they deem unnecessary -- without recorded votes. The new rules would also give the House speaker greater power to remove lawmakers from committees and prevent Democrats from picking up an extra seat on committees.
Democrats called the changes a power grab and insisted that the rules were aimed at anonymously killing legislation that the leadership did not agree with, a tactic often used by Democrats when they were in charge.
Staff writers Chris L. Jenkins and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
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