Giesen Perspective

The Giesen Perspective:

The Giesen Perspective – Thanksgiving

The Time to Start Thinking About the Short Session of the General Assembly

DATE: Wednesday, November 22, 2006

THANKSGIVING

There are many things for which to be thankful on this day before our U.S. official day of Thanksgiving. We should be thankful we have men and women who have volunteered to be in our armed services. They have been deployed in dangerous places around the world with the intent of maintaining peace in some war torn parts of our planet. Whether or not we agree with the decisions made that have put these Americans in harms way, we should show our gratitude that we have such citizens in our country.

We can certainly be thankful that the “political wars” (sometimes called “campaigns”) have been completed and that the lame duck Congress hasn’t yet reconvened. Here in Virginia, we can be grateful the extended “special session of 2006” has been completed and we can now look forward to the SHORT Session of the General Assembly in 2007.

One of the interesting discussions now taking place in legislative circles is how short the short session will be! Section 6 of Article IV of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Constitution states, “…no regular session of he General Assembly convened in an odd-numbered year shall continue longer than thirty days, but with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to each house, any regular session may be extended for a period not exceeding thirty days.” Since the revised Constitution went into effect on July 1, 1971 most of the even year sessions of the Assembly have been conducted in the 60 day period prescribed by the Virginia Constitution. None of the odd year sessions have been concluded within the thirty-day limit set in the Constitution. The shortest has been 39 days and the longest 52 days—if my memory serves him correctly.

Most of the sessions in recent years have been 45 days. The Joint Rules Committee has drafted the organization resolution setting the “deadline days for introduction of bills, for committees to report on bills, for final floor action on each body’s own bills, for the reporting of the appropriation bills, for the consideration of the other body’s bills, for conference committees to conclude their work, and finally for the adoption of a budget bill. So far this year the Joint Rules Committee has not met to consider this schedule.

In the interim an apparent casual comment by one of the most powerful GOP State Senators about there not being any need for meeting longer than 30 days has stirred up a major dialogue between all factions of the legislative body. It is my understanding there have been numerous telephone conversations and some face-to-face discussions between the leaders of each house, and even maybe (one would hope) between the leaders of both houses with each other. No decision to date has been announced and so far no scheduled meeting of the Joint Rules Committee.

While the leadership is thinking about whether it is practical to complete a General Assembly session in a thirty-day period, the membership’s thirst to introduce legislation has not diminished in the least. As of yesterday, the Division of Legislative Services had received requests to draft slightly over 900 pieces of legislation. The deadline for requests for drafting bills that can be “prefiled” (introduced before the Assembly actually convenes on January 10, 2007) is still 19 days away—5 pm December 11. The rules of the Assembly allow any legislator to introduce any number of bills prior to the prefiling deadline. After the Assembly convenes, Delegates are limited to five bills each and the Senators, eight. (Calculate that out and it still means after the Assembly convenes there could be an additional 820 pieces of legislation introduced.)

The question has to be asked (as it has prior to the convening of every odd year session) can a legislative body give “careful and due” consideration to between 2000 and 3000 pieces of legislation in a thirty day period? Despite the streamlining efforts of recent leaders of the legislature, their answer to this question has been the same as that given in 1972 by then Speaker of the House, John Warren Cooke, “Every legislator deserves to have his legislation carefully considered. The system should allow that for his constituents and for the other citizens of the Commonwealth.” And so since the first “short session” two-thirds of both houses have agreed to exceed the thirty days stated in the Constitution.

Any bets on what will happen to the 2007 Session?

STATE REVENUES

As has been widely publicized, national economic growth has slowed. The state’s Secretary of Finance contributes this to the impact of higher interest rates and a slower housing market. While Virginia continues to do better than the nation as a whole our economy has also softened. Net Individual Income Tax collections in October were strong compared to October of 2005; however in the year to date comparisons, revenues are up only 3.0 % compared to a 3.7% growth required by the official budget estimate. Part of this is due to the Department of Taxation making refunds more rapidly than they did last year when they were implementing a new accounting system. So the Secretary sees this source of revenue as still sustaining “solid growth in Virginia.”

Corporate Income Tax revenues have remained strong, up 10.9% year to date compared to a forecast of minus 9.6%. The third revenue source which fueled the double digit growth in state funds for the past several years, the recordation tax, did not perform well in October nor has it in FY 07. In October collections fell 16.9% and to date has fallen 23.8% compared to the forecast of minus 15.4%.

All of this adds up to the fact for the first four months of FY 07, state revenue collections, when adjusted for the repealing of the Accelerated Sales Tax program, have increased only 2.4%, behind the adjusted annual estimate of 3.1% growth.

THE MONEY COMMITTEES “RETREAT”?

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee held their separate annual fall “retreats.” Why these are called “retreats” still buffalos me. The committees meet for two days and hear reports from staff and other individuals as they prepare to receive the Governor’s recommended budget. They don’t seem to do any retreating. Generally, during their considerations of the budget bills they advance the state’s spending to what ever the official revenue forecasts will allow.

Governor Tim Kaine will present his revisions to the 2006-2008 Budget on December 15 before a joint meeting of the money committees (this will include the House Finance Committee, which was invited to the Appropriations Committee’s retreat and some members did attend). After that, the committees take possession of the bills and produce the Appropriations Act for the State. In the short session, you could say they produce the “adjusted and amended Appropriation Act for the state.”

It is obvious from facts and figures given at both retreats that the amendments and adjustments made to the 06-08 Budget will not be extensive. If there was a common theme at these two day meetings it was “caution and restraint.” Both Chairmen, in their opening remarks to the meetings, strongly indicated there would be a shortage of “new funds” come January and encouraged their colleagues to restrain their spending habits. In their presentations, staff members echoed their chairmen’s words (maybe they helped write the opening speeches, do you reckon?)

Maybe the Senate staff summed it up best when at the end of her presentation on Virginia’s Budget and Revenue Outlook, Betsey Daley had written in big, bold letters, “What does all this mean? Caution is our friend.”

The forecasts from the two committee staffs were a little different; the House estimated an increase in revenue for the biennium of between $475 and $550.0 million with a balance from FY06 of $113.1 million, while the more cautious Senate calculated a revenue revision of $390.4 million plus the $113.1 balance from ’06. Both stressed to their members when they went through the various segments of the budget, that agencies have made requests to the Department of Planning and Budget of some $1.2 BILLION. So the Governor has a tough job ahead of him trying to prioritize state spending considering that a lot of the agencies’ requests are driven by numbers and demands and are not new initiatives.

DIFFERENT SUBJECTS AT DIFFERENT RETREATS

The agendas of the two retreats would also indicate there may be some additional tough negotiations in the budget conference committee’s deliberations after each body adopts its version of the appropriations act. “OK, so what’s new?” you ask. Nothing really, it’s just interesting to speculate what those negotiations might be about. Both committees heard from economists about the “outlook for the economy” and from their staffs about the revenue picture. Then came the differences.

The House Appropriations Committee concentrated on Homeland Security, retirement benefits for state employees (both those already retired and those approaching retirement), new and existing pre-kindergarten programs (one of Governor Kaine’s stated goals for his administration), and student financial aid.

The Senate Finance Committee heard about capital outlay planning and cost overruns, and visited two sites of potential heavy capital outlay expenditures—the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind and Western State Hospital. On the second day of their retreat, the members of the smaller house (well in numbers anyhow) received briefings on the funding for the state’s core responsibilities (Senator Chichester’s words) -- public education, higher education, health and human resources, and corrections and mental health.

One notable omission in both retreats was any discussion about transportation, the main topic of both meetings last year. This leads most capital watchers to speculate that this will not be a front burner subject in 2007. There is the $339 million of general funds appropriated to transportation but not allocated to any particular item of the transportation budget. This will be debated and designations will be made. These discussions may be heated and acrimonious. That’s just a little guess taken from the experience of the ’06 Special Session! It now appears the next big push for transportation funding will have to wait until 2008 and do remember there is an election for all 140 seats in the General Assembly before that date.

TWO SIDE BARS --The Capitol renovation

Yours truly was honored to accompany several legislators on a guided tour of the renovation of your Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol. You know the architect and construction management team were just not able to complete the total renovation within the original ambitious schedule of completing the job in time for the 2007 General Assembly session to be held in the Capitol.

The goal now is to have the reconvened session (by the Constitution to be held “on the sixth Wednesday after the adjournment of each regular or special session…”) in the refurbished chambers. (This might be another reason to extend the regular short session, since there is an awful lot of work still to be done!)

In my opinion, the citizens of Virginia will be proud of the preservation of the exterior of the Capitol as it has been since 1906 (that’s when the wings were added) and the renovation of the interior to be more like Jefferson’s design. Room layouts and colors will be much closer to the eighteenth century original. However, the atmospheric controls and the sound systems will be twenty-first century technology. In addition, there will be considerable more space, thanks to the “under the south lawn entrance and structure.”

The public will come into the Capitol from Banks Street through an entrance that does not distract from the Capitol in any way. In fact, it will give the individual a good view of the Capitol across the south lawn. For all of those who have seen many pictures of the Capitol this is the favorite angle from which to photograph or paint Mr. Jefferson’s “monument on a hill.”

And The Giesen building at Western State Hospital (WSH)

The Senate Finance Committee did me a great honor by meeting in the cafeteria building at WSH. The Mental Health, Mental Retardation, Substance Abuse Services Board had named this building the Arthur R. Giesen Jr. Building in 1996, “…in recognition of his efforts in helping to strengthen the mental health and mental retardation system in Virginia during his thirty plus years of service in the Virginia House of Delegates.” The Chairman made some appropriate remarks. Other Senators also had their say. My former colleague in the House and Senate from Augusta County noted to his present colleagues, “…the real reason the building was named after Giesen is he was the longest serving resident!”

Someone noted that the picture hanging in the main dining room was obviously my high school graduation picture. Another stressed with the new plan for WSH they’d probably have to tear the building down and with a new provision in the law no living, present or former, legislator can have a state structure named after him. (I didn’t offer to take any steps to make it possible for them to name any of the new mental health facilities after me! You do notice however, “There just ain’t no respect for former legislators.”)

Links to Previous Giesen Perspectives:

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.