Newsletter

February 15, 2004

Dear Friends:

I speak during debate on the floor of the House only occasionally. The main reason is practical: the other 99 Members have a microphone at their desks just as I do, and there never seems to be a shortage of Delegates eager to engage in lively discussion on a bill. The debate seldom rises to Churchillian level, but it usually reflects the chamber's diversity of viewpoints. (In addition, I've observed that Members who are on their feet on every issue tend to wear out their welcome with the other Members. When a speaker goes on too long, the listeners begin to wave white pieces of paper in surrender.)

Several issues over the past few days got me involved in floor debate. The first occurred on Monday with a bill offered by the Majority Leader that would exempt the General Assembly from the open meeting requirements of the Commonwealth's Freedom of Information Act. Instead, a small panel of senior legislators would have the power to close "any meeting of the General Assembly or a portion thereof." The current exemptions are narrowly drawn and relate to agencies dealing with public safety and sensitive personal information.

I told the House that the bill "is an unprecedented assault on what should be a bedrock principle of our government: that we do the people's business in the open." A number of other Members from both sides of the aisle joined in to oppose the bill; in the end, it passed, but by the narrowest of margins: 52-48. That sends a signal further along in the process that this is a contentious measure that bears the most careful of scrutiny.

Then on Thursday, the same sponsor - the House Majority Leader - put forth a bill that would weaken Virginia's fair housing law by making it tougher to prove that a seller used words or symbols to show a preference for or against a particular race, religion, or ethnic group. This isn't the old-fashioned "hard discrimination" that puts up signs saying, "Whites Only" or "No Jews" or "Irish Need Not Apply." Rather, it is the "soft discrimination" that says, "You might not be comfortable living here," or "You look different from us" or "You're not our kind."

This "soft discrimination" is just as corrosive to the goal of equal housing as is blatant "hard discrimination," because it deters them at the curb or at the door from seeking housing opportunities. Despite a good fight, the House approved the bill 67-33.

Closer to home, last week we debated a bill that would have increased the amount tow truck operators could charge when they tow the cars of unsuspecting motorists who stray into restricted private parking lots. My Arlington colleague Al Eisenberg and I told the House about the bad encounters many of our constituents have had with predatory tow truck operators: overcharges, damaged vehicles, threats, and unjustified tows. We were joined by an extremely conservative Delegate from suburban Richmond, who to our astonishment rose to say he wanted to "associate himself with the remarks of the gentlemen from Northern Virginia." After our newfound friend added a few more anecdotes to the fire, the bill went down in a thunderous voice vote.

The towing bill earned my office a visit from the Virginia Association of Towing and Recovery Operators (VATRO) pointing out that the charges for non-consensual tows is much higher than the charge for the consensual tows that we sometimes need when our cars break down. Their representative talked with disdain about rogues with tow trucks that gave kickbacks to spotters who report possible parking violators. He cited one case of a company with four tow trucks that was able to remove 12 cars from a parking lot in front of a bar in twenty minutes. When a citizen reported this to the Association, they called the owner of the trucks who told them in no uncertain terms what they could do with their reprimand.

Towing companies are a largely unregulated industry. Our County Board has cracked down on predator towing of illegally parked vehicles from private property, particularly the charging of fees that exceed the state limit. They have taken one company to court and won judgments on several occasions. They have found, however, that recent court and legislative action have made local ordinances hard to enforce. This may require a harder look. The big news of the week was, unsurprisingly, on the budget front. On Wednesday, a private investment manager hired by the board that oversees all state investments told House members that Virginia will lose its reputation for creditworthiness unless it resolves its long-term budget problems and invests in roads, schools, colleges and prisons. He further stated that refusing to raise revenues while ignoring the deterioration of important government services could be "catastrophic" to the state's financial reputation on Wall Street.

Refusing to go along with the Governor's broad-based comprehensive tax reform package, the majority party responded on Friday with its own proposal to plug the budget hole: a bill to roll back the sales tax exemptions that have been granted to various industries over the years. They claim the bill would free up as much as $500 million a year (though their figures are based on informal surveys of those industries that date back as much as a decade ago).

One of these exemptions that hits close to home affects the airline industry's operations in Virginia. A major beneficiary is U.S. Airways, which is headquartered in Arlington and conducts a number of incoming and outgoing flights out of Reagan National and Dulles airports in Northern Virginia as well as at least a half dozen airports in downstate Virginia. The purpose of the sales tax exemption is economic development: to encourage U.S. Airways, United, and other carriers to bring their business, and the jobs it creates, to Virginia.

U.S. Airways has had a particularly tough time over the past several years. With the closure of Reagan National for six weeks and the depressed travel industry in the aftermath of September 11, the airline was forced into bankruptcy. Through the concerted effort of government loans, restructuring of its operations, and employee wage concessions, U.S. Airways was able to emerge from bankruptcy last March.

But, as I told the House on Saturday, the revenue loss to the company due to the sales tax rollback "just may do what September 11 couldn't: push U.S. Airways out of Virginia, and potentially out of business." The airline wrote to the Chairman of the Finance Committee and pointed out that "many other states and localities have attempted to gain a commitment from us to move our headquarters from Virginia to other areas, offering a variety of incentives to us. We remained firm in our commitment to the Commonwealth, however, and have kept our headquarters in Arlington . . . Enactment of this proposal would strike a devastating blow to U.S. Airways and to the other airlines serving the Commonwealth."

Are Virginia taxpayers getting their money's worth out of the economic development created by this sales tax exemption? I don't know, and the sponsors of the bill would probably admit they don't either. There hasn't been a whole lot of thought or analysis put into the provisions of this bill. These sales tax exemption rollbacks are just a last minute, expedient means of filling a huge budget gap. While they're not very well thought out, they at least are an acknowledgment by the other side that our budget shortfall cannot be closed responsibly without additional revenues.

Over the past week, Senator Mary Margaret Whipple and Delegate Marian Van Landingham addressed the problems of how public schools make up school closings and the circumstances in which state basic aid funding is reduced because of such closings. Their bills are similar, stating that a school system will make up the first five days missed due to severe weather or other emergency situations. They will then make up one day for each two days missed in excess of the first five, up to 15 days. The bill states that the length of every school division must be 180 teaching days or 990 teaching hours; however, the Board of Education may authorize the Superintendent of Public Instruction to approve reductions in school terms without a reduction in funding.

This year Arlington schools have used the two days built into their calendar with four Isabel and snow-day closings. They will make up the two-day shortage by having school on February 16, Presidents' Day, and on March 26, a workday for teachers.

Until next time,

Bob Brink