Moves Would Add Program to Bills
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
RICHMOND, Feb. 20 -- A Republican state senator vowed Monday to force a vote in the House of Delegates on reviving the use of traffic surveillance cameras at intersections in some Virginia communities.
Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) pledged to rework up to five House bills to include the program, which ended last year when the General Assembly refused to extend it.
The maneuvers would probably require House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) to allow the 100 delegates to vote on the cameras or kill each of the bills, including a signature piece of the House's transportation funding package.
The cameras have been the subject of a long feud between Virginia senators who believe they make intersections safer and delegates who contend they represent intrusive government "nannyism."
Last year, the House ended a 10-year experiment with the cameras in selected communities, including several in Northern Virginia. The devices took pictures of vehicles that ran red lights and used license plate numbers to mail tickets.
Since then, numerous bills to revive the program have died in the House's Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee.
Convinced that the idea deserves a hearing before the full House, Stolle said he will move to insert the program into several bills on similar topics that have received House approval.
One such bill, he said, is the House's proposal to impose higher fines on reckless drivers. The measure accounts for nearly $600 million of the $2 billion House Republicans have pledged to transportation over the next four years.
To carry out his plan, Stolle must make motions in committees to amend bills that have come over from the House for review. Those motions would need to be passed in the Senate committees, and the bills would then have to be approved on the Senate floor.
He started Monday, successfully adding the camera program to a bill sponsored by Del. A. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond). As originally written, the bill would allow a police officer who observes a red-light runner to radio a second officer, who could then issue a ticket. State law says an officer issuing a ticket must personally observe the violation.
"That's right, you've been hijacked," Stolle said to McEachin after making the motion.
"Carjacked, I think it is," the delegate responded.
Bills amended in the Senate go directly to the floor of the House, where Howell either allows a vote or rules that the changes are not germane to the original measure. If he does the latter, the entire measure dies for the year.
"This is kind of a shot across their bow," Stolle said. "It's absurd. We have documented evidence that [cameras] reduce violations."
Stolle said he believes the cameras are germane to McEachin's bill and invited the speaker to forestall his assault on other measures by allowing that bill to move forward. Stolle threatened to keep adding the program to bills if Howell does not allow a vote.
"I think they ought to get as many opportunities to vote on this as they can," he said.
Howell said that he has not yet reviewed Stolle's action and that he will look closely at any such moves before making any assessment.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) said Stolle's parliamentary exercise amounts to "playing games."
Del. Clarke N. Hogan (R-Charlotte) said he was confident that the maneuvers would not succeed. Hogan said the cameras have not been proved to work and sometimes result in car owners getting tickets for times when they were not driving.
"We don't want to extend or expand that kind of Big Brotherness," Hogan said.
Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), ordinarily a supporter of the camera program, decried any attempt to tack it onto the House's bill on reckless drivers.
"That seems to me to be a little out of order, where you end up holding up transportation funding because you want photo red light," said Albo, sponsor of the bill.
If Stolle's machinations are unsuccessful, the cameras are unlikely to be reinstalled this year. The Senate passed a similar bill 30 to 9, but it has been assigned to be heard by the same committee that killed the idea in the House.
Staff writer Chris L. Jenkins contributed to this report.
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