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THE GIESEN PERSPECTIVE More on the 2006-2008 Appropriations Act—HB 5002 DATE: Friday, June 30, 2006
BUDGET PROCESS COMPLETED—“But does end justify means?”
The Governor, with only 7 days in which to review and amend the Budget Bill, still sent the General Assembly 36 amendments to HB 5002. Included in these were 18 amendments which authorized $26.9 million in new general fund spending. The Governor and his financial advisors had “up-to-date forecasts” which indicated the estimated tax revenue for the next biennium would be $29 million more than had been forecasted last March. So, he had sent amendments to the legislators to spend the money on projects which he felt 1) were important enough to fund in this budget and 2) were appropriate to be funded by general fund revenue sources. The Republicans in the House of Delegates disagreed with His Excellency. Both houses were scheduled to meet at 10am Wednesday morning. They did so but ever so briefly. Then through the morning and into the afternoon there were meetings and then recesses to allow the House Republican Caucus to discuss the amendments, argue about their procedure, fuss about the Governor’s “finding” new money and about his drawing his amendments and telling the media and before he told the legislators. All of these caucuses were held “in executive sessions.” That means behind closed doors and in secret. While this was going on, the Senators milled around the halls of the Patrick Henry Building and the Governor’s staff people tried to find out what was going on behind the closed doors. Democrat Delegates and Senators could be seen going into the elevators which almost always stopped at the third floor. Finally, the full House got down to serious session in the early afternoon. It was not a pretty display of the legislative process. The public will probably only hear that the Republicans in the House of Delegates turned down 16 of the Governor's amendments. In the opinion of a number of former members (the numbers include Bob Bloxom, Preston Bryant, Whitt Clement, Chip Dicks, yours truly, and Jane Woods), it was a uncalled for display of arrogance and power, taking the GA back to the days of the Byrd Machine which controlled the GA from the 1930s thru the 50s. Even then the power plays were done with more consideration for the elected representatives of the citizens than was displayed Wednesday.(I disagree with this.) Even when the Democrats were in complete power they never, to my memory, refused to take up amendments to the budget under a one objection rule. This allowed any "elected delegate and a legitimate member of the body" to take an amendment from the bloc. Then the delegate could explain the amendment, answer or ask questions about it, and a full debate could be accomplished. This type of floor interaction is frequently most important to a member and to the people he or she represents. During Wednesday’s session this type of representative democracy was not the case. On a motion from Dave Albo, (R) Fairfax, 16 of the Governor's amendments were put in a bloc and no member was allowed to object to any of the amendments being in the bloc. After this motion was made, there were some strenuous objections from the Democrats. A number of “parliamentary inquiries” and “procedural objections” were put to The Acting Speaker. (Delegate Morgan Griffith, (R) Salem, normally the majority floor leader, was filling in for “The Speaker”, Bill Howell who suffered a knee injury and is confined to bed). There was an acrimonious and heated debate. Several members, all Democrats, tried to ask for certain amendments to be removed from the bloc prior to the vote. The Acting Speaker refused saying the motion had to be consider by itself. The minority leader, Frank Hall, (D) Richmond, pointed out to The Acting Speaker and to the membership, Rule 62 of the “Rules of the House of Delegates—2006-2007.” The Rule states, “If the question for decision includes several distinct propositions any member may have the same divided...” There was an extended meeting at the desk of the speaker. Despite
the wording of Rule 62, The Acting Speaker ruled if the motion to put the 16
amendments into a bloc passed there would be no division and there could be
one vote to accept or reject all 16 amendments. The motion passed and the
amendments were rejected on a party-line vote. The 35 Democrats who were
present voted Yea (as did Katherine Waddell, (I) Henrico) while 50
Republicans voted Nay (as did Independent Watt Abbitt). Two Republicans who
were in the Chamber were recorded as not voting, the Acting Speaker, and
Delegate Michele McQuigg, (R) Prince William. His rather graphic language was probably in violation of Rule 57 of the House which reads, “No member shall in debate use any language or gesture calculated to wound, offend, or insult another member.” But then, maybe he felt justified in expressing himself in this manner since in the view of many the Republican leadership had violated Rule 62 and the long tradition of the House of considering amendments to the budget on “a one objection rule” had been breached. At the end
of the sparring, Ward Armstrong expressed it well, when, he cautioned the
Republican When the
passed amendments reached the Senate the reactions to the happenings in the
other house were what you might expect. It has been reported that comments were made by certain leaders to the effect that "... just because you serve on a committee this year doesn't mean you will be on that committee next year!" One capital watcher with a leaning toward history expressed the feelings of many in these words, “Representative democracy took a blow in Virginia today!”
SOME OF THE AMENDMENTS WHICH WENT DOWN “IN BLOC”
Just In case you haven’t been reading the media reports, here are a few of the amendments which were shot down by the vote in lock-step, take-no-prisoners mentality of the house majority. Do take into consideration a comment by one of the reluctant Republican participants regarding the caucus position, “a number of these amendments would probably have passed if they had been voted on individually.” Amendment # 2—Item 30—Supreme Court of Va., $200,000 per year (to minimize the extra costs to various courts to cover the increase in mileage reimbursement rates from $0.325 to $0.445 per mile.) Now would any of the attorney members who practice before the courts voted against this amendment? Amendment # 6—Item 104—Dept. of Housing and Community Development, $250,000 per year (for grants to assist a regional economic development effort in the Counties of Alleghany, Bath, and Highland, the City of Covington, and the Towns of Clifton Forge and Iron Gate.) This one may have gone down regardless, since most of the area is represented by Democrats in both the House and the Senate. Highland County is the exception. Amendment # 11—Item 250—Higher Education Research Initiative, $2,000,000 in FY 06-07 (additional funding to attract a research-related entity along the I-81 corridor which will enhance our competitiveness for research dollars among other states, and will help provide more local jobs, tax dollars, and investment in Virginia.) Delegates representing the I-81 corridor, all of whom were aware of the necessity of this appropriation as “the deal clincher” to attract a “research-related entity,” would, hopefully, not only have voted for this amendment but would have been strong advocates for it on the floor. Amendment # 14—Item 334—Dept. of Social Services, “up to $6,000,000 from any discretionary unexpended general fund appropriations on the last day of the previous biennium, ending on June 30, 2006…” (these funds were for non-mandated fee child care and would flow through the DSS to localities on a 50% match basis. Estimates are its elimination could impact up to 1,900 children mostly in Fairfax County. Most counties affected have already put up their match monies.) It would have been very difficult for any delegate representing even a part of Fairfax or other affected counties to have voted against this as an individual amendment. It probably would have passed. Amendments #16—Item 362—Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), $50,000 each year (for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to support Chesapeake Bay education field studies) and Amendment # 17—Item 362---DEQ, $100,000 FY 06-07 (to investigate the potential factors resulting in fish lesions and mortality in the Shenandoah River and for water quality monitoring and evaluations of fish health.) A small amount of money but important enough to the Bay communities and to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to make it tough for area delegates to vote nay.
Amendment #18—Item 364—DEQ, $3,750,000 FY 06-07 (to help address the
combined sewer overflow (CSO) project in Lynchburg. Money was in the
introduced version of the budget for both Richmond and Lynchburg to help
fund the CSO projects. The Senate increased the amounts to $5,000,000 for
each city; the House had $0.0 for both. The Conferees only included
$3,750,000 for Richmond.) Common sense would tell one if you are going to
spend BIG bucks to clean up the James Amendment #22—Item C-16—Dept. of Forestry, $2,400,000 FY 06-07 (to acquire 4,800 acres of land in Washington County called the Brumley Mountain Tract. Additional funding would be provided by the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation. This is a good area for wildlife. It is considered good land to preserve.) This would have been tough vote. There are not a whole lot of dedicated conservationists in the House. One wonders how former Speaker, Vance Wilkins, who is a strong conservationist, feels about his former colleagues’ actions. Amendment #24-Item C-91—Norfolk State University FY 06-07 (to fund the planning of the first step towards renovating Norfolk State’s library to help ensure reaccreditation of the University in 2008.) This is the amendment that caused Lionell Spruill to get so upset with the process and the GOP leadership in the House. He is a NSU graduate and didn’t have an opportunity to explain the need for this funding. If the amendment had been voted on separately, it may have passed, since the Tidewater Area Delegates would have been hard pressed to vote against it. Amendment #25—Item C-198.50—Virginia Community College System, $1,800,000 FY 06-07 (for detailed architectural and engineering planning and design in support of the demolition and replacement of Anderson Hall at Virginia Western Community College and to plan the Phase III academic building on the Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.) Voted on as an individual amendment, this had a lot going for it. For the delegates from the western part of the state a new facility “to house state-of-the-art laboratories” and for those from the northern part of the state a new academic building to be named for their recently deceased colleague, Delegate Harry J. Parrish. The probability of it passing would have been very good.
THE FINAL RESULTS
The stated reason for putting all of these GF appropriation amendments in a bloc, voting on all of them with one vote, and then rejecting them all, was this “…money recently ‘found’ by the Governor was needed for transportation.” This was Delegate Albo’s position on the floor. He had said it a little differently on the radio earlier in the day when he stated, “I have a hard time asking my constituents to vote on raising taxes on a regional basis when the state’s extra general funds on being spent on piddling pork barrel projects.” So, the position of those who supported the actions of the House Republican Majority, is they have “saved $19.3 million for transportation. There is a big, big question as to whether any of these funds will go to transportation. All of the “new” money which the Governor “found” is from General Fund sources. None of it is from dedicated transportation funds. The Senate and the Governor have emphatically stated they do not want the transportation systems in the state fighting against education, conservation, economic development, human resources, or capital construction for their funds. As stated before the transportation experts have continually stressed there is a need for at least $1.0 BILLION new dollars per year if the state’s transportation crisis is going to be adequately addressed. The $19.3 million saved on Wednesday for the biennium, if it were to be used for transportation purposes, would amount to less than 1% of the needs for 06-08. Then there is no assurance this type of “surplus GF money” would be available in the future. This will give you a slight indication as to how difficult the transportation discussions and debates between the House and Senate are going to be when they start conferring again. This will probably happen in the fall. Both Houses have adjourned to return on July 24, but it is anticipated these will be pro forma session simply to set the next meeting date. Oh yes, the Governor will probably put his veto pen to a few language line items in the budget bill and then sign HB 5002 today less than 12 hours before the start of the new biennium! There’s nothing like brinkmanship politics, is there? The Governor has indicated he is studying the possibility of using part of the $31 plus million “unexpended balance” which the Assembly’s actions leaves in the budget to fund some of the projects which he had recommended in his amendments. There are some avenues available to him through “executive actions” to accomplish some of his objectives. It will be most interesting to watch his actions in the next month. With our strong executive form of state government, it doesn’t pay for a legislator to get on the wrong side of His Excellency. There is also the possibility of political fallout from these actions in the future. Back in the dark ages (the 1960s!) the aforementioned Byrd Machine controlled the functions of the Assembly by not appointing any moderate or liberal Democrat or any stripe Republican to any active, functioning committee of the General Assembly. The Republican leaders in the Assembly, Senator Jim Turk (R) Radford and Delegate Caldwell Butler (R) Roanoke, went around the state and let the citizens know that “The Machine” was preventing the elected representatives of the people from being full participants in the legislative process. “This is wrong, just plain wrong,” Jim used to say in an emphatic voice. More and more people listened and voters didn’t like what they heard. More Republicans and “liberal Democrats” were elected to the General Assembly. The atmosphere in the Assembly changed and everyone became a participating member. Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Should the Republican majority listen to the warning issued by Delegate Ward Armstrong? There are many business types and capital watchers that are beginning to say YES to both of these questions.
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Arthur R. Giesen, Jr., fondly known as Pete, served in the Virginia House of Delegates for over 30 years. He represented the citizens of the Central Shenandoah Valley surviving four different district realignments. During his career he represented Augusta, Bath, Highland and part of Rockingham County and the Cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. Following his career as an elected official, Pete assisted Lt. Governor John H. Hager as his Chief of Staff. Pete now keeps an eye on Virginia government and assists many clients with his unique perspective on the workings of the Virginia General Assembly and its relationship with the other branches of state government. |
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