GOP Flag-Burning, Metaphorically Speaking

For decades, the cliche about Virginia's growth wars has had Republicans pushing for unbridled growth and Democrats fighting to halt sprawl. But cliches have a way of growing ironic, and as the legislature convenes in Richmond, things are going topsy-turvy.

"The Republicans are being more responsive to progressive politics than the Democrats," says Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, a powerful voice against new highways as the sole weapon in a losing battle to reduce traffic congestion. "The Republican majority is looking at the polls and seeing that land use is the number one issue in the outer suburbs. They're seeing what the public figured out four or five years ago, that the solution to traffic is better land use. Building more miles of roads isn't going to solve it."

Del. Dave Albo, a Republican from Fairfax County, is startled to find himself proposing things he once opposed: "Fifteen years ago, it was the Republicans who were pro-development, and the Democrats were the land-use guys. But there comes a point where I don't care how big a supporter a group like the home builders is. At a certain point, you have to listen to the voters. The home builders just expect too much of us."

Ah, the power of desperation. Staring in the face of potential defeat at the hands of traffic-weary Northern Virginians in November, Republican legislators are suddenly moving to dismantle the state's sacred top-down approach to growth and transportation.

Gov. Tim Kaine campaigned in 2005 on the promise that he'd push for local control of land use, but last year Republican legislators spurned the governor's plan. What a difference a year -- and a growing number of Election Day victories for Democrats -- can make. Now, in an effort to side with traffic-addled commuters, Albo and other Northern Virginia Republicans are uniting -- with a few hard-core exceptions -- around a plan to raise and spend transportation money in the region and give local governments the right to limit growth.

In the real world, those don't sound like the most revolutionary of ideas, but for some Virginia Republicans, it's akin to burning the flag and dancing on the remains.

Albo is breaking with the rigid anti-tax crowd because he smells a Democratic sweep in the fall, and because he and a growing number of his colleagues realize that good old RoVa -- the rest of Virginia -- is simply not going to agree to statewide tax increases for transportation.

"Southern Virginia is never going to give us the money," Albo says. "In Southwest, transportation is maybe the sixth or seventh most important issue. You can't ask them to jump on the tax sword for issue number six."

So Albo is proposing a bit of a trial separation between NoVa and RoVa, asking the rest of the state to let us create our own transportation authority. We decide what to build, we hire the contractors and the widely loathed state Department of Transportation never touches a thing.

"People are willing to pay if the money stays here," Albo says. (This is an anti-tax Republican speaking.) Then he forks over the invoice: A tax on commercial office space, a boost in hotel and rental car taxes, an extra $100 fee for new driver's licenses and an increase in the tax on home purchases.

Will Republicans from the Land of No Traffic let us do this for ourselves? Don't hold your breath. In the GOP response to Kaine's State of the Commonwealth address last week, Sen. Brandon Bell of Roanoke dismissed traffic in a couple of quick paragraphs, pointedly noting that rural Virginians have "different issues" to deal with and saying that any solution to transportation woes would take "several years" to address. His colleague, Del. Jeff Frederick of Prince William, took traffic more seriously but rejected the idea of any new taxes.

I talked to a Republican from the rapidly suburbanizing region between Northern Virginia and Richmond, Del. Christopher Peace, who readily admits "this has become an urban versus rural battle, and there's resentment in both directions." He says his constituents "have a hard time accepting a sales tax increase for improvements that wouldn't affect them." (Kaine proposes boosting the sales tax on new cars by 2 percent.)