Cheap Seats HQ is somewhat off the beaten political path, so we're no strangers to having to load up the Magical Political Reporting Technology Bag^TM and cover some serious Interstate to get to where the politics are.

But Republicans in Shenandoah County have brought things into our own back yard this Saturday for their annual Lincoln Day Dinner. The line-up promises to be a dandy.

Confirmed speakers include Del. Bob Marshall,R-Manassas and former Gov. Jim Gilmore, candidates for U.S. Senate, as well as Jeff Frederick and former Lt. Gov. John Hager, both candidates for the chairmanship of the Republican Party of Virginia.

Other legislators and leaders are also slated to be on the dais.

And this year, bloggers are welcome. The committee has promised to have wi-fi and light refreshments available for professional and amateur scribblers alike during the event. Contact Craig L. Orndorff for more information.

It's not officially official yet, but Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell confirmed on Tuesday that he's on board for a McDonnell-Bolling ticket for 2009.

Speaking on a conference call with more than a dozen members of the Capitol Square press corps, McDonnell said he was looking forward to running for the Executive Mansion with current Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling seeking another four years at the helm of the Virginia Senate.

Bolling's decision to take the second slot on the Republican ticket evaporates what would have been a hotly contested primary between the two men.

It also leaves open the question of who will be the third member of the ticket, the nominee for Attorney General. Current Senators Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, and Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, are both members of the bar who have been floated as possibilities.

Still, with the GOP scrum settled before it even began, the two can start raising money and building a campaign organization aimed at November 2009. That puts the pressure on Democrats to choose between Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and Del. Brian Moran, D-Alexandria, in a fairly quick fashion, lest the fall prey to the endless struggle that has plagued Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary R. Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack H. Obama, D-Ill.

Speaking of Obama, there's always the Kaine wild card. Democratic Gov.Timothy M. Kaine was an early Obama backer and has been mentioned as a cabinet possibility in an Obama administration or even a dark horse vice presidential pick.

That would give the governor's mansion to Bolling outright and would more than likely shake up the GOP's 2009 campaign calculus, according to McDonnell.

Only 588 days until Election Day.

Well, there is weeping in regard to my NCAA Tournament bracket in Not Larry Sabato's 3rd Annual Tournament, just as I predicted.

Alas, the tears are all mine.

Apparently the best way to pick a bracket is my strategy from last year, which was to not watch any games at all and then just guess, along with picking against odd letters like "x" and "q," as opposed to this year's plan, which was marathon sessions of research watching hi-def basketball.

For the record, Belmont came within a hairs-breadth of making me look like a genius, as did Drake. Georgia remains a bitter, bitter disappointment. Make your own "horse shoes and hand grenades" joke here.

On the upside, 163rd is not last, no matter how close it actually may be to last.

First, the bad news: it looks like both the General Assembly and the chattering classes alike will be headed back to Richmond for a second special session this year in addition to the current overtime period that's focused on bonds.

Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine confirmed Thursday night that he's planning to call the rolling legislative roadshow back to the River City for another crack at transportation, and that he's looking toward tax hikes to fix the state's road and rail system.

Legislators duked it out for months over transportation in 2007 before the two camps arrived at House Bill 3202, the compromise package that brought us "abuser fees" and the now unconstitutional regional taxing authorities. Democratic leaders in the Senate have indicated that they're also on board for a package of higher taxes and fees to pay for new roads, while the Republican leadership in the House of Delegates has said they want no part of it.

The good news: Richmond is lovely in the springtime, particularly the walk down Grace Street in front of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

See you on the square.

History was made today in Washington, D.C., as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in D.C. v. Heller. The case involves an armed security guard who sued to overturn the District's ban on handguns and strict rules involving rifles and shotguns.

Guns and the Second Amendment in general are hugely controversial issues, yet courts have rarely ruled on the topic. Only once has the U.S. Supreme Court spoken to the subject, a 1939 case in which one of the parties died before the court could decide the case.

So Supreme Court geeks and associated dorks, not unlike those who reside in the Cheap Seats, have been watching today's proceedings with interest. A new Supreme Court with a new chief justice on a subject that's never been touched seriously before should make for some interesting viewing. (Full disclosure: I already watched it, which is why I'm posting this.)

Find the closest thing you'll get to video here. 

Be sure to read the briefs, too. All 70 or so of them, including briefs from:

• The National Rifle Association.
• The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
• A whole bunch of states, including Virginia.
• Vice President Dick Cheney and lots o' legislators.
• A whole bunch of states on the other side, including Hawaii and New York.
• Pink Pistols and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty.
• The Congress on Racial Equality.
• The Osmond Family Singers.

Well, not so much the Osmonds, but you get the point. Pop some popcorn, this is going to be fun.

Yes, the Cheap Seats were vacant for a couple of days this past week, but for good reason. The Holy Grail of the Sprint Cup, that glorious coliseum of racing, also known as Bristol Motor Speedway, hosted two events this weekend.

Glorious race footage from years past below:



I have actually driven on the high banks (albeit slowly). Here's what it looks like from the inside of a car that's not going slow:



As if that weren't enough, we've got the NCAA Tournament coming up. Please note that I will be defending my title from last year in Not Larry Sabato's Bracket Challenge.

My bracket? Look for Rabid Redneck Reporter, and weep as it leaves your bracket in the dust.

The budget deal is done, and legislators have left Richmond for the time being, waiting on Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to summon them back to tackle transportation for the second year in a row.

But the final compromise has generated some serious discontent on the GOP side of the aisle.  Find various levels of upset at Black Velvet Bruce Li, Bearing Drift and the Virginia Conservative Action PAC, among others.

Ben Tribbett, better known as Not Larry Sabato, has a rather bruising analysis here.

GOPers who swing by the Cheap Seats for cheap libations and even cheaper gossip tell me that there was a good deal of distaste for the conference report in the Republican Caucus, despite the 99-0 vote the deal got on the floor, despite the fact that it accomplished the long-standing Republican goal of holding spending down below the combined rates of inflation and population growth.

Cheap Seats HQ gets a lot of robo-calls for some reason. Maybe I just wound up on the wrong mailing list, but not an election goes by without someone calling and in their best recorded voice asking for my support in the upcoming election.

Notable callers in the past few months include former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a solicitor from the National Rifle Association and some guy who just can't understand that you can't put vinyl siding on an apartment.

But Wednesday morning's call from U.S. Senate candidate and former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore takes the cake -- an interactive, polling-type call done in the candidate's own voice using voice recognition technology. Gilmore is running against Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, for the Republican nod to succeed the retiring Republican U.S. Sen. John Warner.

I didn't have a notebook handy at the time, so these quotes are rough at best and paraphrases at worst, but the call went something like this:

Gov. Gilmore introduced himself, said he was running for the U.S. Senate and listed some accomplishments. He then asked:

"Can I count on your support going forward?"

Realizing this was a recording, I was kind of surprised that RoboGilmore asked a question. So I decided to keep the ball rolling.

"Uh, yes."

RoboGilmore was pleased. "Thank you for your support," he said, telling me how much my backing meant to him.  But he had more to ask.

"Would you be willing to serve as a delegate to the nominating convention" in Richmond on May 31st?

As much as I hated to disappoint RoboGilmore, it probably wouldn't be a good thing for a reporter to volunteer for delegate duty. So I declined.

"No."

RoboGilmore took it in stride. "I understand," he said. But if I can't serve as a delegate, would I be willing to donate some money or volunteer?

I was so intrigued I just had to keep the ball rolling. "Sure, why not."

RoboGilmore was confused. "Please say either yes, no, or repeat question."

"Yes," I said. "That's great," RoboGilmore replied. "Would it be OK if someone from my campaign gave you a call at this number..."

As much as I wanted to keep chatting with RoboGilmore, I had a meeting in Winchester that couldn't be put off, so I had to cut it off there and hit the showers.

All kidding aside, Gilmore's campaign has stumbled onto a what looks like a cost effective way to reach a lot of voters with an almost unnerving personal touch. The voice recognition was flawless, the transitions seamless.

Who knows? If Gilmore can parlay RoboGilmore into success in May, it might be just what he needs to help him in an uphill fight against former Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner in November.

For all of the sound and fury during this year's General Assembly session over guns, illegal immigration and abuser fees, what could amount to a sea change in Virginia's finances has gone largely unnoticed.

The debate is embedded in the fight over the state budget, and it is a fight only a policy wonk could love: a change in the formula used to "re-benchmark" the state's "Standards of Quality" for education every two years.

Better known as the SOQs, the standards are the yardstick the state uses to determine how much money it is constitutionally obligated to hand out to local school systems each year. The Department of Education gives it a revamp every two years, and like clockwork, it goes up by about $1 billion or so.

Just what the two sides are fighting over is tough to explain.

I spent some time here in the Cheap Seats trying to understand the SOQs and the re-benchmarking process myself over the past couple of weeks. After a while, I came to the same place astronaut Dave Bowman found himself in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" when he finally looked into the monolith.

"My God. It's full of stars."

There's good reason to be confused, according to policy watcher and blogger Jim Bacon, who wrote about the SOQs here:

The SOQ formula is arcane, almost Kabbalistic, in its complexity. Only a handful of people in the state really understand how it works. But somewhere in that black box is a feedback loop that ratchets state spending on K-12 education every higher with each rebenchmarking.

As a result, the SOQs absorb every spare educational dollar the state has to spend. The formula is bigger than the legislature, more powerful than the governor. It's largely due to the SOQs that, in a budget that shows K-12 spending increases in multiples of hundreds of millions of dollars every two years, Gov. [Timothy M.] Kaine can't find a few tens of millions for the signature initiative of his administration, a modest expansion of the pre-K program."

That's part of what makes the ongoing budget negotiations so important. House Republicans want to, in a sense, break that "feedback loop" and gain some control over how and when education spending rises. They want the elected legislature, not a mathematical formula, to set the ground rules for determining costs.

Democrats have decried the measure as being detrimental to schools in the long run, accusing the GOP of substituting legislative fiat for a real estimation of how much the actual costs of education have changed over the previous two years. As such, they claim it's just another way to short change education.

Both sides have been engaging in a war of press releases lately, but the final product remains to be seen. But the mere fact that House Republicans were willing to touch the somewhat-sacrosanct SOQs at all is indicative of just how different things have been on Capitol Square this year.

Regardless of the outcome, we'll all be paying for it, one way or another.

So, the legislative session is all but over, the presidential campaigns have long since moved on from Virginia and Congress is in a holding pattern while the two parties sort out their nominations.

What's a political geek to do? Why, turn your gaze skyward, so to speak. Battlestar Galactica returns on April 4, and with it the burning political questions of how to run an interplanetary government when only 40,000 people are left in your civilization.

How will the Quorum of Twelve allocate food, air and water resources? What of the treason trial of Gaius Baltar? Will the survivors find their way to Earth before they're blasted into oblivion by the Cylons?

And you thought finding money for transportation was tough...

The latest word out of Capitol Square is that budget negotiations might grind on for some time past Saturday's scheduled sine die adjournment. One of the key sticking points remains the possible expansion of pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds.

Regardless of the outcome, the negotiations are in a way the final post script to the 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

I still recall the first time I spoke with Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine about his pre-K vision. It was during the 2005 campaign, and the then-lieutenant governor did a phone interview in the campaign SUV headed to another event.

He explained his big picture vision of both pre-K and a health insurance credit for small business, variations of which showed up in his 2008 budget document. When I pushed him on the expense of those two ideas, he gave an answer that rings just as true today as it did in 2005.

"Well, Garren, I will be candid, I haven't completely figured out how to finance them yet," he said.

Three years on, Kaine finds himself in a tough spot. Virginia governors only get four years in the Executive Mansion. And since the commonwealth operates on a two-year budget, any legacy building that requires serious financial power has to be done in year three of the term.

But a popped housing bubble has the governor over a barrel. State revenue growth has slowed to a crawl, and short-term history doesn't look fondly on executives who preside over slowing economies, popped bubbles or outright recessions. Just ask former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore.

Even with the state's financial troubles, Kaine found a way to pay for the program, reallocating lottery dollars that were paying for school construction to basic education aid. That freed up a few million dollars in the budget to send more kids to preschool. But there's a snag: Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell has opined that moving lottery funds into the General Fund is unconstitutional.

If lottery dollars are held separately in a different fund, Kaine's move to pay for pre-K would appear as a hole in the state's education spending, even if the bottom line numbers remain the same. It's a campaign ad waiting to be written. And lest anyone forget, the gubernatorial campaign in Virginia will seriously crank up in just over a year.

It's not much of a stretch to think that Kaine's legacy might come down to the negotiations ongoing on in Capitol Square this weekend.

No pressure.

The Virginia Senate voted just minutes ago to uphold Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's veto of two firearms related bills. Of the two, Senate Bill 436  from Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Upperville, came closest to passage, netting 25 of the 27 votes needed to override Kaine.

Find the brief audio from the debate over both bills here.

From the office of Republican House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell:


RICHMOND, VA - Delegate Phillip A. Hamilton (R-Newport News), Vice Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a conferee on the state budget, today offered an assessment on the status of negotiations on the state budget.

"After five days of budget talks, it is clear that this year's budget negotiations revolve around five major differences," observed Chairman Hamilton.  "House negotiators, dominated by Republicans, have identified two major priorities, while Senate negotiators, dominated by Democrats, have identified three major priorities.

The primary priorities of House negotiators are 1) to increase the number of service waivers for the mentally retarded by an additional 650 waivers above the 150 waivers recommended by Governor Kaine, and 2) to provide a first-year pay raise for teachers paid from a rebenchmarking methodology change and a first-year pay raise for state employees and college faculty paid for from the overpayments to the state's employee health insurance fund.

Senate negotiators have identified three major priorities.  These are 1) to expand non-mandated preschool programs, 2) to provide jail diversion and prison reentry programs for convicted criminals, and 3) to continue to fund Drug Courts.

Prior to the first meeting of the budget conferees, Senate negotiators set the tone when Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax) declared he was prepared "to stay until December," and Senator Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) stated that she "would never agree" to the methodology change being proposed by the House budget.

"Although no such statements or 'lines in the sand' have been offered by House negotiators, we have made it very clear that first-year pay raises for teachers, state employees, and college faculty, and additional assistance for the mentally retarded were higher priorities than expanded programs for four-year olds, criminals, and citizens with drug problems," Delegate Hamilton acknowledged.

Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's veto of two Republican-sponsored gun bills drew a flurry of criticism and praise from some quarters on Tuesday. But legislators in the Northern Shenandoah Valley had few if any kind words for Kaine's action.

A number of legislators, including Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Upperville, the patron of Senate Bill 436, sat down in the Cheap Seats to talk about the veto on Tuesday afternoon. Find our podcast here.

Cheap Seats readers will likely recall that we've had a bit of a dust up over how proceeds from the Virginia Lottery are paid out to local governments. Senate Republicans say the practice of dumping the money into the General Fund after putting it into a lottery-specific fund for one day is unconstitutional.

Democrats in the chamber were less than sold on the argument, and said that the opinion of legislative staff attorneys should be taken with a grain of salt. Now, Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell has weighed in, ruling that the current system is in fact unconstitutional.

Legislators have four days left to complete their work for the session.

Most people don't get excited about constitutional fights over procedures, but here in the Cheap Seats, we're popping popcorn and setting the TiVo. This should be fun.

When you spend most of your time in Richmond in a cubicle staring at a TV screen, it's easy to forget what a spectacular collection of monuments and architectural treasures reside on Capitol Square. Some photo highlights from yesterday's Richmond trip, with photos too big to include in the post:

The Executive Mansion, home of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and one of the better commutes to work in the commonwealth.

Old City Hall, located between the General Assembly Building and the Patrick Henry Building

Jefferson's Temple on the Hill, also known as The Capitol, seen from the north.

As astute readers may have noticed, the Cheap Seats have been relocated to Richmond for the day.

Both the Senate and House of Delegates are abuzz with activity, as we've officially arrived at U-Haul week on Capitol Square -- the week where legislators are working as fast as possible to get their work for the session done, and then pack it up and get out of town.

But there are a few bumps in the road on the way to Interstate 95. Some in both Senate and House are bucking to try to fix last year's transportation plan, which was effectively nuked out of existence by the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday.

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, asked his colleagues to introduce a bill that would do just that early this afternoon, but was turned down cold. Legislators may well wrap up their budget work this week and get out of town. But the smart money says it'd be a mistake to leave the moving truck running.

From the Senate GOP Caucus:

Lottery Position of Senate Republicans validated

Richmond, VA: The position of Senate Republicans and Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling that the Senate version of the budget is unconstitutional was validated today when the attorney in the Division of Legislative Services who had issued a contrary opinion last week reversed himself.

Citing new information that had come to light after his initial opinion, the senior attorney wrote in an email to members of the Senate Finance Committee regarding a section of the Constitution “its plain language requires that the revenues in the Lottery Proceeds Fund be appropriated from the Fund to localities for public education and not be deposited into the general fund of the Commonwealth. Therefore, it is my opinion that the current method of depositing the revenues into the general fund does not comport with this constitutional provision.”

The new information uncovered the fact that lottery profits have been deposited in a special fund for just one day then transferred to the state’s General Funds where they are available to be spent on any number of purposes.

Senator Stephen D. Newman (R – Lynchburg) was the Chief Patron in the Senate of the constitutional amendment which passed on 2000. He said, “When we crafted the wording we sought to make it perfectly clear that these funds were to go directly to counties, cities and towns, with no detour, to support public education on the local level. The Senate budget this year egregiously violates that standard.

Members of both parties now have to work together to find a solution, for today and for the future” Lt. Gov. Bolling ruled last week the raid violated the Constitution. However, his ruling was overturned on a straight party line vote. The Senate’s 21 Democrats, without any word of explanation on the floor, voted to void Bolling’s opinion.

Reacting to the reversal by the DLS attorney he said “I commend him for his candor in changing his opinion once all the facts were known. In fact, the current practice is even worse than I first imagined. By failing to create the Lottery Proceeds Fund as required by the Constitution, even a 4/5 vote may not have made this practice acceptable. Clearly, this is an issue the General Assembly needs to address and it needs to be addressed now.”

Today is the last day for General Assembly committees to take action on bills, and two advocates of concealed carry on campus are pressing for leaders in the House of Delegates to take another look at their campus concealed carry bills.

Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, and Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, told the capitol press corps this morning that students and professors who legally have the right to carry a concealed firearm in most places in the commonwealth — including the General Assembly building — are being illegally disarmed by university administrators.

Both legislators introduced bills earlier this session that were killed without a hearing.

Marshall's bill, House Bill 424, would have allowed full-time faculty members with permits to carry on campus without fear of reprisal, while Gilbert's bill, House Bill 1371, would have clarified that public institutions like colleges can't supersede state law and prevent permit holders from carrying in public places otherwise allowed by the General Assembly.

While Republican House Speaker Bill Howell could revive the bills, as Gilbert notes in the video below, the odds are against it.



We'll have more on this story in tomorrow's Northern Virginia Daily.