Va. Growth Bolstered by Well-Funded Voting Bloc

Lobbyists for a Day

The aide to House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) listened politely as Reyher and Bennett made their case for new and aggressive growth controls.

"I'd like to hear your position, since you speak for the speaker," Bennett said to legislative assistant Kathy Roberts.

"Well, I don't usually speak for the speaker," Roberts said. "I would have loved to have gotten you in with him, but just with such short notice . . ."

Reyher jumped in.

"We're in the building all day, and some of us may stay overnight," she said. "Let me give you my cell phone. If an opportunity comes up and he's interested, we'll drop what we're doing and come down."

That opportunity never came.

For most of a day, Reyher, Bennett and two other citizen lobbyists-for-a-day from Fairfax canvassed the General Assembly Building, hoping to serve as messengers for residents they say are fed up with growth.

Back home, they are experienced and savvy advocates for their causes, having fought and won battles over development in the Hunter Mill area of Fairfax County. Reyher recently started a Web site, http://www.fairgrowthnetwork.org/ , to organize the disparate groups in Northern Virginia.

In Richmond, though, they acknowledged being a bit overwhelmed. But the slow-growth movement has an ally on the third-floor, where the governor's office is. And as Reyher pointed out to several lawmakers, Kaine's election is often credited to ads calling for growth controls that he ran in Northern Virginia suburbs.

Kaine says he opposes ordinances that would slam the door on growth. But he has clearly affected the debate. Toalson and environmentalists came together on behalf of a Kaine idea that would allow local governments to transfer development rights from places where it is not wanted to places where it is. The bill passed the Senate Local Government Committee on Tuesday. On Friday, Howell announced a half-dozen GOP bills aimed at better coordinating development and transportation planning.

At the end of a long day, Bennett and Reyher said they were preparing to bring many more people to Richmond next month. In one day, they said, they had learned a lot about how the process works.

"Come in with an itemized list of the bills and lobby them," Bennett said. "There's nothing like looking your legislator in the eye."

Marshall introduced the governor's growth bills into the legislative hopper last week. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Virginia constitution, he promises to use his skills to press for the growth controls. But he is not holding out a lot of hope of getting majority support on his committee.

"The best I thought we could get was 10 to 8 with a huge, massive lobbying effort," Marshall said, explaining that some colleagues who oppose the bills might not vote. "And that was with some people getting sick and some getting struck by lightning."

Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman and staff researcher Derek Willis contributed to this report.