The Hon. A. R. Pete Giesen, Jr.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008—HIGH NOON
Publish Date: January 18, 2008
The longest continuous meeting legislative body in the Western Hemisphere
started its 2008 Session in very orderly fashion. All the members were sworn-in
(remember all were either elected or re-elected in November, so this is a “new”
legislative body). As usual the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court does the honor
for The Speaker and The Clerk of the House.
In the “other house,” i.e. The Senate of Virginia, a judge or justice chosen by The
Clerk, swears her in. This year Susan Schaar had a former member of the Senate,
now a Circuit Court Judge, Dudley J. “Buzz” Emick, Jr (1976-92), do the honors.
In both chambers, the Clerks conducted the swearing-in of the members en-mass.
The members signed their “certificate of election” and each became an official
member of your state’s legislative body for the 2008 and 2009 sessions.
The seats in the balconies of the two bodies were reserved primarily for the
families of the freshman class. It is reported that all were duly impressed with the
new status of either their spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, offspring,
grandfather, or grandmother (well, maybe there weren’t any new grandfathers or
grandmothers in this group — as there was in 1958 when my mother was
sworn-in — those elected seem to be younger every year!).
Even Delegate Lacey Putney, who has served for 46 years in the House of
Delegates, and took the “oath of office” for the 25th time. There were two one year
terms wedged in the middle of his service when the legislature had a little
disagreement with the Federal Government and the Federal Court System over
“multi-member districts” and the “one-man-one-vote” laws passed by our
Congress. That “group of legislators across the Potomac” is always messing in
The Commonwealth’s business!
There were the usual activities — the Joint Resolution to organize the session was
adopted by both houses and each house adopted its own rules — this resolution
and the rules, of course, had already been drafted by the majority caucuses — they
are different in each house, you know? — even though the legislature had not
officially organized, oh well, it helps the process move along more quickly.
The committee assignments were announced in both chambers. Now this is one of
the “newer wrinkles” of the Assembly. In “the old days,” a member normally
didn’t get his/her committee assignments until at least the Friday of the first week
of the session. Maybe some of the reforms established under the Republican
leadership have made the process more “efficient.” But then in those olden days,
the urgent part of the opening session was to hear the Governor’s State of the
Commonwealth address. Now the members take care of all of these organizing
details first, then recess, and come back in the evening to allow His Excellency to
make a “prime time address to the citizens of the Commonwealth.”
In this day of the electronic media, most of the Governor’s address has already
been “leaked” and rarely is there any “startling news” in his address to the
legislators. The members of the legislature and the citizens listened to a speech
which, if they had been paying attention to the news reports for the past month,
was filled with news releases made over that period of time.
Reflect back on the difference in the atmosphere in 1966 when recently elected
Governor Mills Godwin came before the Joint Session of the Assembly on the
Monday afternoon following his inauguration and spelled out his ambitious plan
for changing the direction of the Commonwealth. The definite proposal for a
statewide sales tax, the possibility of a community college system, and a total
revision of the state’s constitution spelled out in detail for the first time in his
address. Hints about these changes had been made during and after the fall
campaign. But the speech put “the meat on the bones” and demanded the attention
of the legislators and the public. This type of setting made the moment much more
dramatic than the present system.
THE COMMITTEE STRUCTURES: SOME OF THE NEW WRINKLES
Tradition
Still reflecting on “the old days,” when the committees were announced, the senior
member of the committee in terms of service in the body and on the committee was
named the chairman/chairwoman, unless he or she chose to be the chair of another
committee. Then the next senior member became chair, etc. The committee
members where announced with the first named person being the chair. Did this
always make the most capable person on the committee its chair? Of course it
didn’t. But it was tradition and therefore that’s the way it was done.
In the State Senate
In the December 27, ‘07 GP, we discussed the new committee chairs of the State
Senate and the new diversity of those chairpersons. In every instance the “steering
committee” for the majority party (i.e. the Democrats) followed “tradition.” Every
chairperson is the ranking Democrat on the committee that is not chairing another
committee. One interesting wrinkle in the Democrat takeover of the Senate
organization and the seniority tradition is that the General Laws and Technology
Committee will be chaired by Senator Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, of the class of
2004. For a person starting only his/her third session to be chair of a major
committee is extremely unusual. In fact, I can confidently say it has not happened
in the last half century and I’ll take bets it hasn’t happened in the last century.
Now, does this mean that Sen. Locke will have problems chairing this committee
with a majority of Republicans (9-6) and six freshmen members (3 Republicans
and 3 Democrats)? Most observers are certain she will hold her own. She has the
experience of having chaired a number of committees in her present “real job” —
Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Hampton University — and in
her past elected position on the Hampton City Council. She served as Vice-Mayor
of Hampton from 1996 - 2000 and Mayor from 2000 - 2004. You can just imagine
some of the public hearing she chaired during that local service!
The Senate continues to abide by its shared power agreement. In addition to its
majority on the General Laws and Technology Committee, the Republican
minority has an 8-7 majority on the Commerce and Labor, Local Government, and
Transportation Committees. Another new wrinkle in the Senate’s committee
structure is the expansion of the tax and budget writing committee (the Finance
Committee) from 15 to 16 members. This expansion allowed the Democrats to
appoint five of their own to the committee without “kicking off” any of the ranking
Republicans who have served on the committee in the past. With these
appointments, the committee now has a 25% representation from the “women’s
caucus.” Read a little more about this below under The Conferees.
Let me make one other observation on the Senators chairing the eleven standing
committees of the “upper house.” Only one of these chairpersons has any “rural”
territory in their district. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, is chairing the Education
and Health Committee and has some “rural counties” in the district he represents.
The other ten committees are chaired by members representing urban areas — six
are from Northern Virginia (Planning District Eight), three from the Hampton
Roads area, and one from Richmond. The population shifts in the Commonwealth
are becoming much more apparent in your General Assembly.
In The House of Delegates
The task of appointing committee assignments in the House falls to The Speaker.
While it is a responsibility that gives The Speaker a very powerful position, it is
also a real challenge. Remember every member who has served more than one
term wants “the most appointments on the most powerful committees.” Obviously,
every member of the majority party wants the most prestigious appointments and
each feels The Speaker “owes it to me!”
There are presently fourteen standing committees in the House. All of them are
now considered “major” — that is, a significant number of bills are referred to
each committee. There use to be some “minor” committees which had fewer
members and to which The Speaker referred only a couple of bills. In fact, back in
the sixties there were 33 committees and a number of committees (those on which
Republican served) had NO bills referred to them. With only fourteen committees
of 22 members each and another tradition of having some geographical balance on
each committee (two members from each congressional district), the task of The
Speaker to keep every member happy is a real challenge.
As noted above under Tradition the returning senior member of the majority party
is appointed to serve as chairman of the committee. For the 2008-2010 General
Assembly period, Speaker William Howell, generally abided by this tradition. At
the same time, he did make some modifications. To achieve some balance to the
committees and at the same time keep a number of his supporters satisfied and
maybe to make certain he had “supporters” in important positions, he made several
changes. For instance, Del. Harvey Morgan was moved from Chairman of the
Commerce and Labor Committee to Chairman of Agriculture, Chesapeake and
Natural Resources Committee (Chaired by Kirk Cox in 2007) and Kirk gave up his
chairmanship but was placed on the important Rules Committee and received (as a
member of the Appropriations Committee) a position on the VERY IMPORTANT
Budget Conference Committee.
In 2007, the Privileges and Elections Committee (P & E), where bills dealing with
election laws, redistricting, etc. are sent, was chaired by Delegate Lacey Putney, I-
Bedford, and Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, was vice-chairman. Lacey was appointed
Chairman of the Appropriations Committee shortly after the November election.
The surprise was when Chris was not appointed chairman of P&E. Delegate Mark
Cole, R-Fredericksburg, received this prestigious appointment. In 2007 he was the
seventh ranking Republican on the committee. The Speaker achieved this by
transferring one member to other committees, one didn’t run for re-election, two
had other chairmanships and he jumped over Chris Jones and one “older member.”
There has been some speculations among capitol watchers that Chris was by-
passed due to his being part of the “2004 maverick Republican Delegates” who
voted with Governor Warner and the Senate Republicans for tax increases in
defiance of the House Republican Caucus position of “no tax increase.” However,
the Republican leadership has maintained that Chris just didn’t want the
chairmanship. His appointment as vice-chairman of the General Laws Committee
and his elevation to a fourth committee assignment (the Rules Committee, at that)
indicates he is still in good graces with The Speaker and the House Leadership.
The other committee chairmanship appointments followed the traditional approach,
even though there were some other committee appointment shifts. Most of these
appear to have been an effort to make room for some “appropriate appointments”
for some new Democrat delegates. To accomplish this some veteran Democrat
delegates did pay a price. For instance, Del. Ken Plum, D-Fairfax, elected in
1981is the fourth delegate in seniority and the second longest serving Democrat.
In 2007 he had three committee assignments. This year he only has two!
With these shifts and the vacancies caused by the retirements and election loses in
November, the number of new members on various committee ranges from only
two on the P&E Committee to eight on the Committee on Counties, Cities, and
Towns. It will be an interesting session to see how quickly all the new committee
members learn their “new subjects.”
The Conferees
Another new wrinkle was announced late this week. The Speaker announced the
House Appointments to the Budget Conference Committee. The Chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Colgan, D-Manassas, followed suit and
announced the Senate Conferees as well. The budget bills are still in the respective
committees. Technically the four bills, HB 29 and SB 29 for the balance of FY08,
and HB 30 and SB 30 for the biennial budget, are still identical. They are the same
as the Governor introduced. Every delegate and senator had until 5:00 pm,
Thursday, Jan. 17, to introduce amendments to the budget. These amendments
won’t be finalized and available for public review until noon on Wednesday the
23rd. The two committees will report their version of the Budget on Sunday, Feb.
17. Floor action by each of the chambers is due on Feb. 21 and action on the other
body’s budget (each house will reject the other’s budget) is scheduled for Feb. 27.
Traditionally (and maybe practically) conference committees are appointed when
there is a disagreement between the houses on a certain bill. On the
Appropriations Act this would occur on Feb. 27 in this session. You do
understand, of course, this is a new era with new approaches to make the
legislative process “more efficient and more effective.”
In marking the introduction of this new wrinkle, Speaker William Howell stated it
was an effort, “…to ensure this year’s budget process is marked by timeliness,
collaboration, and getting to work sooner not later…By designating our team now
and announcing this decision weeks earlier than tradition dictates, the conferees for
the House can begin preparing for the detailed and sometimes arduous task of
reaching agreement with their Senate counterparts.”
The Conferees — The House
The members of the Appropriations Committee designated for the “Committee of
Conference on the State Budget” (the official name of the group usually referred to
as The Conferees!) contained some “non-traditional” appointments. A budget
conference committee has traditionally had six members. From the House the two
senior members of the Appropriations Committee (HAC) from the majority party
and the senior member of the minority party were appointed and from the Senate
Finance Committee (SFC) the same senior party members. Nothing in the rules
required this, it was just tradition. As the budget became larger and more
complicated the number of conferees increased and evolved to last year when there
were six appointees from the HAC and five from the SFC.
As noted above, the present Speaker of the House is not constrained by seniority.
He wasn’t last year in the appointment of The Conferees and he wasn’t in his early
appointees this year. The appointees from the HAC are: Chairman Lacey Putney,
I-Bedford; Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News (fourth in seniority); Bev Sherwood,
R-Winchester (seventh in seniority); Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights (eighth in
seniority); Clarke Hogan, R-Halifax (eleventh in seniority); and, Johnny Joannou,
D-Portsmouth (the third Democrat in terms of seniority). Johnny’s appointment is
consistent with last year’s action by The Speaker.
Of interest is the appointments of Bev Sherwood, who will be the first female
Conferee who does not also chair the HAC, and the appointment of Clarke over the
host of more senior committee members. Clarke came to the House in 2002 and is
51st in overall seniority. Those who will not be one of The Conferees include:
Harvey Morgan, R-Gloucester, class of 1980, 3rd in overall seniority; Bob Tata, R-
VA Beach, class of 1984, 6th; Riley Ingram, R-Hopewell, class of 1992, 18th; Joe
May, R-Loudoun, class of 1994, 26th; Steve Landes, R-Augusta, class of 1996,
32nd; and Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, class of 1998, 37th. From the minority party’s
membership, Johnny Joannou does have the most total service in the legislature
having served in both the House and the Senate prior to his current consecutive
years which started in 1998. He now ranks 34th in consecutive years of service,
however there are two Democrats—Bud Phillips, D-Russell, class of 1990, 15th
and Jim Scott, D-Fairfax, class of 1992, 20th—who are senior to Johnny both in
total consecutive service in the House and service on the HAC.
The Conferees — The Senate
The Speaker, to his credit, did confer with Chuck Colgan, Chairman SFC, prior to
his action on his House appointees to The Conference Committee. The SFC Chair
concurred and announced his appointees later on Thursday (the 17th). The Senate
contingency follows tradition. The three senior Democrats on the SFC—the
chairman; Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, and Janet Howell, D-Fairfax—will anchor
the senators but they will be ably, and probably staunchly, assisted by the two
senior Republicans on the committee—William Wampler, R-Bristol and Walter
Stosch, R-Henrico. There is a new wrinkle for the senators. Chairman Colgan has
appointed another senior Republican, Ken Stolle from VA Beach, to “advise the
senate conferees on public safety issues.” Ken has been Chairman of the Crime
Commission and Chairman of the Public Safety Subcommittee of SFC.
The Conferees — Some observations
On The Conferees from the House, there is some speculation among capitol media
and observers that some of The Speakers appointments were made to balance The
Conferees geographically. Knowing how the Senate appointees would be made by
seniority, placing three of the five conferees from NOVA, The Speaker appointed
his “new members of the House group” from Southside (Clarke Hogan) and from
The Valley (Bev Sherwood). Nonetheless, there may be sections of the state that
will express grave concern about the geographic representation on The Conferees.
There are two members from the Richmond metro area—Senator Stosch from
Henrico and Del. Kirk Cox from Colonial Heights and essentially three from the
Hampton Roads area—Delegates Hamilton from Newport News and Joannou from
Portsmouth with Senator Stolle from Virginia Beach helping the senate conferees.
William Wampler has the burden of representing the whole Southwest—from the
Bedford area (home to Lacey Putney) all the way to Pendleton Gap!
The arguments, of course, will differ. NOVA claims they should have greater
representation. After all, there is 40 plus percent of the population in NOVA,
therefore that area should have 4 or 5 members of The Conferees. The Central
Valley will need to lean on Upper Valley Delegate Bev Sherwood with maybe
some help from the Bedford delegate who will also need to give the Roanoke River
Valley area’s view point. Then there is the urban vs rural consideration. Houck’s
population base is the Spotsylvania/Fredericksburg area (fast becoming part of
NOVA) but he does have some rural counties. On occasion he may have to walk a
tight rope! He may have to side with Senator Wampler on the Senate side and
Delegates Putney, Sherwood and Hogan to help represent the rural interests of the
state on some touchy issues such as land conservation, funding best management
practices, water quality, etc. You know, those urban residents, Senators Colgan,
Howell, Stosch, and Stolle and Delegates Hamilton, Cox, and Joannou, may not
fully understand the problems of the rural parts of the state. Then the reverse may
be true when urban/suburban concerns — clogged roads, deserted downtowns,
overcrowded public schools, etc. — are being discussed.
Hopefully, all of the members of The Conference Committee on the Budget
recognize their responsibilities to the whole state as they begin their deliberations!
Being on this particular conference committee is never easy. It is hard work and
entails long hours of deliberations, calculations, and compromises. This year it
will be more difficult than usual with the shortfall in revenue forecasts and the
normal demands of the citizens.
Will the early appointment of The Conferees help the process and maybe prevent
an extended session? It is questionable. Can the conferees start negotiating before
the sub-committees of the HAC and the SFC have completed their work? Won’t
the official revenue forecast due in early February influence how The Conferees
will decide the final parts of the budget? (And, when asked all members and staff
are saying the revenue estimate will be adjusted DOWNWARD). Is there likely to
be a more direct confrontation between the House and Senate? What about input
from the “rank and file” members and the citizens? You are aware The Conferees
“traditionally” have closed meetings! There may be a bright side. Maybe, just
maybe, The Conferees have some time to dine together, learn to know each other
better, and figure out how to compromise before the hard negotiations begin.
SOME NEW WRINKLES IN THE HOUSE RULES
The rules adopted by the House at its opening session continued a controversial
rule regarding subcommittee action on bills and a new rule that is becoming
controversial. Both of these rules concern how bills become enacted and the issue
of “government in the sunshine.”
The new rule allows The Speaker to send to the Rules Committee bills which he
might feel need combining or “straightening out.” The explanation given for the
new rule by the Majority Leader on the floor was this would only be used in rare
cases and that normally bills would be sent to the committees with expertise on the
subject involved. In the past only procedural and study resolutions were sent to the
Rules Committee. The new rule also provides that the Rules Committee can then
send a bill or bills on which the members have worked directly to the floor without
a re-referral to the normal standing committee.
The first actions under this new rule make it disturbing to many and controversial.
The Speaker has sent all of the bills dealing with immigration—legal and illegal—
to Rules and then appointed a special subcommittee to consider them and report
back to the full committee. Some of these bills deal with higher education, some
with labor issues, some with how localities are dealing with illegal immigrants,
some with welfare and social issues. Many of these concerns are subjects with
which the standing committees have been dealing and have the expertise to
adequately address the results that particular legislation will have on the state.
Some political observers feel this new wrinkle in the rules may be a move to
consolidate some additional power in the Speaker’s office. The Speaker chairs the
Rules Committee and can more easily control the outcome of bills he sends to that
committee. There is a strong feeling among some Democrats that the handling of
the immigration bills in this “new” manner is a direct result of the difference
between the House Republican Leadership’s “hard line position” on illegal
immigrants and the Kaine administration’s stance that, “…we can’t allow Virginia
to be viewed as a state that is unfriendly to immigrants.” It will be much more
difficult to follow the immigration issue and much more difficult for advocacy
groups to have a direct impact on bills in which they might be interested.
Finally, the rules allowing subcommittees to kill legislation without reporting a
recorded vote remains in place. In discussing this rule promoted by the Republican
House Leadership to “make the system more efficient” a former long serving
Republican delegate recalled the position of the Joint Republican Caucus in the
late sixties and early seventies advocating “government in the sunshine” by
promoting open meetings of all legislative committees including caucuses AND
the recording and reporting of all votes by numbers and names on any piece of
legislation whether it was killed or passed.
This “openness” was achieved for a while but now, with the subcommittees able to
kill legislation without it being heard by the full committee by only announcing the
total vote without attribution or identification as to how each member of the
subcommittee voted, the House is reverting back to a tactic used in the days of the
Byrd Machine. The former member felt very strongly the promotion of this
practice by the Republican Leadership will come back to haunt them.
Many advocate groups have complained that they have had legislation which they
sponsored killed in a subcommittee and the subcommittee report summarily
accepted by the full committee when the patron of the bill wasn’t present and the
procedure for bringing the legislation up before the full committee was avoided by
the committee chairman. Somehow this type of action doesn’t seem like
“government in the sunshine.”
A new rule for the 2009 session adopted this year will attempt to cut down on the
number of pieces of legislation with which the legislators will have to deal in “the
short session.” Each delegate will be limited in the number of new bills he/she can
introduce in the 2009 to 10! The number of pieces of legislation from the House
side this session will approach 2000. This limiting the bills each member can
introduce may bring the short session (in odd numbered years) back to its intended
purpose—to consider carry over legislation and to “tweak” the budget.
Stay Tuned --
Speaking of the budget, the next GP will look at the revenue picture and try to
anticipate what the administration may have to do in its February adjustment of its
revenue estimates.
Thanks to Jane Woods, Sue Rowland, and Eldon James for their input into this edition of the Giesen Perspective.
