|
The
Show
The
General Assembly is in session -- a time when
otherwise respectable people don clown ears and run
around honking their horns.
Tie
the dogs, hide your silver and send your children
inland. The
General Assembly is back in town.
The show started a week ago Wednesday.
The
forecast? Windy.
Real windy. And
partly cloudy.
This
will be a so-called "short" session, but
everything about it—the hours, the talk, the food,
the drink—will be long.
If you’re unfamiliar with this spectacle, a
couple of things to keep in mind.
This
is an election year. All
100 seats in the House of Delegates will be filled
by folks who face the wrath of the electorate come
November. So
what’s that got to do with January and February?
Please. The
fact that this is an election year will affect
everything you see and hear during this session,
just as surely as black holes exert influence on
everything in the heavens.
Think of this as resume time.
This is when the delegates spruce up their
resumes. Most
of them hope to be hired again in November.
This
is Gov. Mark R. Warner’s last session. He
will be a little bit cautious.
Why? Lookit,
his legacy is made.
He made it last year, in spades, pulling
together the miracle of a
Republican-controlled, southern state tax increase
that has vaulted him to the national stage and
short-listed him for the Democratic presidential
nomination in four years.
He’s not going to put that at risk.
He shouldn’t.
Don’t expect him to.
But make no mistake, he will still be a
player. Last
year he was the franchise.
This year he will be a player.
This
will be the marquee session for Lt. Governor Tim
Kaine and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore.
Both have eyes on Warner’s job and the
shoving back and forth is underway.
The general consensus among impartial
observers seems to that Kaine has wiped the floor
with Kilgore in two debates already.
Look for Kilgore to counter during the
session, maybe with this ludicrous "enhanced"
death penalty initiative he’s unveiled.
Kilgore,
blind to the morality imposed by DNA, is painting
himself "Mo’ Better Deader" when the
rest of the civilized world is beginning to give
pause to the notion of state sanctioned killing.
Maybe he’ll borrow from the Robert
McDonnell book of memories… er…play-book (sorry)
and propose "Covenant Death." (With that
one, we’ll drag your corpse through the streets of
Richmond
and hang yo’ sorry self from the
James River
bridge!)
McDonnell
won’t be the only one throwing elbows during the
session. The
down-ticket field is crowded with folks on both
sides who want to replace either Kaine or Kilgore
and the hum and buzz they’ll put up during the
session will surely put you in mind of a locust
year.
This
will be the "Let’s Kiss and Make Up"
session for Virginia Republicans.
Or at least it could be.
Already they are showing signs of some
cohesion, one-upping Warner’s proposed
transportation spending plan with one of their own
that proposes to shift money out of the general fund
into transportation. The
seismic fault line that runs through the Republican
Party in
Virginia
is still unpredictable, though.
What’s dormant today has the potential to
rattle your teeth tomorrow.
And
then there is the so-called "surplus."
You’ve heard of that?
You want to watch it spent twenty-five times?
At least twenty-five?
Stay tuned.
And
what else? Did
I mention the bi-partisan conspiracy that’s aimed
at ousting Speaker of the House Bill Howell?
Did I mention that skullduggery?
No? Well,
you can’t tell anyone where you heard it, but
it’s for real and here’s the low-down on it…
Rut-row.
Sorry. I’ve
used up my allotted space.
And I’m out of time.
We’ll come back to that.
--
January 17, 2005
|
