Va. Road Proposal Faces Hurdle

Finance Chairman Opposes GOP Deal

Sen. John H. Chichester is known for fiscal responsibility. (Steve Helber - AP)

RICHMOND, Jan. 31 -- House and Senate committees approved a Republican plan Wednesday to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into Virginia's ailing highway and transit systems, but it still faces a crucial hurdle Thursday -- the skeptical Senate Finance Committee.

Finance Committee Chairman John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland) thinks his colleagues' proposal is wildly irresponsible and has renewed his unlikely alliance with Senate Democrats. Chichester and the Democrats are determined to protect the $250 million a year that the proposal would take from existing priorities such as schools, hospitals and the poor.

"It would be nice for something to happen this year, as it would have been nice last year and the year before," Chichester said of transportation funding. "But I would rather do nothing than make a huge mistake that will require repair after repair and be recognized as a lemon."

Although many Democrats are expected to stand beside him, Chichester hardly speaks for most Republicans, who control the General Assembly.

Even Chichester's closest friends in the Senate, part of a group of moderate Republicans known as the Gang of Five, think the transportation plan they brokered with anti-tax House Republicans is the only one that can emerge this year. House leaders are resolute in their opposition to statewide tax increases, and they think they have bent as far as they can by agreeing to local tax increases in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to fund roads and transit in those traffic-choked regions.

"It is ridiculous to offer up a plan that has no hope of going anywhere in the House of Delegates," Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) said.

Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City), another Chichester ally, said, "I am telling you: Nothing -- nothing -- is going to survive the House a nanosecond that's got a statewide tax increase."

That sentiment prevailed Wednesday in the House Appropriations Committee, which approved the Republican plan 18 to 4, and in the Senate Transportation Committee, which passed a similar proposal 11 to 2. On the Senate side, the plan still must pass through the Finance Committee. There, Chichester is expected to offer his plan, one imposing a statewide sales tax on gasoline that the House is sure to reject.

That is the fundamental difference between Chichester's plan and the one brokered by his colleagues. The Republican compromise would pay for transportation with money from the general fund, while Chichester's plan would raise revenue through a 5 percent gas sales tax. That could be a big enough difference to doom either plan this year.

By most accounts, it will be a close vote in a committee in which Chichester needs only a couple of Republicans and all the Democrats to join him.

"If it's still loaded up with general funds, then nothing has changed," Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said. "If it comes to that, I am not going to flush public education, higher education, health and human services and all that to build a few roads around the state of Virginia."

Chichester, first elected in 1977, has long carried the torch for state fiscal responsibility. Under Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R), who took office in 1998 on a promise to eliminate the unpopular car tax, Chichester and Democrats demanded a careful phaseout of the tax that would halt if state revenues did not meet forecasts. In 2004, Chichester teamed with Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) to raise taxes by more than $1.5 billion over two years (and freeze the car tax phaseout) to shore up funding for schools, nursing homes, hospitals, sheriffs, colleges and universities.