By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 1, 2007

RICHMOND There must be something in the water.

When they're home, Virginia's lawmakers are an agreeable sort. They talk about compromise, working together and doing the people's business without much regard to party. That's the promise they make to voters every election.

When they go to Richmond, all bets are off. They start bickering. The bickering turns to arguing. And before you know it, they are fuming, calling one another names and stomping out of meetings.

This year, as in the past several, personal combativeness could spell disaster for the main legislative business at hand: a transportation financing plan.

It's probably no worse here than in some other legislatures. A certain amount of disagreement is natural and necessary to lawmaking. A lot gets done anyway, as evidenced by the hundreds of laws approved, most with a fair amount of agreement.

But all that paled in comparison to last year's signal failure to reach any sort of agreement on transportation, despite a session that stretched well into June and then reconvened for a fruitless week in September.

This year, the pattern is repeating, despite efforts by some legislative leaders.

Led by House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) and Senate Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch (R-Henrico), a small group of Republican lawmakers spent December and early January in perfectly pleasant conversations to reach a transportation deal.

Now that the plan is out in the open, the sniping from the peanut gallery has begun -- and not with the pleasant tones that characterized pre-session talks.

An example is a bitter dispute about the proposal to raise taxes in Hampton Roads for highway projects. There appears to be disagreement about what the deal was: Either six of the 11 jurisdictions could vote to bind the entire group to higher taxes or they couldn't.

Lawmakers use "crazy" and "insane" to describe what they don't like about the idea. Some suggest that allowing six counties to control the fate of the others is akin to communism. That doesn't sit well with Republican proponents of the idea.

The best indication of the bickering can be seen on YouTube.com.

Upset about a Republican rule that allows subcommittees to dispose of legislation without a hearing before the full panel, Democrats are recording Republicans and posting what they think are embarrassing scenes for all to see on the Internet.

Last week, Democrats were clearly prepared when a subcommittee turned back efforts to raise the state's minimum wage. Moments later, Democrats posted YouTube links to a grainy video of the subcommittee vote on their new blog, http://www.assemblyaccess.com.

The sound is sometimes inaudible, but the images recall the bad old times when lawmakers sat around in smoke-filled rooms, making decisions without public comment. That's exactly the message Democrats wanted to send.

Hours later, they videotaped the full committee as its members refused, on a party-line vote, to bring the minimum-wage issue up for consideration. "GOP kills minimum wage revival attempt," said the headline on the blog.

The poke in the eye got an immediate response.

"Unfortunately, they are ratcheting it up, and we are going to have our groups respond," Griffith told The Washington Post. "Both sides can play that game."

They probably will. Look for Republicans with cellphone cameras at committee hearings soon. And if there's not a Republican blog by the end of the session, it's a safe bet there will be one next year.

House Appropriations Chairman Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (R-Fairfax) said the recordings are "indicative of a culture of viciousness that is infecting these halls."

He might be right.