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University
of Virginia
professor
and pundit
Larry Sabato
is not looking forward to the 2003 session. “This
is a downer of a General Assembly coming,” he told
Barbara Berlin on the public television program Perspectives. Sabato sees
little chance of any tax increases passing and
declared flatly, “You can forget about
privatization of ABC stores.”
He does not favor amending Virginia’s
constitution to allow a two-term governor.
Standing
on the opposite side on the one-term limit is
Virginia Commonwealth University Professor and
pundit
Robert D. Holsworth. Holsworth,
who served as the Executive Director of the Wilder
Commission, defends two terms in a Washington
Post op-ed. He also makes a compelling
case for the Wilder Commission diagnosis of the
state’s problem:
Virginia's
government operates more as a set of independent
fiefdoms than as an integrated organization with
common purposes.
He
challenges the General Assembly:
Legislators
can begin tackling the tough job now -- in the 2003
session -- or they can wait until the next session,
or the next, hoping that festering problems will
resolve themselves and pretending that other states
are not really passing them by.
Holsworth
also tacked the relationship between state
government and local governments. On that hot-button
topic, Susie
Dorsey of
the Dailey Press joined him. Dorsey is
"incredulous" that Governor Mar R. Warner
wants to turn some DMV functions over to local
government:
Here's
a man who promised to streamline government. Instead
he proposes passing a state function to local
commissioners of revenue and treasurers. Instead of
streamlining government, he is creating yet another
justification for maintaining a cost of government
that hasn't made much sense since huge portions of
Virginia shifted from an agricultural economy to the
current, more urban, lifestyle.
Relations
between the state and localities are “strained and
almost poisonous,” according to Holsworth, and he
sees the distrust of Richmond in Northern Virginia
as “potentially destructive.”
State
Democrats, perhaps inspired by Governor Warner’s
reform agenda, surprised by suddenly expressing an
interest in changing the way Virginia redistricts
after each census. Lieutenant Governor Tim
Kaine led the way in a Roanoke
Times piece by suggesting that a commission, not
the General Assembly, draw legislative boundaries.
Virginia
Goes National
Governor
Warner appeared as a panelist with colleagues
from Arizona, Coloradoand Utah
in a PBS News
Hour segment on state budget problems.
He more than held his own. … Former
Governor Linwood
Holton, in a New
York Times op-ed datelined “Weems, Va,”
used the Trent Lott controversy to remind readers of
his positive legacy on racial issues as an early
party-building Republican. He decried the national
GOP “Southern Strategy” as “ineffective as
well as immoral.”
... Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald
Connally talked about the effects of state
budget cuts on localities in a brief appearance on
ABC’s This
Week.
… Political strategist couple Mary
Matalin and
James Carville told a Meet
the Press national audience that they shopped at
the Apple Blossom Mall in Winchester. …The Wall Street Journal’s James
Taranto used a Roanoke
Times op-ed by Radford Professor Glen
T. Martin for his “Stupidity Watch.”
Regular
People
Long
before Democratic Senator and presidential candidate
John Edwards promised to champion “regular
people,” the Roanoke
Times opened its editorial pages to, well,
“regular people.”
George
Shropshire,
described as a “laid off truck driver,” offered
a call to arms:
I
urge every working family to step forward and get
involved, even to the point that we go forward as
"citizen legislators" ourselves, both at
the state level and the federal.
Run
for office and tout the views that we all hold dear,
and do what we must without re-election concerns
hindering our visions for the future. I know that my
wife and I both intend to do so, and we readily
encourage others to do so as well.
Shropshire
attributed his crusade to a “vision” he had
earlier in the year amidst what he called the
“economic fiasco brought on by former Gov.
Jim
Gilmore’s ‘no car tax pledge’ and any other
supposed representatives pledging to hold the line
on ‘new’ taxes.”
M.
J. Donohue,
a “retired telephone company supervisor,”
complained about complaints over budget cuts. George
Murphy, a “retired law enforcement officer,”
criticized Governor Warner for running the state
like a business:
It
seems the current administration is not interested
enough in how to raise the capital needed to supply
the overall needs of the citizens of our state. It
has all outward appearances that all they are
interested in is the bottom line.
Pundit
or Reporter?
Because
R. H. Melton
of the Washington
Post is both a reporter and a columnist, it is
sometimes difficult to tell where one role ends and
the other begins. He
offered a solid front-page
analysis
of a forward-looking Governor Mark Warner:
Warner
promised a full agenda for the coming year --
despite having no extra money and facing a General
Assembly led by increasingly confrontational
Republicans. The governor said he will make it a
priority to change the state's tax structure, and he
wants enhancements in Northern Virginia higher
education and research programs. He plans to address
new issues affecting the state's aging baby boomers
as well.
Warner
also declared himself eager to assume a more active
role as a Democratic Party leader, both statewide
and nationally.
Numerous
observers of the Governor are quoted, including
Chris
topher
Miller of the Piedmont Environmental Council, who
claims Warner did not heed his warnings about the
strength of anti-sprawl forces in the state.
Maryland
Benchmarks
The
Washington
Post’s Shannon
Henry previewed actions the state of Maryland
plans to
catch up to
Virginia
in
attracting technology companies.
She quoted George Pappas, an appointee of
incoming Governor Robert Ehrlich:
"If
Virginia has done better, we want to find out why.
We could do a lot better to make [Maryland]
more competitive."
Was
This in the Works Before Lott?
Preston
Bryant,
writing in the Roanoke
Times, latched on to the new Republican image on
racial issues by calling for a restoration of cuts
made to the state's African-American Heritage
program. The
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities runs the
program in conjunction with the Virginia Tourism
Corporation.
Pundit
Punching Bag
Apparently,
any issue can be turned into a dig at former
Governor
Jim
Gilmore
and car tax relief. Bob
Gibson, writing about the UVA pep band-West
Virginia
flap in
the Daily
Progress, notes:
The
Pep Band was led for a year or two by a young
clarinet player from Henrico County named
Jim
Gilmore. As leader, he kept the band in its seats.
Gilmore,
a minimalist Republican, did not try to set the tone
for very dry Wahoo humor for decades to come.
Gibson
offers ten possible solutions for taming the pep
band, but his number one choice involves the former
Governor:
Strike
the band and invite Gilmore back to play The Good
Old Song on untaxed car horns.
--
January 6, 2002
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