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A View from the Cheap Seats by Garren Shipley
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When I folded up the live blog and boarded Cheap Seats One for Strasburg last night, I was all but certain that I'd be able to log on and see the minutes of the concluded special session when I got home at about 11:30 p.m.
Turns out I was off. By two hours.
Neither the House nor the Senate completed their work until after 1:30 a.m., hammering on issues like a constitutional "lock box" for transportation trust fund dollars, offshore oil drilling and HB 6055, the somewhat infamous "Son of HB 3202."
HB 6055 had been the source of a great deal of heartburn on the GOP side of the aisle. A number of anti-tax legislators said they had serious problems with raising taxes -- even if they were just in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads -- during an economic downturn.
But delegates from those two regions were anxious to re-start some sort of regional funding mechanism after the Virginia Supreme Court in February struck down those provisions of House Bill 3202. In the end, the GOP settled on a funding mechanism that didn't require a tax increase.
The measure was scuttled in the Senate, but in this instance, that's immaterial. For the first time since the great tax fight of 2004, the GOP caucus held together in the face of pressure from a Senate and governor calling for tax increases.
While the policy implications of the GOP's new-found unity are debatable, the political landscape appears to have changed markedly, at least from where I'm sitting.
The strategy pioneered by Democratic Gov. Mark Warner -- peel off just enough Republicans to pass the bill, then let a disaffected base take it out on the party at the ballot box -- didn't work. Nor did regional divisions in the GOP lead to a bi-partisan tax increase.
Couple that with the unity in the Senate's Republican ranks forged by their losses in November 2007, and the complexion of Capitol Square is different today, indeed.
Turns out I was off. By two hours.
Neither the House nor the Senate completed their work until after 1:30 a.m., hammering on issues like a constitutional "lock box" for transportation trust fund dollars, offshore oil drilling and HB 6055, the somewhat infamous "Son of HB 3202."
HB 6055 had been the source of a great deal of heartburn on the GOP side of the aisle. A number of anti-tax legislators said they had serious problems with raising taxes -- even if they were just in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads -- during an economic downturn.
But delegates from those two regions were anxious to re-start some sort of regional funding mechanism after the Virginia Supreme Court in February struck down those provisions of House Bill 3202. In the end, the GOP settled on a funding mechanism that didn't require a tax increase.
The measure was scuttled in the Senate, but in this instance, that's immaterial. For the first time since the great tax fight of 2004, the GOP caucus held together in the face of pressure from a Senate and governor calling for tax increases.
While the policy implications of the GOP's new-found unity are debatable, the political landscape appears to have changed markedly, at least from where I'm sitting.
The strategy pioneered by Democratic Gov. Mark Warner -- peel off just enough Republicans to pass the bill, then let a disaffected base take it out on the party at the ballot box -- didn't work. Nor did regional divisions in the GOP lead to a bi-partisan tax increase.
Couple that with the unity in the Senate's Republican ranks forged by their losses in November 2007, and the complexion of Capitol Square is different today, indeed.
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