Stinging rebuke to local GOP lawmakers
How about that ringing endorsement of 25th District Republican Del. Steve Landes’ effort to inject partisan politics into the special session of the Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday?
The Republican-majority House of Delegates voted 82-7 to limit the legislation to come before the session to the matter at hand cited by Gov. Tim Kaine in calling it, to deal with the fallout of the Melendez-Diaz Supreme Court decision as it pertains to evidentiary matters in criminal cases.
Five of the seven votes against the limitation came from Central Shenandoah Valley Republicans – Landes, 15th District Del. Todd Gilbert, 20th District Del. Chris Saxman, 24th District Del. Ben Cline and 26th District Del. Matt Lohr.
The other four were backing the Landes gambit to inject into the special session legislation that called for the immediate reopening of 19 rest stops closed this summer under a cost-savings plan implemented by the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The move was all politics – the quintet has tried to raise partisan hay from the rest-stop issue with little apparent success, to my ability to read into things.
My recollection is that I haven’t heard from a single person upset with the rest-stop closures even with local and state Republicans trying to stir the pot. Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell has also been outspoken on the issue, and included provisions for reopening the closed rest stops in a tourism plan that he unveiled last week.
Funny thing about the hubbub they’re trying to create is that the very people raising the issue are the ones who have been voting consistently with the Republican majority in the House to block efforts to increase transportation funding that have effectively landed us where we are on the transportation front – from the basics of not having money in the VDOT budget to keep up with fundamental maintenance needs to the specifics of the stand-down on the HOT lanes project in Northern Virginia.
We’re billions of dollars behind on transportation, and when push comes to shove every February and March in Richmond we hear from the likes of Landes, Lohr, Cline, et al, that what we really need to do is make VDOT more efficient and streamlined and leaner and meaner and the rest.
And then when VDOT comes out with something oriented toward efficiency and streamlining and leanness and meanness as in closing underutilized rest stops, well, we can’t have that, because some of those underutilized rest stops are in our districts.
Reminds me of how our local Republican delegation is all in favor of public-private partnerships including toll roads to get transportation-improvement projects done until it comes to the talk of going public-private with a tolling plan to widen Interstate 81.
It’s all well and good to toe the partisan line until it affects me in my backyard.
Kudos to the Virginia GOP for seeing through the issues that our shortsighted local GOP lawmakers have with their belief systems.
It must be a lonely feeling getting rebuked by a vast majority of your own party on something like that.
- Column by Chris Graham
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- No rest for the pols Steve Landes has written to local Commonwealth Transportation Board member James Davis to get him to reconsider closing two Augusta County-area interstate rest stops. Chris...
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- Two rest areas saved, but residency office still on cutting board Two Central Shenandoah Valley rest areas have escaped the Virginia Department of Transportation chopping block as the transportation department finalizes its recommendations for budget cuts...
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- Mahlon G. “Lon” Anderson | Enough already The shuttering of 18 rest areas along Virginia’s interstates overnight marks a new low point in Virginia’s transportation budget wars. We always knew that Virginia...
Any increase in traffic troubles, one month after the rest stop closures?
I wonder if businesses at exit 227 and 235 are seeing a little more traffic due to the closures.
Good questions, both.
Seems like you may be digging a bit deep here Chris. What politicians don’t work for their districts. They got voted down, hardly a “stinging rebuke.”
The vote was 82-7 against, with five of the seven being from a 40-mile radius of Harrisonburg. And I’m reaching … OK.
Are the republican elected officials in the state out of touch with their constituents? I’m just an avg. citizen of VA so I haven’t done an official poll or hit town halls to gauge peoples opinions, but I work and associate with MANY republicans and they all (well, probably over 95%) are in favor of an increase to the gas tax, yet their elected officials vote down this measure to increase funding.
I know this issue has been beat to death, but you can only trim the budget so much. You can only cut back VDOT so much. You must face the fact that people are driving less and driving more fuel efficient cars and this has lead to significant shortfalls in the transportation budget. The gas tax hasn’t been raised here in VA in what, 25 years…? Would anyone really notice 5-10 cents on top of the $2.50 they already pay…?
It’s just like in your personal finances. When things are tight, you cut back. If that doesn’t do enough, you look for a better paying job to bring in more money. VA needs to bring in more money…
They need to pass a bill that takes advantage of the cyclic nature of gas prices these days. Make it the law that for every nickle gas prices decrease, the gas tax increases one cent and leave it in effect until the oil companies have added a nickle to the gas tax. Hardly anyone would notice and we could get some good revenue.
Gas prices are not noticeable higher in states that have higher gas taxes than we.