Though transportation is often cited as the major issue to be addressed by the Virginia legislature this year, both Gov. Warner and the House GOP have offered similar plans. The only notable difference is the GOP call for transferring a portion of auto insurance premiums into transportation. Warner advocated that idea last year, according to The Washington Post’s Mike Shear, so he may be amenable to it this year. But then, they run into the Senate’s powerful majority leader.

State Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Stafford), who was Warner’s chief ally last year, has said repeatedly that he opposes any shift of money from Virginia’s operating funds into the transportation fund. Doing so, he said, would steal from education, health care, colleges and public safety.

Chichester, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been coy about the Howell proposal. That’s typical for Chichester, who often remains opaque even to his closest allies in the Senate.

His views are likely shared by many members of his committee. If they all reject the insurance transfers, there could be an interesting reversal of allies this time around: Warner and Howell vs. Chichester and the Senate.

It’s also possible that Howell could once again find himself the odd man out. Warner could again reject the insurance transfer and side with Chichester for the smaller, one-time package.

Almost makes one wish that Chichester has something more up his sleeve. The Senate is not up for re-election this year and will still be more than a year away during next year’s session. This bi-partisanship is all lovely-dovey but it will dissipate once the session is over. Maybe Chichester can make things exciting, but more important, really do something to improve traffic.

“It’s politically easy to say that we should all be bipartisan.”
–Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, skeptically of Governor Mark Warner’s call for cooperation in the legislative session, but could have been said by any Capitol Hill Democrat about George Bush’s call for the same.

Some of the Northern Virginia counties are known to whine abut the state not sending enough of the county’s tax money back where it came from. It’s a legitimate complaint, but the funding formulas aren’t likely to change with smaller jurisdictions reaping the benefits of those formulas having a far greater number of lawmakers in Richmond. In other words, just count the votes.

But Prince William County, where they are fast growing out of their “poor cousin” image vis-à-vis Fairfax – and yes, where they do much better than Fairfax in some of those formulaic distributions, still has decided it’s better to plan than whine. Plan way in advance.

Every four years, beginning in 2006, voters would be asked to approve spending for road projects. A bond issue for parks would go to the polls every six years, and funding for new libraries would be considered by voters every 12 years. School bonds, which are proposed by the School Board, are not included in the schedule.

And Prince William, unlike Fairfax, is willing to make developers may their fair share.

“Development is not paying for itself,” said Supervisor Corey A. Stewart (R-Occoquan). The plan for scheduled bond referendums “is a testament to the need to look at the proffers and increase them this year,” he added.

Requiring more in proffers — the money or land that developers offer the county in exchange for rezonings — is an issue the board will look at this year, [County Manager Craig] Gerhart said.
Last month, Brookfield Homes, a major developer, said it will provide more than $100 million in road improvements if it wins approval to build 6,000 homes and a town center of restaurants, shops and office buildings near Gainesville.

Gerhart’s plan for meeting the county’s future capital needs includes $40 million in proffers that would be coupled with bond money to complete projects.

Note that Stewart is a Republican. As is, of course, PW County board chairman Sean Connaughton.

Generally, counties put bonds on the ballot whenever the need arises for a big project such as a new school. It is rare for officials to plan referendums more than a decade in advance, according to board Chairman Sean T. Connaughton (R-At Large).

… Connaughton, who is running for lieutenant governor, said Prince William’s plan recognizes the state’s limitations. “With the four-year road bonds, it is our acknowledgment that the state will never have the money,” he said.

Generally, the plan seemed well received, according to reports.

The transportation portion of the CIP received much attention from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who heard of the plans for the first time Tuesday.

Most supervisors were receptive and some even wondered if the next road bond should be sent to voters this year instead of 2006.

“I’d be very interested in 2005,” said Supervisor Maureen S. Caddigan, R-Dumfries.

Supervisor Chairman Sean T. Connaughton, R-at large, asked if voters could approve a road bond in 2005 in case any bond capacity is available to start engineering new roads as soon as possible.

Gerhart said his staff would look into that.

Caddingan, another Republican. It’s nice to see the GOP reacting positively to plans that ask developers to pay up.

But another way of looking at this is passing the buck. Bonds are usually pretty easy to pass. Voters see them as a loan from the bond buyers. But they are another form of tax increase in the sense that the debt service is another line item in the budget. Every dollar going towards bonds is one less dollar the county can spend on other needs. That’s not to say that it’s poor planning, but it isn’t a free lunch or “thinking outside the box,” as one supervisor put it. It’s long range. That’s good. It’s taking responsibility. That’s good, too. Maybe PW thinks its people won’t mind.

Prince William County experienced another period of fast job growth in the second quarter of 2004, according to recently released numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s the second time Prince William has made the top 10 list of job growth for 2004.

The 5,900 jobs created by June 2004 placed Prince William County at No. 4 on a nationwide earning and wage list released Tuesday.

Since June 2003, the county saw job growth increase by 6.9 percent, although its total number of jobs is about 20 percent of Fairfax County’s.

If they hope to catch Fairfax, I’d advise, be careful what you wish for. With the growth may come a whine from both its leaders and homeowners who pay back that debt service.

When even the conservative Richmond Times Dispatch editorial page says while increasing fines for driving violations might be a good thing,

Yet do fines qualify as prudent vehicles for financing roads and other transportation projects? Although a system strapped for cash can use every buck, a fine-based program – even when used as a supplement – relies on uncertainty. Indeed, establishing such a fund could distract attention from the compelling need: a reliable source of dedicated funding sufficient to maintain the existing network, while also building the projects Virginia’s growing economy needs. The package proposed by House Republican leaders reflects a more comprehensive vision. Sunday’s Editorial Page addressed the GOP plan. Future editorials will focus on the issue as it works its way through the legislative mixing bowl.

Supporters likely consider “abuser fees” ways to raise money without resorting to general tax hikes. The plan itself concedes there is a serious problem with transportation funding in the Commonwealth. The abuser fees – welcome as they might be – would fall short of salvational. As politicians from both sides of the aisle recognize, the climate is not propitious for increasing the tax on gasoline. But do not be surprised if gasoline taxes appear on the legislative table – not in the 2005 session perhaps, but maybe in 2006. Abusers should pay more. The dilemma is that users probably will have to pay more, too.

The anti-taxers must feel betrayed by the usually reliable right-leaning RTD editorial page. If I were running against said anti-taxers, this might be an editorial I’d have in my hip pocket, along with all those quotes from business people one reads in stories about the transportation shortfall. As the sales tax referendum of 2002 proved, business folks don’t always get their way, but they are building a coalition that might finally get something done, albeit not until next year.

In his state of the state speech tonight, Gov. Mark Warner is expected to counter the charter plan proposal by Virginia’s top three universities with a more modest plan of his own.

The governor also will call on the assembly to loosen some state controls over public colleges and universities, one source said. Warner proposes “to free the colleges and give them additional operational flexibility,” the source said yesterday.

But he will demand of the institutions “greater performance, accountability and access” to higher education for needy Virginians.

The governor’s higher education proposal falls short of a sweeping plan by the state’s three premier universities–University of Virginia, William and Mary and Virginia Tech–which have sought “charter” status.

Under that plan, they would agree to forgo up to 10 percent of state funds in exchange for, among other things, fewer restrictions on procurement, hiring, tuition raises and capital projects.

But many lawmakers, as well as Warner, are leery of giving the schools a blank check.

And well they should be. Many parents of young children are surprised to learn that their often very bright kids can’t get into UVA, Tech or W&M. The demand is so great that only the top handful of students in even the best high schools can gain entrance. Many fear the colleges want a freer hand to not only raise tuitions (even they admit to a likely 10% annual increase over the next few years, if allowed) but also to admit more out-of-state students, leaving even fewer spaces for Virginians. No question they need more money, but leaving them to their own devices could be the first step in making them private, which would be a loss of literally centuries of taxpayer investment. (OK, two centuries.)

As I read this story, I thought I’d found something I could agree with Del. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem). Why shouldn’t newspapers be subject to the same BPOL tax as other businesses? And let’s face it, newspapers are businesses first. Keepers of first amendment rights is somewhere down the list. But then I read

Griffith said his bill does not apply to broadcast media, partly because “the broadcast media hasn’t been asking us to raise taxes.” He also said broadcasters are not “filling up landfills” as discarded newspapers do.

Griffith acknowledged that some will question his motives and accuse him of using the legislative process to settle a score with the newspaper.

“Certainly people can say that,” he said. “But all I did was take the same arguments they’ve made during the last year, two years, three years, five years and apply them to their industry.”

And, Griffith added: “If they’re intellectually honest, they will have to support this.”

Well, if you were intellectually honest, Mo, well, you wouldn’t be Mo.

In a story about an onerous bill that was brought down, in part by the efforts of a Virginia blogger, we learn that

Political blogs proliferated during the 2004 presidential election. Many have survived and are becoming powerful tools for generating grassroots responses on public policy.

Rem Rieder, editor of American Journalism Review, said the blog phenomenon has both positive and negative consequences.

“It’s certainly a way of stimulating participation in the political process. It’s a way to get involved instantly,” he said. “But the potential for bullying and intimidation is there. You wouldn’t want people to not be putting in bills because they’d be flogged by blogs. And it can be a way of spreading misinformation or distorted information quickly. Blogs, while they are fascinating, are not journalism.”

“Flogged”? “Spreading misinformation or distorted information quickly”? I thought that was the job of Fox News.

Here’s the legislative agenda of the Family Foundation. They not only want to limit abortions; they want to withhold state funds from Planned Parenthood that tries to provide information on how to avoid pregnancies.

Here’s why sane folks are saying there is no real “surplus” in the state’s budget.

They note that most of the surplus is being spent to repay special accounts Virginia raided to balance the budget during the recession. They point to reports saying that inflationary increases in health care and education mean that the state will have to generate at least $2.5 million in new revenues just to keep pace during the two-year budget cycle starting July 1, 2006.

The DNC!

And to all the Republicans who criticized Democrats for name-calling during the last election, here’s what the GOP has to say about the $5 million committed by the DNC to Kaine’s election.

Ken Hutcheson, Kilgore’s campaign manager, dismissed the forthcoming DNC commitment as “national liberal money” and predicted that it will be used to provide Kaine with an “extreme political makeover” to disguise his liberal record.

“The DNC and its stable of liberal candidates represent the interests and Hollywood values of Michael Moore and Whoopi Goldberg,” Hutcheson said, “while Attorney General Jerry Kilgore is aligned with common-sense, conservative Virginia values and voters.”

Hutcheson said he expects Kilgore’s campaign to have a “strong working partnership with the Republican National Committee, the Republican Governors Association and the White House.”

…”No amount of money the DNC spends will buy Tim Kaine a mainstream record,” said RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie.

Call them liberals and you’ve made your case to the people: the GOP modus operandi.

Kaine also introduced his legislative agenda for the upcoming session. Two that address the most pressing problems in Virginia:

_ A bill restricting tuition increases as state-supported colleges and universities to the rate of inflation unless the legislature fails to appropriate sufficient money under a formula for meeting higher education’s base adequacy needs;

_ A constitutional amendment that forbids lawmakers from using the Transportation Trust Fund to balance the general fund budget in lean years. “When you’re telling somebody that we’re taking this money from you at the gas pump and this money will go to

But does he really have to pander with the tort reform bone he throws. No one has convinced me there’s really a big problem. The instances of “too hot coffee” suits are few and far between.

It’s true that damage awards are partly responsible for soaring malpractice premiums that drive health costs up and doctors out of business. Unfortunately doctors’ groups continue to resist efforts outside the tort system to address the serious problem of medical errors. They want relief from liability without greater disclosure or more aggressive disciplining of doctors.

The truth is tort reform is all about protecting special interests.

The medical malpractice bill backed by President Bush would prevent consumers from seeking punitive damages from the makers of Vioxx and Celebrex, two popular pain medications recently linked to increased risks of heart attacks and strokes, according to legal experts on both sides of the issue.
While Bush often touts the medical malpractice proposals as a prudent way to stop frivolous lawsuits against doctors, the bill’s less-discussed liability protections for pharmaceutical companies such as Merck & Co., the manufacturer of Vioxx, is generating controversy this week.