Newsletter

January 23, 2005

Dear Friends:

Week Two of the 2005 Session began on Monday with a tribute to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on the floor of the House and a flood of visitors from all parts of the Commonwealth on the floors of the General Assembly Building. Taking advantage of the federal holiday, and taxing the GAB’s creaky elevator system to the extreme, scores of constituents made their way through the halls to their Members’ offices. Many of the groups featured visual identification of their causes: the advocates for people with disabilities carried orange balloons, and environmentalists wore long blue scarves with letters imploring us to “Save the Bay.”

My staff and I talked to at least twenty groups, all carrying their agendas and lobbying their causes. There were advocates for the blind, Equality Virginia, Healthy Breakfast, physicians’ assistants, child care safety, regional parks, George Mason University, Marymount University, retired teachers, dietitians, nurse midwives, optometrists, Legal Aid, goat farmers, Girl Scouts, Northern Virginia Family Service, and Alternatives to the Death Penalty, to name but a few. These citizens brought their personal experiences to issues and put a face on the legislation that impacts their lives. They were very effective.

There also was an advocate to add the bat to the Emblems of the Commonwealth because “bats are good for the ecosystem.”

There were many more groups in the building, but the organizers tend to direct their folks to Members who are likely to be receptive to their messages. Not a soul from the NRA stopped by our offices.

It would be impossible for the Senators and Delegates to give all of the visitors the attention that they and their issues deserve if it weren’t for the backup that the Members’ legislative aides provide. These are the folks who field telephone calls and schedule appointments, meet with lobbyists and constituents when the Member is at a committee meeting or in session in the Capitol, and do their best to keep the Member organized and pointed in the right direction. They are invaluable.

In each of the eight sessions since I was first elected, I’ve had a team of two staff members. Those of you who have visited me in Richmond during the past five years will recognize Jean Barton, a long-time Arlington community activist and former drama teacher in the Arlington schools. Jean is a member of the Arlington Arts Commission and this year is spearheading the opening of the magnificent Arts Center in the refurbished Maury School on Wilson Boulevard.

This session Jean is assisted by Nick Morosoff, a William & Mary graduate who traveled with Mrs. Kerry and Mrs. Edwards during the recent presidential campaign. Prior to that experience, he worked at the National Science Foundation in Arlington. He is a computer whiz and, as the son of Senator Toddy Puller’s legislative aide, is an excellent source of information from The Other Body.

Nick is 6 feet, 5 inches tall; Jean is 5 feet, 1 inch. That gives me a staff of average height (on average) but extraordinary abilities.

One sidelight of the week’s activities was a dustup between House and Senate Republicans on appointments to judgeships. In Virginia, the House and Senate (in reality, the majority caucuses in each body) elect judges to vacancies and vote to reappoint judges for new terms. It’s not a perfect system, but if done in a nonpartisan and objective manner can produce jurists of high quality who reflect the best of their communities and their profession. It also is light years superior to other states’ system of popular election of judges. The multimillion dollar campaigns that some state judges wage are an invitation to corruption and demagoguery. So, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, legislative election of judges is the worst possible system except for all the others.

Most of the judges (including Arlington Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles) were elected without much fuss, but the Republicans in the respective bodies got hung up on two positions. It was a mini-rerun of last year’s budget battles, as messages were sent, recesses were called, and deadlines passed. Because the General Assembly failed to act, the appointments will be made by the Governor after we get out of town.

This week, committee meetings begin at 7 a.m. and picked up after Sessions, well into the dinner hour. At this stage of the game, this is where the real work is being done.

At the end of the week, I found myself going from one committee meeting to another to present five of the nineteen bills I have put in. I will report on how they’re doing in the coming weeks.

Friday was the last day to introduce new legislation. Several transportation bills were put in as “placeholder” as they will need lots of committee massaging before they will be ready for prime time.

On Thursday, I was please to have Reverend John V. Slye, Jr. of the Grace Community Church in Arlington give the Invocation to the House of Delegates. Reverend Slye was joined by his father, John Slye, Sr., and his son Jonathan, who were seated in the back of the Chamber floor.

Last week I wrote about the extensive renovations to of our historic State Capitol. This is only one of the construction projects that are changing the face of downtown Richmond.

Visitors to the capital will also see extensive work along Richmond’s former retail center, Broad Street, which fell onto hard times in the 1980s and 1990s after the closing of the major department stores Thalheimers and Miller and Rhodes. The Miller and Rhodes building will soon be renovated into an upscale hotel. An enormous hole on the Thalheimers site at 6th and Broad Street marks the beginning of a major Cultural Arts Center that will go a long way to restoring the former grandeur of what was once the liveliest theater district in the south. Old timers like to remind us that there was a Broad Street before there was a Broadway. My aide, the former drama teacher and amateur theater historian, provides this background:

“In 1789, a French nobleman, Alexandre Quesnay de Beaurepaire, built the first major theater at 10th and Broad. It burned down twice and was rebuilt long enough to become the Richmond Theater and feature many stars of the day (including Edgar Allen Poe’s mother) before it burned down for the third and final time.

“In 1818, the Marshall Theater as built at 7th and Broad Street. The theater was renowned for a performance by Jenny Lind (P.T. Barnum was the impresario) with tickets that sold for as high as $105 ($2000+ in today’s dollars) in an auction before the performance. Junius Booth and his world famous son Edwin Booth performed there throughout their careers, as did the lesser son, John Wilkes Booth.

“In 1899, The Barton Opera House at 714 Broad Street was built by Jake Wells to provide a venue for ‘family entertainment’ called vaudeville. Vaudeville was so popular that Wells built a larger theater, the Bijou, which could seat 1500 and was later used for movies, at 810 Broad Street. The Library of Virginia now stands on this site.

“In the 1920s two movie palaces were built in the 700 block of Broad, The National and The Colonial. The National Theatre is now being restored as a theater. The Colonial, a theatre until 1981, is now an office building, but the façade has been preserved and an historical marker naming this street Theater Row marks the building.

“The current Carpenter Center is the old Loews movie palace with its arabesque interior still intact. This theater will be incorporated into the new Cultural Center being built on the Thalheimer site.”

Possibly after Crossover we’ll be able to get out of the General Assembly Building and the Capitol for a few moments to see what downtown Richmond has to offer. For now, though, we’re in a legislative bubble: it’s back-to-back committee meetings, bill presentations, and floor sessions as far as the eye can see.

Until next week –

Bob Brink

Bob Brink