General Assembly session helped 4 would be Governors

By TYLER WHITLEY
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: March 24, 2008

Each of the four men who would be governor came out of the General Assembly session with an accomplishment they could add to their campaign brochures next year.

Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, lost on his proposal to establish a bipartisan redistricting commission, but the issue gained such prominence that it could give him a good-government platform in 2009.

“I think we raised the profile of the issue,” Deeds said.

Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria, who plans to challenge Deeds for the Democratic nomination to run for governor next year, made a fiery floor speech on the next-to-last-day of the session in support of $1.5 million in funding for “Alicia’s law,” a program to help fight Internet sexual predators.

Although efforts by Moran and Deeds to insert the law in the state code failed, an amendment to the budget funded the program.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was handed a tie-breaking vote that put him firmly against abortions—always a help in Republican politics.

As presiding officer of the Senate, Bolling is required to break tie votes. The only tie vote was a floor amendment that would have denied funding to Planned Parenthood of Virginia, which anti-abortion legislators view as an abortion-rights proponent. Although Bolling voted for the amendment, it was dropped, and the funding was restored in the budget passed by the assembly.

“I was very disappointed that the budget conferees did not include this language in the final budget agreement,” Bolling said in a statement.

“While I understand that the Democrats did not support this prohibition, at the very least the budget conferees should have secured comparable concessions, such as restoration of funding for abstinence-education programs that Governor Kaine had previously eliminated.”

Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who likely will run against Bolling for the GOP nomination next year, reported a success rate of more than 80 percent during the recent session, including passage of bills combating illegal immigration, animal fighting and violence against women and banning the use of phosphate detergents.

McDonnell’s office took a lead in recommending improvements to the state’s mental-health system. Those improvements were given an impetus by the Virginia Tech massacre last April 16.

McDonnell also suffered a high-profile loss. As attorney general, his office had to defend the regional transportation authority in Northern Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled its taxing powers—by an unelected body—were unconstitutional. McDonnell hired the high-powered Richmond law firm of McGuireWoods to represent the state against the lawsuit.

McDonnell said that the office of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed the amendment that the high court found unconstitutional. Gordon Hickey, a spokesman for Kaine, said McDonnell’s office reviewed the amendment before it was proposed to the veto session of the assembly last year.

McDonnell said his success rate came in the face of a more hostile environment this year, because control of the Senate had passed from Republican to Democratic hands.

Moran lost on a bill to create a Child Toy Safety Act, designed to make it easier to remove unsafe toys from store shelves. An assembly committee worried about the state treading onto federal turf and carried the bill over until next year for further study.

Republicans made life harder for Moran by putting him on the House Courts of Justice Committee, on which his votes might come back to haunt him in an election year.

Deeds also secured passage of a bill close to his heart. Under the legislation, on election recounts, all the votes on optical-scan voting machines would have to be recounted, not just those votes being questioned.

Deeds, who lost the race for attorney general to McDonnell by 360 votes in 2005, thinks he would have won, had this law been in effect in 2005, when there was a recount.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or .