Newsletter

January 15, 2006

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the 2006 Session of the Virginia General Assembly! As in previous years, I will send an email newsletter each week, more or less, through the end of the Session on March 11. I’ll share with you some information and observations about life in Richmond and its environs. Feedback, positive or otherwise, will be appreciated: word from home is always welcome. This is, after all, the “long” session.

For the first time since 1788, the members of the oldest continuing elected body in the world did not meet in Mr. Jefferson’s State Capitol Building. Shrouded in scaffolding and canvas, crawling with workers, contractors, historians, and architects, the Capitol is getting a major structural overhaul with an historically accurate facelift and some beneficial added space. All this is to be completed before the 2007 Session. Meanwhile, the General Assembly moved a few hundred yards to the Patrick Henry Building, formerly the Old State Library.

The Old State Library was built in 1939 as a Public Works Administration project. Its style is one popular with PWA buildings and familiar to anybody who has seen a local post office or other Federal building that was constructed in the decade after the Great Depression. It’s called “Stripped Classicism.” According to my legislative aide/architectural researcher Jean Barton, the style “is characterized by the proportions of Classical architecture but is devoid of the ornamentation.” Faced with square blocks of limestone, the exterior reads as a two-story structure with recessed colonnades surrounding the second level, but the facades mask multiple levels. In 1970, an additional story was constructed, giving the building a distinctive stepped-pyramid outline. The building was abandoned in 1996, but its prime location on Capitol Square, next to the Governor’s Manson, led to major renovations and the building’s reopening last year to house the Governor’s working offices, Cabinet Secretaries and executive agency offices.

For this legislative session, the Delegates are meeting in the Reading Room at the east end of the first floor; the Senate is meeting in the slightly smaller Archives at the west end. Both have been restored to their original glory with art deco chandeliers and other details. The Legislative Branch is paying rent to the Executive Branch for their use – a turnabout from the traditional arrangement, where the legislators controlled the Capitol Building and the Governor occupied the Third Floor as a kind of Very Special Guest.

On the House side, seating is very tight. Two Delegates share reading tables that will be used in the room next year after we vacate the space – quite a comedown from the antique mahogany hinge-top desks in the old chamber that hid writing materials, bags of candy, and other personal items. Each delegate has an individual vote box, but must share a microphone – an obvious effort to curtail Members who are serial talkers. The laptops that most legislators carry are the only things that will fit on our individual space. There are no galleries or guest floor seats, just twelve chairs in a corner for journalists. Special guests observe the proceedings on a television screen in a small adjacent room.

Wednesday evening’s Joint Session for Governor Warner’s valedictory State of the Commonwealth address was a shoe-horn affair. More about the address itself later.

The House convened at noon on Wednesday and heard the House Clerk read the Communication from the State Electoral Board certifying our elections, including 17 new members (two were chosen in special elections just before opening day). Twenty minutes later, the Speaker and the Clerk were re-elected unanimously, and then the games began. The Majority Leader presented the first order of business: proposed amendments to the Rules that govern procedures in the House.

In 2002, I wrote of the changes that were made to reduce the number of committees from twenty to fourteen, shrinking the size of some committees, and cutting the number of committees on which members sit. All of this was done in the name of more efficient operations, and many of the changes were long overdue.

This year’s changes, while presented as promoting further efficiency, seem to have had ulterior motives. On Wednesday, just hours after the Democrats gained another seat (bringing our numbers up to 40 out of 100), the majority Republicans pushed through changes in the Rules that will deny Democrats two committee seats on Appropriations and Rules Committees that they had just earned. Two other changes permit committee chairs to kill bills on their own without a vote and allow bills to be rejected in a subcommittee without a recorded vote. Previously all bills received at least one up or down vote, and subcommittees referred bills to the full committee with a recommendation.

The Speaker then announced committee assignments. I was reappointed to Privileges and Elections, which handles election laws, campaign finance measures, and constitutional amendments. Later that afternoon, I was one of four votes against the so-called same-sex marriage constitutional amendment: the majority apparently felt that the institution of marriage was under such siege that this discriminatory and mean-spirited amendment (rather than transportation, education, or health care, say) must be the House’s first order of business this session.

The big surprise was my second committee assignment. I was appointed to the powerful 24-member Appropriations Committee. I am delighted to take the seat that was occupied so conscientiously by Alexandria Delegate Marion Van Landingham and to represent our region on this important committee, which allocates all the expenditures contained in the Commonwealth’s budget. I have enjoyed numerous visits from fellow Delegates and others who say they’ve been meaning to get together with me for a long time.

That evening, the House, Senate, Cabinet Members, State Supreme Court, other dignitaries, and a few members of the press crowded together to hear Mark Warner give his last speech as Governor.

The speech was both a farewell and a commencement address: a farewell to a legislative body with which he has had a very fruitful and effective relationship over a stormy four years, and a hint of things to come.

Governor Warner’s immediate agenda was the presentation of his final budget as Governor of Virginia. His budget was a reflection of his past success in reshaping a fiscal profile that had been seriously compromised by the remarkably poor fiscal policies of his predecessor. As he said, “The state of the Commonwealth is strong.” That strength is a testament to his resolve as well as his political skills.

Governor Warner stressed the bipartisan support he received from both Republican and Democratic leaders in the House of Delegates and the Senate in adopting a budget that put our fiscal house in order. His current budget builds on that success to continue his emphasis on fashioning a 21st century transportation system for Virginia and reaffirming the state’s commitment to a world class higher education system. He also introduced initiatives to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and invest more resources into mental health and mental retardation community-based programs, both long under-funded and long overdue.

Friday afternoon we moved on down the road to the Colonial Capitol in Williamsburg to enjoy the History and Occasion of an Inauguration in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Patrick Henry would have loved it. More about that next week.

Sincerely,

Bob Brink signature

Bob Brink

How to Reach Me:

Voice: 804-698-1048
FAX: 804-643-0976
E-Mail: rbrink@erols.com