Legislative maneuvering in the General Assembly reached a theatric climax earlier this month when Sen. Russell Potts, R-Winchester, withdrew a transportation-tax proposal that threatened to derail the comprehensive GOP transportation package supported by the House of Delegates and elements of the state Senate. Newspaper accounts alluded only briefly to Potts’ explanation for his retraction: the fact that Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was prepared to rule that his amendment was not “germane” to the underlying legislation.
Potts’ retreat represented a decisive defeat not only for the Winchester maverick but for Senate Finance Chair John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, and his allies in the Axis of Taxes who see higher taxes and more spending as the best antidotes to what ails the Commonwealth. Remarkably, no one in the press corps, which normally loves high drama, never felt moved to delve behind the scenes of this legislative turning point.
A few new details have emerged from Bolling himself, who wrote about the incident in his weekly newsletter, “The Bolling Report.” In this week’s edition he writes:
The Chichester/Potts bill set up a potentially divisive battle with Chichester, Potts and Senate Democrats on one side and the vast majority of Senate Republicans on the other side. At the last minute Senator Chichester and Senator Potts asked that their alternative transportation proposal be returned to the Committee on Finance and not voted on by the full Senate.
The decision to forgo a floor fight on this issue appeared to be influenced by two factors: 1) a desire to avoid a potentially bitter battle between Senate Republicans, who have historically stood united on important issues such as this, and 2) a desire to avoid an adverse parliamentary ruling that could have prevented the bill from moving forward.
At issue was whether or not the Chichester/Potts substitute was “germane” to the underlying bill it was attached to by the Committee on Finance. Germaneness is an important parliamentary principle which requires that committee amendments relate to the general purpose of the underlying bill and that they do not unreasonably expand the general purpose of the underlying bill.
In this case the Committee on Finance had added the Chichester/Potts substitute to an underlying bill introduced by Senator Potts that was much narrower in its focus than the committee substitute. Because of this, I had been asked, as the presiding officer of the Senate, to determine if the committee substitute was germane.
After completing extensive research on this question I had decided that the Chichester/Potts substitute was not germane to the underlying bill it was attached to. As such, I was prepared to rule that the substitute was not properly before the Senate and order its return to the Committee on Finance.
To avoid this ruling, and to avoid a bitter floor fight among Senate Republicans, Senator Chichester and Senator Potts chose to voluntarily recommit their substitute to the Committee on Finance. The good news is that a vote on the Chichester/Potts substitute, which would have seriously harmed our efforts to reach any agreement on transportation funding this year, was avoided.
As of this morning, Bolling was making no predictions as to whether the full Senate would approve the compromise package.
