David Albo, so AA is told, ran a legendary campaign in 1993 for his House of Delegates seat representing Springfield in Northern Virginia.
At age 32, bachelor Albo mailed postcards to voters featuring a picture of his grandmother and the words, “My grandmother told me if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” He was elected and has served in the General Assembly for 14 years.
Governor Kaine probably wishes Delegate Albo’s grandmother could give some instruction to House Republicans.
AA remembers when the late Delegate Dorothy McDiarmid, the first and only woman chairman of the Appropriations Committee, was a presiding Miss Manners in the General Assembly. Delegate McDiarmid, a gracious and charming grandmother who looked like a grandmother, insisted on civility and consideration especially for citizens who had traveled a long way to appear before legislators.
While Governor Kaine was accorded long applause this week in his unusual speech before both houses at the special transportation legislative session, he was hardly out the door before the attack dogs started snarling.
Kaine had talked about precious gasoline waste for those sitting in congestion, the delays, the costs to businesses and pleas he heard from Virginians in his 20 town hall meetings across the state.
But after the Governor left the joint Senate and House meeting, GOP Delegate Kirk Cox said the Governor might need to go knock on doors to meet real people. Then he told about the financial problems of the woman “who does my hair.”
Fellow Republican Del. Bill Janis wanted to talk about the cost of a loaf of bread and a bag of flour. “Let’s not forget about the people who sent us here,” he said.
That set off Del. Ward Armstrong. “The gentleman from Henrico talks about the cost of milk. I wonder how long it’s been since he’s been to Danville and Martinsville with our empty factories. We’re starving!” the Democrat said, noting the need for transportation funds to stimulate jobs and business.
“There is harsh language on the floor today,” Armstrong said.
Indeed there was. Albo’s grandmother and Dorothy McDiarmid would not have been happy with the boys’ behavior this week!
Meanwhile, Del. Armstrong said he spent an hour and a half trying to get through the Hampton Roads tunnel last Saturday, and yet GOP delegates Bobby Orrock and House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith said they were confused about why they had been called back to Richmond for a special session on transportation. Fix the bill, HB3202, passed overwhelmingly last year, said Orrock. Unfortunately, much of that bill went down the drain when the state Supreme Court nixed the bill’s authority plans for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Angry drivers killed the rest of the bill that included exorbitant fines for driving infractions. Nevertheless, Orrock declared, “When we have an economic downturn that is the wrong time (to raise taxes). I don’t see where things have changed so drastically in a year.”
AA believes maybe Ginny could explain the current situation to the GOP lawmakers. She and her husband left Sunday from Richmond for a wedding at Virginia Beach. After a two-hour wait to get in the Hampton Roads tunnel, Ginny changed clothes in the car while her husband drove. She was glad that finally in the tunnel, she found some privacy to change and apply some make-up. Since her husband couldn’t change in the car, he wore his casual clothes to the service and changed in a restroom before the reception.
Ginny’s said after this stressful drive to the Beach: “My intention is to write the head of the Virginia Business Council and tell him I will support the Council’s efforts at getting our roads into at least acceptable condition (they are not even that now) in any way I can.”
But Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a Beach native, may have the tunnel clothes change down pat. He says an audit of VDOT is the answer to the transportation logjam. What candidate for any state office has never jumped on the VDOT blame wagon.
In response to the VDOT “let’s audit VDOT chorus,” recently sung by McDonnell in the June 23 Times-Dispatch, Kaine told the joint meeting that VDOT has been “the subject of at least 8 audits and performance reviews since 2001.”
With the ball in the Senate court, thanks to Speaker Bill Howell, senators offered a parade of solutions that picked bits and pieces of plans from the last few years.
Sen. Ken Stolle says tolls are the answer. Sen. Wagner wants to allow gas drilling off Virginia’s shore. Sen. Dick Saslaw sticks with his gas tax. Sen. John Edwards would add 5 percent to the wholesale gasoline price and increase car rental and car sales taxes. But he would remove the sales tax on groceries that goes to transportation.
Sen. Charles Colgan proposed several fund sources and Sen. Ken Cuccinelli proposed dedicating one half cent of the existing sales tax to transportation—no new tax—just taking it out of the general fund.
Sen. Saslaw howled at that one: “Use public school money to fund roads?”
But the senators were polite.