Only Twenty-eight Percent of the 2006 Session is over!

The legislators have been in the convened session of the 2006 General Assembly for two and a half weeks now and for those of us here “on the ground” it only seems like it’s been at least two and a half months.  Confirming what I wrote last week,  most consultants, liaisons, lobbyists, legislative aides, new and carry over administration personnel, and General Assembly staffers share the feeling that this session is moving at a more rapid pace than in the past.  While someone did mention it has “slowed down just a mite this week,” most feel it is still going at about 125 miles an hour.

The committees have started interviewing the Cabinet Secretary appointments made by the new governor.  Every committee which has any legislation dealing with a particular secretariat wants to hear what the new appointee might have to say about the issues before that committee.  For instance, Tom Morris, the new Secretary of Education, has been before the House Committee on Education, The Appropriation’s Subcommittee on Education and its Sub on Higher Education, the Senate Finance’s Sub on Education, and the Senate Committee on Education and Health.  The other cabinet secretaries submitted to the same type of questioning. 

Remember these Cabinet people were just sworn into office on the 14^th.  The ones who have not held these posts before and come directly from the private sector to their new positions are probably wondering, “What in the world have I gotten myself into?”  There is definitely nothing quite like this in the private business world.  This year the questioning before some of the House Committees has been particularly intense.  In fact, rumor has it that the Republican Caucus feels this is a rather “liberal cabinet” and has therefore devised a set of questions for each secretary to be asked by various interviewing committee members.  And the questions and answers are being recorded by a court recorder, “Just for the record!”  This is the first time that my fading memory can recall this being done at the state level.  This is the regular procedure, so I am told, in that Capitol just north of the Potomac.  However, one has to ask, “Do we really want to keep bringing procedures followed by our Federal Government into our Virginia system?”

 

BILLS, BILLS, AND BUDGET AMENDMENTS AND MORE AMENDMENTS

 

The legislators did surprise many of us who “hang around” the halls of the General Assembly Building and Capital Square.  While these elected delegates and senators had the Legislative Services staff working overtime to draft some 3400 pieces of legislation, they showed some signs of self discipline and only introduced slightly less than 2800 different measures.  I say “different measures,” actually there are a number of duplicate bills introduced.  Some are introduced by different members of the same house and others by members of both houses.

 

An example--THE KELO CASE FALL OUT

 

A good example, you may remember the furor created by the court case of “Kelo vs the city of New London, CT” where the City Council used its eminent domain powers to take some private property for “public use.”  However, the public use turned out to be a private development which the city fathers wanted to see completed. The private developer only needed the Kelo parcels to complete the acquisition of land needed for his development. So the city used its powers to secure the land and sold it to the private firm.

This has precipitated a large number of bills (at least 30 in the House and 10 in the Senate) relating to the definition of “public use” in Virginia law.  A number of the bills are the exact same wording, others are similar, but all relate to the protection of private property rights.  The Civil Law Subcommittees of the House and Senate Courts of Justice Committees will have to sort all of these out.  On the House side this will take place next Wednesday afternoon.  It will be an interesting debate which could extend into the evening.

 

AMENDMENTS TO THE BUDGET BILLS----

 

“The book with the printed amendments to House Bills 29 and 30 are about twice as thick as the bills themselves,” stressed Vince Callahan, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.  Vince made this statement on Wednesday afternoon.  He was addressing his committee members and the audience in the committee room.  He told them the amendments had been sorted and printed by the staff and were ready for review.  The amendments had been printed efficiently—they used both sides of every piece of paper and information supplied by a number of the sponsors summarized in more concise terms.  Thus the stacks of paper noted in the GP—January 20, 2006 actually only filled two 3 ½ inch thick notebooks.

Here are the numbers on the amendments.  In the House, the 99 delegates (the 100^th member, Del. Peace, wasn’t elected until last Tuesday—after the deadline for the submission of budget amendments)—submitted 1035 amendments (10.45 per member) to regular items in HB 30, the Appropriations Act for 2006-2008, and 481 (4.86 per member) for moneys for “non-state agencies.”  Vince noted these amendments totaled over $5 Billion dollars.  How ‘bout those apples?  Remember, these are the amendments from the “ultra conservative, no-tax-increase” House of Delegates.  But then most of the amendments must have been from the more liberal Democrats and maybe a few from the moderate Republicans!  No analysis of the exact numbers by legislator has been done at this writing, but it might just be an eye opening exercise.

The 39 senators (their ranks will be completed next Tuesday, Jan 30^th, when the election to fill the seat vacated by Bill Mims, now the Deputy Attorney General, will be held) did a larger job on a per member basis by submitting 861 amendments (22.08 per member) to the regular items in SB 30 and 326 (8.36 per member) for non-state agencies.  There has been no official announcement of the dollar value of these amendments but a brief review indicated these too would top the $5,000,000,000 mark!

Every one reading this perspective is aware each of these amendments is for an absolutely necessary, essential, critical, urgent purpose!  In the eyes of those proposing or requesting the extra funds, these adjectives are probably accurate.

All of these words are expressed over and over again to the money committee members.  From experience I can tell you it may seem the members become very callous to these requests.  You have to understand the verbal barrage to which they are exposed during the budget public hearings and later during the budget amendment explanation process. In fact, when former Delegate Jerry Baliles and I were seatmates on the Appropriations Committee, we use to keep a tap on how many times we heard each of these and other expressive words during the hearings.  It actually helped us pay attention to some of the longer winded presentations.  (“Absolutely essential” was usually the winner!)

There is not going to be enough money to meet all of the demands of the various members.  You’ve already figured that out!  The subcommittees of Senate Finance and House Appropriations will hear the explanations of those who introduced the amendments, then have the difficult job of setting the priorities for their particular area of the budget.  While many will be disappointed at subcommittee (and in turn the full committee) decisions and wonder how they could have overlooked their particular “essential, critical” project, the members try hard to meet the “urgent” needs of the citizens of the state as they see them.  The decisions will probably be different than any one of us would make, but I can truthfully tell you from my experience, all of the members try to do what they consider to be “the right thing!”

 

THE MOST INTERESTING COMMENT OF THE WEEK

 

In a rather heated debate before the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee on a bill requiring pastors to report to authorities things they might have witnessed, someone questioned how any pastor could ever get out of testifying against one of his parishioners if he had seen or suspected some suspicious actions, and one of the supporters of the bill stated, “He (or she) would only have to hire a good lawyer.”  In response, one of the members, a business person by occupation, emphatically said, “While the creativity of lawyers in this legislature never ceases to amaze me, I’m still going to vote against the bill!”

 

Links to Previous Giesen Perspectives:

Jan. 23, 2006 Jan. 16, 2006 Dec. 21, 2005 Nov. 9, 2005 Oct. 21, 2005 Sept. 16, 2005 Aug. 26, 2005 Aug. 19, 2005 July 7, 2005 June 8, 2005 May 27, 2005 April 7, 2005 March 10, 2005 February 21, 2005 February 14, 2005 February 8, 2005 January 31, 2005 January 15, 2005 December 23, 2004 November 19, 2004

 

 

© 2007 Eldon James & Associates, Inc.