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The
full implications of the Virginia Supreme
Court’s decision to upend the most repellent
aspects of the controversial 2007 transportation
plan have not been fully appreciated either by the
media or elected officials scrambling for a quick
fix to preserve their reputations and the piles of
money the law would lay in their laps. Seen by
many as nothing more than a procedural blip on the
road to higher taxes, the overturning of the
transportation authorities is a skirmish in what
could become a New American Revolution in which an
aggrieved electorate rises up against politicians
grown comfortable serving as shopkeepers for the
business community and local government
bureaucrats.
How
fitting it is that the New American Revolution is
getting underway in the Commonwealth of Virginia,
which as a colony played a pivotal role in the
original revolution, shaping debate, defining the
grievances and crafting the solutions that allowed
our ancestors to free themselves of an oppressive
and incompetent governing elite.
Perhaps
Virginia’s Lexington Green (if you'll permit an
analogy drawn from the history of a different
commonwealth) was the lawsuit filed by a citizen
in Roanoke charging two state senators with
ethical lapses in their efforts to obstruct the
restoration of individual property rights. Though
unsuccessful, the suit so frightened the pols that
the protections they had once refused were rushed
into law. Concord may have been last November’s
election when many of those responsible were
flushed from office, and Republican influence over
state policies diminished.
Students
of American history know that the next big event
was Bunker Hill, followed by the evacuation of the
British from Boston. If the stunning decision by
the Virginia court can count as Bunker Hill, then
our elected officials have been dealt a major
defeat and may be on the verge of retreat.
Even
so, the citizens’ quest for better government is
far from over. Paraphrasing Churchill, the English
retreat from Boston was not the beginning of the
end, it was the middle of the beginning, and much
work remains before we get a government serving
the people, not vice versa.
Having
succeeded in wrecking the flawed transportation
law, citizens must press their case against
government so that the first abomination is not
replaced by something equally bad. If the last few
years reveal anything, it is that many elected
officials are not fit to fulfill the
responsibilities they have gathered around them.
If the same crowd goes back to the drawing board,
a second draft will not be an improvement.
There
is a remedy. Last year the independent auditor for
the State of Washington hired a team of experts to
assess the performance and policies of those
responsible for transportation in his state. The
findings were so devastating that a few weeks
later voters rejected a referendum for a tax
increase that would have wasted $18 billion on
sketchy transportation projects.
Sound
familiar? Didn’t area voters in a 2002
referendum reject higher transportation taxes in
Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads due to lack of
confidence in the wacky schemes promoted by public
officials? Yes they did, and that’s why the
legislature and governor excluded the
uncooperative electorate, bypassing a referendum
by establishing regional transportation
authorities composed of appointed, rather than
elected, participants. Voters should insist that
Virginia’s political establishment stand down
from renewed efforts at transportation
policy-making until a similar audit is conducted
in this state and its findings presented to the
people.
A
Virginia audit should take a careful look at the
institutional structure that oversees the
transportation, including the metropolitan
planning organizations (MPOs) and the regional
transportation commissions. Both layers of
bureaucracy are comprised of individuals with
limited expertise in transportation. Indeed, an absence
of transportation expertise appears to be a
prerequisite for appointment.
In
my community transport policy is governed by FAMPO,
a state bureaucracy working under the direction of
another state bureaucracy, the George Washington
Regional Commission. Most of the commissioners are
locally elected officials appointed by their
colleagues. In my district a politically active
mortician appointed to the state’s Commonwealth
Transportation Board had FAMPO authorize tax
dollars to build a replica slave ship for a
nonexistent museum. He has since left, but other
local commissioners want to use transportation
funds to leverage local taxpayer dollars for
costly corporate welfare projects favoring
influential developers. Is it any wonder that the
citizens, when asked, refuse to give these people
their tax dollars knowing full well they are not
competent to spend them?
With
an independent audit presumably exposing
Virginia’s manifest government failings, the
next step is to replace bureaucratic discretion
with quantitative performance measures related to
meaningful congestion relief, cost effective
mobility, safety, and infrastructure preservation.
Of course, none of these are listed as goals by my
local commission, although its affiliated MPO
favors “transportation choice,” as if
transportation had parallels with today’s
reproductive rights movement.
With
quantitative measures of performance in place,
public officials would be required to meet
explicit goals benefiting the motorists funding
the program, rather than the business community
that funds the politicians. There might then be
some hope for Virginia. However, such relief will
only come if citizens ride herd on their elected
officials, reminding them daily who serves whom,
and pressing home the point that the desires of
narrow business interests often conflict with
those of the voters.
That
is the essence of the New American Revolution to
restore freedom and independence to ordinary
Virginians, and then to all Americans. While the
transportation legislation is a start, public
safety and public education should be next on the
agenda. Winning will require unremitting struggle,
with political combat every day, as voters
aggressively defend and retrieve their rights from
those privileged by government favor.
April
21, 2008
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