Bacon's Rebellion

Judged by the volume of significant legislation passed, this has been a productive session for the House of Delegates. I have major quarrels with the transportation-financing scheme the House wants to adopt, as I have illuminated in numerous posts. But there are other bills that might actually do more good than harm. These descriptions come from a summary issued by the Speaker of the House at cross-over. (My comments in italics.)

HJ 18. Transportation Trust Fund. Marshall, R-Prince William). Passed 96-0. Locks up the Transportation Trust Fund by a Constitutional Amendment securing funds dedicated for transportation cannot be diverted and can only be used for transportation purposes. Remember the constitutional amendment for Transportation Trust Fund? Let’s hope the Senate sees eye-to-eye with the House and can get this passed.

HB 2314. Tolls on Interstates. Lingamfelter, R-Prince William. Passed 76-22 Allows the Commonwealth Transportation Board to impose and collect tolls for the use of any component of the Interstate Highway System, with the proceeds to be deposited into the Transportation Trust Fund and allocated by the Board. If this enables congestion tolls for the purpose of optimizing Interstate capacity and encouraging alternatives to Single Occupancy Vehicles, it’s a good thing. If it’s used just another revenue-raising tool, it’s a bad thing.

HJ 723. Eminent domain. Bell, R-Albemarle. Passed 67-30 Protects Virginians’ property rights by amending the Constitution to establish what constitutes a taking of private property for a public use in response to the 2005 Kelo v. New London case. Prohibits eminent domain use for economic development, increased tax revenue or job creation purposes. Eminent domain is justified when it’s for a legitimate public use; it’s a bad thing when used to increase the tax base — as in Kelo-style decisions.

HB 2954. Eminent domain. Bell, R-Albemarle. Passed 87-10 Safeguards individual private property rights by defining “public use” for eminent domain purposes, restricting it from being used to generate tax revenue. Same as above. I would note, however, that some private-property advocates say this bill does not do enough. I don’t know enough about the issue to have an informed opinion.

HB 2311. Charter schools. Lingamfelter, R-Prince William. Passed 90-8 Establishes Public Charter School Fund for the purposes of establishing or supporting public charter schools in the Commonwealth to stimulate the development of alternative public education programs. This falls far short of the major shake-up we need for public education, but at least it would introduce a modicum of innovation to our sclerotic system.

HJ 729. Universal Pre-K. Cox, R-Colonial Heights. Passed 92-4. Directs JLARC to study the effectiveness and performance results of the Virginia Preschool Initiative and evaluate the cost and effectiveness of universal pre-kindergarten programs. Subject Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s Universal Pre-K initiative to a little cost-benefit analysis before rolling out the idea statewide. Good idea.

HB 1710. Saving the bay. Callahan, R-Fairfax. Passed 99-0. Provides new, innovative and flexible funding options for $500 million in grants for the installation of nutrient removal technologies at specified publicly owned water treatment plants as part of House Republican’s ongoing commitment to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. Sounds like a good idea. Virginia needs to show flexibility and innovation in finding cost-effective ways to clean up pollution.

HB 2708. Electric restructuring. Hugo. R-Fairfax. Passed 98-0 Requires the electric utility provider to enter into an agreement to purchase any excess electricity generated by an eligible customer-generator upon the request of the customer. Excellent idea in the abstract. Key questions: Should customer-generators get paid retail or wholesale rates for their electricity? Why impose a 0.1 percent cap? One tenth of one percent is insignificant — that’s less than the increase in electricity demand Virginia experiences in one month. I acknowledge that we should proceed cautiously in order to maintain the integrity of the power distribution grid, but 0.1 percent seems awfully small.

HB 2198. Medical records. Nixon, R-Chesterfield. Passed 97-0. Facilitates increased and improved usage of electronic health records systems throughout the Commonwealth by requiring interoperability. This is way overdue. But it’s only a first step. The interoperability extends only to state agencies. The Commonwealth needs to convene a task force that sets standards (voluntary, perhaps) that would enable all health care providers to share medical records.

There’s a whole lot more — including some worthwhile pieces to Speaker William J. Howell’s massive transportation compromise bill, which I have described in previous posts — but these are the provisions that I deem worthwhile.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal prosecutors have launched a far-reaching investigation into potential public corruption in Loudoun County, where officials have overseen billions of dollars’ worth of development projects in one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas. …

The investigation and board action come after reports by The Washington Post last month that detailed how major land-use decisions in Loudoun have been dominated by a small network of public officials and their allies in the development industry. Developers, landowners and others profited as they coordinated with public officials to influence land-use decisions in the county, e-mails and other records showed.

The Tysons underground-railroad option arose from the dead yesterday when Frederal Transit Authority officials said that Virginia has until spring 2008 to submit its plans for the Rail-to-Dulles extension of the Metro system. Reports Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post:

Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) warned last summer that the delays involved in switching to a tunnel could throw the $4 billion project out of the current federal funding cycle, greatly jeopardizing the $900 million that Virginia hopes to receive. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) cited such warnings last fall in his decision not to support a tunnel.

But top federal transit officials, who have made few public comments on the project and its deadline, offered a different picture yesterday. They said the state would have until May 2008 — 15 months from now — to submit its final plans and pricing for the project and still qualify for the current funding cycle, assuming the submission is acceptable.

Running the tunnel underground is critical for plans to re-develop Tysons along the lines of a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly community. But it’s premature for anyone to celebrate. Matthew O. Tucker, director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, said that concerns remain, including potentially higher costs of a tunnel and the delay of waiting another year to begin construction.

The state Senate has spiked a proposal to slap a 5 percent sales tax on gasoline, and the House of Delegates has passed its package of transportation taxes, land use reforms and VDOT restructuring. Now it’s time for the House package to cross over to the Senate for consideration.

So, this is what it’s like making sausage. The process is truly nauseating… Read the coverage and reach for your vomit bag:

Richmond Times Dispatch
Washington Post
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
Virginian-Pilot
Associated Press
Northern Virginia Daily

As I plow through the details of the legislative process, I am reminded of the observations of fellow Bacon’s Rebellion columnist Ed Risse, who long ago discounted the possibility of anything meaningful emerging from the session this year. I had maintained hope that some incremental progress would be made, and that legislators might demonstrate a growing understanding of the problems we’re dealing with. But the awful truth has dawned upon me: Legislators will succeed only in raising our taxes this year, not in addressing traffic congestion. Once again, it appears, the forces of Business As Usual will prevail. The citizenry will wind up poorer and still stalled in traffic.

I have dedicated many pixels to flaying the Axis of Taxes proposal to boost the gasoline tax as a way to preserve the massive, non-transportation spending programs funded by the General Fund. But at least a gasoline tax has one undeniable virtue: Those who drive are the ones who pay. By contrast, the Republican supporters of the compromise plan avoid the gas tax at all costs. Why? The only justification I’ve heard is that it would be burdensome to drivers, often those who can least afford it.

Instead of a gas tax, the GOP proposes increases auto registration fees, boosting the tax on diesel fuel, taking $250 million from the General Fund instead of rebating the surplus to taxpayers, and giving regional authorities in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads power to impose their own grab-bag of taxes. Are those taxes going to impact Virginians any less than a gas tax? No! Taxes are going to come out of the pockets of taxpayers one way or another.

The difference is that while the gas tax is transparent — motorists are reminded of it every time they top off their tanks — the GOP revenue flows from so many different sources that taxpayers are only dimly aware that their pockets are being picked. Where the gas tax is open and honest, the GOP tax mix is furtive and sly.

Transparency is critical. When you raise the gas tax, taxpayers can see what’s happening. If they don’t like paying the tax, they can change their driving habits in ways that benefit the public good. They can start car pooling, ride a bus or take the Metro. If they’re looking for a new house, they can move closer to where they work. If they have an office job, they can ask their boss to let them telecommute a couple of days a week. If the gasoline tax induces even a few people to change their behavior, it reduces congestion.

By contrast, raising the registration fee on cars imposes costs on all car owners without respect to whether they drive 3,000 miles a year or 30,000. Raiding the General Fund to pay for roads is even worse: It obliterates any vestiges of a connection between those who drive and those who pay. The end result: The GOP compromise package will subsidize those who drive the most — those who contribute the most to traffic congestion — at the expense of those who drive the least. Such an approach is incomprehensible.

In a desperate bid to stave off an election debacle, to say that they’ve “done something,” the GOP legislators have abandoned any pretense of economic rationality. Their compromise package does have elements worth saving: particularly the proposals that would restructure the way roads are built and maintained in Virginia. But those reforms, as useful as they are, won’t begin to un-do the damage of continued subsidies for the driving class.

Another reason to be proud of Virginia… Three Hooters waitresses from Hampton Roads modeled for the 2007 Hooter’s calendar. How about that — Virginia beach babes nailed three of the 12 spots! Hamptonroads.tv has the video here.

(For those who regard this post as tasteless and politically incorrect, I offer no defense. You have my sniveling and abject apology.)

If you want a good cross-section of the issues swirling around the move to re-regulate the electric power industry, read Michael Shear’s article today in the Washington Post, and then my column, “Power Politics,” in Bacon’s Rebellion. Shear emphasizes the conflict between power generators and electric customers over how electric rates will be determined. I focus on Dominion’s rationale for wanting to re-regulate the industry in the first place, and then discuss the issues that aren’t getting talked about… but should.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version of my column: Electricity consumption in Virginia is increasing. Dominion, which has been importing electricity from out-of-state to meet rising demand over the past decade, now wants to build new power plants to ensure “energy independence” for Virginia. To compete in the financial marketplace to borrow some $4 billion over the next decade or so, Dominion wants the security that goes with a regulated Return on Investment for its power plants. Dominion submitted its preferred legislation late last year, which is now being chewed over in the legislative process by the other vested interests: the power companies, the industrial customers and the citizen rate payers.

The resulting “hybrid” regulation — regulation lite, with financial rewards for Dominion to continue pursuing cost savings — will represent a evolutionary change from the status quo. What’s not getting serious consideration is anything that would encourage (a) conservation and energy efficiency, (b) a move from “Big Grid” power plants and transmission lines to a system of distributed generation, or, despite a rogue legislative proposal, (c) a move to renewable energy sources.

Virginia’s legislative process is designed to sort out the differences between the major vested interests, making sure that nobody walks away too happy. What’s entirely missing is a vision for Virginia’s energy future.

The Feb.5, 2007, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion is now online. Don’t miss a single issue — sign up here to get the e-zine delivered to your in-box for free.

Features include:

Power Politics

Dominion touts electric re-regulation as a way to ensure energy independence for Virginia. But its vision requires building more power plants, not conservation, energy efficiency or renewable fuels.

by James A. Bacon

Listening to Generation Next

Students’ online dialogue in Northern Virginia mirrors official discussions on state priorities.

by Doug Koelemay

Solving the Commuter Problem

There are no magic technological fixes for rush-hour traffic congestion. The only real solution is building balanced communities that support fewer, shorter automobile trips.

by EM Risse

Down the Wrong Road

The GOP transportation plan would employ “subject-to-appropriation” bonds similar to the “pledge” bonds that voters rejected in 1990. Very bad idea.

by Patrick McSweeney

How the GOP Lost its Majority

Republicans became the majority party in Virginia by hewing to their small-government principles. They will revert to the minority by abandoning those same principles.

by James Atticus Bowden

His Way or No Highway

By killing the GOP compromise plan, tyrannical “King John” Chichester has shut down Virginia’s best chance to address the transportation crisis — all for what? Not increasing taxes enough?

by Geoff Segal

Plenty of Work Left to Do

Only three weeks left in the 2007 General Assembly session and there’s so much left to be done.

by Mike Thompson

The Politics of Self Destruction

The transportation impasse in the General Assembly is not about what’s best for Virginia. It’s a raw struggle for power.

by Phil Rodokanakis

Free the Roads!

Want to solve the transportation “crisis”? Get VDOT and state government out of the equation: Devolve, privatize and outsource.

by Mike Smith

Virginia Royalty

Kings and Queens in Virginia

by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

Q&A: Building 14
The crucible of innovation in corporate real estate is a non-descript office building in San Jose, Calif. Inside, Mark Golan is redefining the relationship between worker and work space.

by James A. Bacon

By torpedoing the Republican transportation compromise late last week, Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, has steered internal GOP politics into a radical new direction. Terrified about facing the voters this fall, Republicans of disparate political viewpoints had overcome their differences to craft a far-reaching package of transportation funding and reforms. By allying with Democrats to kill the deal, Chichester deprived his fellow Republicans of their political cover.

Chichester critics have been calling the old warhorse a RINO, Republican In Name Only, for several years now. Defenders responded by disparaging his foes as ideologues opposed to a “big tent” party. If the Republicans wanted to stay in power, the argument went, they had to accommodate the moderates in the party.

What happens to that argument now that Chichester has abandoned the party? GOP legislators’ backs were against the wall this winter to devise some kind of transportation solution. (For the record, I’m not defending that legislative package, which was a mess. I’m writing purely as an observer of political dynamics right now.) Unless some new, last-minute compromise can be cobbled together, a dozen or more Republican lawmakers look like sitting ducks in the upcoming elections. There is no disguising the fact that Chichester put his priorities above those of the party. When the survival of the GOP majority was at stake, he joined the enemy.

Understandably, many Republicans are enraged. In the previous post, I published a letter by Mike Wade, chairman of the Third Congressional Committee, expressing his dismay. Wade’s call to “take action against Sen. Chichester” will be the first of many. Says Wade: “We must work statewide to remove this pariah.”

Emotions are raw, and I anticipate a blood-letting in the Republican Party during the primaries. Sen. Russell Potts, R-Winchester, Chichester’s faithful big-government ally, has attracted two opponents. Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, and Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, two other soft-on-taxes Republicans, also have credible challengers. I would be amazed if Chichester did not inspire a substantive opponent as well.

In his last election campaign, Chichester won easily over an unknown candidate who came across as a far-right cultural conservative. But running for re-election this time will be much tougher for several reasons. First, Chichester has showed his true colors: He can no longer pretend to be opposed to tax increases, which, astoundingly, he did four years ago. Second, having abandoned the GOP on the crucial transportation issue, he has angered many in the rank and file, the people who dominate the primary process. Third, by putting GOP control of the General Assembly in jeopardy, he has incurred the animus of Republicans across the state, not merely in his district. Any credible candidate who chose to run against Chichester in the GOP primary would be showered with money.

In time, it will become clear that the “failure of Republicans” to govern in the General Assembly was not a failure of “Republicans” — it was the refusal of John Chichester, the Byrd machine veteran turned Republican who never lost his penchant for big government, to compromise with members of his own party. A growing number of Republicans will conclude, I predict, that dumping Chichester is essential to the survival of the GOP as majority party. As long as he occupies the powerful post of Senate Finance chair, the GOP will never be able to govern. Purging Chichester and sub-alterns like Potts is the only way to establish a functioning majority, as opposed to a nominal majority, and pass the kind of legislation that will win credibility with voters.

Update: In a sign of the times, there’s a new blog, Chichester Must Go. Let’s see how much traffic it gets.

This letter comes from Mike Wade, chairman of the Republican Party of Hamption and chairman of the Republican Third Congressional District Committee. I will post my own observations in a follow-up post. — Jim Bacon

With every political pundit focused on the transportation issue in the General Assembly, it seems fitting for his Excellency, Senator John Chichester to steal the stage. His collaborative effort with other Senators to squash any hope of compromise transportation legislation seems at this point to have succeeded.

I must admit that I too have many problems with the specifics of HB3202 and do not support its passage as presented. I do, however, believe that there are some parts worth saving and that these components are fundamental to solving the transportation problems Virginians face daily. Unlike Sen. Chichester, I honestly look to amendments and substitute language to achieve a needed piece of legislation. The Senator’s preferred legislation was nothing more than a smack in the face of those who work in earnest for a solution to congestion.

It is true that Sen. Chichester did not accomplish this alone but it is under his leadership that it has taken place. Senator Quayle helped negotiate the “Compromise Package” and then proved to be nothing more than Chichester’s lap dog.

What part of being a team player eludes John Chichester? How does he consider himself a Republican? I guess we should expect this sad legacy he has created as a supposed Republican. Rumor has it that Wikipedia will soon use his name as a definition of a RINO — you know, those folks who trample the core Republican philosophy of “smaller government and lower taxes”.

These are the same folks that argued that Russ Potts is a “good guy” and should remain at his committee post. Potts should have been run out of the Republican Party for challenging our nominee. Instead Chichester gave him a free pass and further alienated grass root volunteers who donate their time and resources freely to the beliefs they hold dear.

This is the same Senator that made a political nothing, Gov. Mark R. Warner, a presidential hopeful. What good is it to be a Republican if all you do is ally with the opposition and further their liberal socialist message? I see no difference between John Chichester and that scoundrel Jim Webb who believe that taxes are the only solution to the problems facing Virginia.

Simply put, John Chichester needs to be removed from the Republican Party. He is motivated only to benefit himself or special interests, surely not the people of Virginia. He is deluded by his own arrogance, fortified at every chance he gets to demean the Republican name he wears.

I ask all members of the Republican Party in Virginia that truly believe in Ronald Reagan’s great legacy to rally. I ask those members who believe as Jefferson did that government is a burden upon the people who own it, to take action against Sen. Chichester. Sen. John Chichester has no honor and knows no shame. Chichester and his cohorts are the reason the Republican message has been lost and diluted in Virginia. If we are to maintain a majority based on Republican principles and the understanding of who owns the government then we must work statewide to remove this pariah.

At this point in history, the Republican Party of Virginia can not afford to have a leader in the Senate who is a political coward. If Chichester does not have the tenacity to support the values of the party name he wears, then he should change parties or better yet, simply get out of politics. All members of the Republican Party across the state should call for Senator John Chichester to remove himself from the Party.