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Dyspeptic
Gordon
Morse, writing in the Washington
Post, takes home the Oscar for “Best
Bashing.” The
House of Delegates has descended into
“institutional wretchedness.”
Speaker Howell “presides over a majority
composed of circles within circles, some angry, some
ideological, some befuddled.”
Morse offered this summary from his
cosmopolitan hideaway: “Partisan districting has
rendered House Republican policies fiscally
incoherent and has left the House itself resembling
a lost redoubt of Deep South, anti-whoever cracker
politics.”
In
the Daily Progress, Bob
Gibson seemed almost upbeat compared to Morse:
“The perhaps soon-to-be forgotten 2005 short
session of the General Assembly was long on droopy
drawers and short on items of great moment.
Its jumble of bills largely ran a range from
truly marginal accomplishments to ultimately
forgettable froth.”
Gibson took special aim at a letter to
colleagues issued by Del. Dick Black, R-Loudoun,
regarding health benefits legislation that would
allow gay partner benefits.
The letter, threatening electoral
retaliation, “Overstepped the bounds of political
good taste, such as they are.”
The
Republican House majority is “growing up,”
according to Margaret
Edds of the Virginian-Pilot. She
added a caveat: “But
until House leaders find a way to restrain
intemperate members, and so long as the Senate has
to bear the burden for keeping finances sound, you
wouldn’t as yet want to turn over the keys to
Virginia’s future.”
She chided a lack of
“intellectual honesty” on the part of the
House, saying it left ‘the impression that the
Republican House remains more fringe than
mainstream, more ideological than sound.”
Complaints
did not just flow from the liberal side.
Ed Lynch of the Roanoke
Times criticized Republican budgeting
for allowing state employees to come in “first
before the state’s employers (that is, the
taxpayers)” and for “placing so-called
‘cultural attractions,’ such as the science and
history museums, ahead of the taxpayers."
Lynch
also lashed out at the State Senate on abortion-related
issues. “Nine of the 15 members of the Senate
Education and Welfare Committee voted to permit
late-term abortions without anesthesia, and they
refused to bring abortion clinics up to the same
health and safety standards of other medical clinics
in Virginia.”
Dave
Scheck, Science and Environment columnist for
the Daily
Press, used the American Lung Association and
Chesapeake Bay Foundation agendas as a benchmark for
rating General Assembly responses to environmental
issues. Naturally,
by that standard, they didn’t measure up.
Bart
Hinkle rounded out the dismal review pundits gave
the General Assembly with two different columns in
the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. In
one, he sarcastically challenged a senator’s
commitment to “do all we can to uphold the sanctity
of marriage.” Instead
of banning gay marriage, he asked, how about
supporting Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposal for
covenant marriages?
That might give a … Democrat
… credit for a social issue!
In
another, Hinkle whimsically wondered why there was
no righteous
indignation over “House Joint Resolution 735,
"Commending the Chuckatuck Ruritan Club on the
occasion of its 75th anniversary." As he
surveyed the thousands of bills the General Assembly
considered and the conditions under which they
operated, he perhaps arrived at the ultimate truth:
It's
enough to prove the proposition that anyone who
wants to run for public office should be
disqualified for reasons of mental incompetence.
--February
28, 2005
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