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"Had
it been a stand-alone vote, I don't think you
would have seen Bill Howell voting for the
gasoline tax down in Hampton Roads. The idea that
a local government can be drawn into this
transportation authority in Hampton Roads even if
it doesn't want to, that doesn't sit well with me,
either. But in the scheme of things, I support
it." -- William J. Howell, R-Fredericksburg,
Speaker of the House of Delegates.
In
the original Greek meaning, the word
"tyrant" referred to anyone who
overturned the established government of a
city-state (usually with popular support) to
establish himself as dictator. The term tyrant,
used literally or metaphorically, now carries
connotations of cruel despots who place their own
interests or the interests of a small oligarchy
over the best interests of the population they
govern.
The
founding fathers didn’t have tyrants in mind
when they drafted the Virginia Constitution. The
opening sentence of this document states that it
is: “A DECLARATION OF RIGHTS made by the good
people of Virginia in the exercise of their
sovereign powers, which rights do pertain to them
and their posterity, as the basis and foundation
of government.”
The
drafters of the constitution realized, however,
that a quick way to legislative tyranny was
through bills that called for multiple objects.
The idea that different bills could be bundled
into one legislative package was seen as a real
threat to legislative purity and efficiency.
Accordingly,
Section 12 of the Virginia Constitution states:
No
law shall embrace more than one object, which
shall be expressed in its title. Nor shall any
law be revived or amended with reference to its
title, but the act revived or the section
amended shall be reenacted and published at
length.
Some
form of the single object rule, which dates to
Roman times, can be found in forty-three state
constitutions. The intent of these rules is to
prevent the evil of “logrolling,” the practice
of combining different proposals as different
provisions of a single bill. By consolidating
minority proposals into a single bill, such a bill
can win majority support, whereas no single bill
contained in the “package” could have won
majority approval.
In
addition, the rule seeks to prevent the related
practice of attaching “riders” to bills, which
is the attachment of amendments to popular bills
that could not pass on their own merits. The
single object rule is also intended to promote
orderly legislative procedure and reduces the
potential that legislators will unwittingly enact
buried provisions that are extraneous to the
general subject of the bill.
The
purpose of a written constitution is entirely
defeated if, in interpreting it as a legal
document, its provisions are manipulated and
worked around so that the document means whatever
the manipulators wish it to be. Thomas Jefferson
recognized this danger and spoke out constantly
for careful adherence to the Constitution as
written, with changes to be made by amendment, not
by tortured and twisted interpretations of the
text.
For
example, Jefferson said, “Our peculiar security
is in the possession of a written Constitution.
Let us not make it a blank paper by
construction.” He also said “Where powers are
assumed which have not been delegated, a
nullification of the act is the rightful
remedy.”
Our
historical heritage was apparently lost on the
General Assembly when it passed HB 3202, The
Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform
Act of 2007 (AKA Bill Howell’s Tax Increase), a
few weeks ago. In the name of compromise, the GOP
promoted a bill that not only betrays core
Republican principles, but also tramples our
constitution in the process.
Legislators
cannot lump diverse bills under a common purpose
(e.g., Transportation Funding and Reform) and get
a pass on the single object. HB 3202 as it stands
violates the single object rule because it mixes
multiple objects under one bill, such as combining
tax increases, increasing traffic penalties,
establishing new government bodies, allowing new
taxing authorities for local governments, etc. The
fact that all these initiatives have a common
goal, transportation improvements, is irrelevant.
Gov.
Timothy M. Kaine’s amendments only made the bill
constitutionally worse. One of these amendments
gives an unelected and unaccounted government
body, the Northern Virginia Transportation
Authority (NVTA), the power to raise taxes.
Reportedly,
the Governor added this provision so that the
local governments would not have to vote on
raising taxes — they asked for cover and the
governor took care of them. From now on, when
taxes are raised at the local level, elected
representatives can pretend to be outraged but can
also pretend to be helpless to do anything about it.
State
Sen. Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, was right when he
said, “The governor has done the best he can
with a real piece of [junk] … He's put a mink
coat on a pig." But putting a coat on a pig,
doesn’t transform the beast — it’s still a
pig.
And
for this porker, we can thank the Republican
majority in the General Assembly. Surprisingly,
Bill Howell, who along with Attorney General
Robert McDonnell has been given the credit for
muscling this bill through the Assembly, was
forthcoming when he said that had some of the
items in the Act been stand-alone bills, he would
have voted against them.
But
in the “scheme of things” Howell supported the
entire bill. And that is exactly what the single
object rule was intended to prevent. It is amazing
that the Speaker -- and the Attorney General to
boot -- have no qualms trampling over the
state’s Constitution.
Howell and
McDonnell have proved to be the 21st century
equivalent of tyrants. As long as they remain in
power, Virginians will be governed by
multiple-object tyranny.
--
April 16, 2007
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