Delegate Mark Cole and Governor Bob McDonnell
It is my honor to represent the citizens of the 88th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. The House of Delegates is one half of the Virginia General Assembly, the other half being the Virginia Senate. The General Assembly convenes annually in January for about two months to consider legislation and the state budget. I welcome your input on any issues that may come before the General Assembly. I also encourage you to contact me should you have questions or difficulties in dealing with state agencies. I look forward to hearing from you!
OPEN HOUSE
I would like to invite you, your family and your neighbors to spend the day with us at the General Assembly for our “Richmond Open House” on Monday, February 20th (President’s Day). There will be coffee and doughnuts in the morning along with an explanation of how the General Assembly works. Depending on your schedule, you are welcome to sit in on committee meetings and attend Session. We will be gathering from 9:30am to 11:00am in 8th Floor West Conference Room of the General Assembly Building, which is located at the corner of 9th and Broad Streets in Richmond. If you will be attending, please call my office at (804) 698-1088 or reply to this email.
If you are not able to attend on February 20th, but would like to visit on another day, please give us a call.
THE 2012 SESSION CONVENES
The General Assembly convened for the 2012 session on last week. This year’s session is scheduled to last 60 days. I will be in Richmond each day for the duration of session. Our office is in room 808 of the General Assembly Building at the corner of Broad and 9th Streets. The phone number in Richmond is (804) 698-1088. If you would like to come down to visit the State Capitol during session, please let us know. We would be happy to set-up tours.
GOVERNOR’S STATE OF THE COMMONWEALTH ADDRESS
Last Wednesday night Governor McDonnell set out his agenda in the State of the Commonwealth address. Governor McDonnell challenged Republicans and Democrats in both chambers to work together for the benefit of all Virginians. A number of the proposals he laid out in his speech will likely receive bipartisan support, such as initiatives to continue to help businesses create new jobs and opportunities, a $200 million investment in our colleges and universities to expand enrollment at an affordable cost, and a record $2.2 billion investment in the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) for our teachers and state employees.
Of course, not all of the Governor’s proposals will enjoy bipartisan support, such as the Governor’s proposal to reform VRS, and there will be spirited debate about those proposals; however, I believe those disagreements will not lead to the partisan gridlock we see in Washington.
LEGISLATION
While budget issues will receive most of the attention in news pages during this session, we’re considering a lot of other legislation as well. Among the hundreds of bills that will be considered by the General Assembly are several that I am submitting. Here is an overview of some of the legislation I am sponsoring:
House Joint Resolution (HJ) 52 establishes a joint subcommittee to study reforming Virginia's tax structure, including the feasibility of adopting a flat tax or a fair tax. Virginia’s tax code is almost as complex as the Federal tax code. It has numerous deductions, credits, and loopholes for certain businesses and special interest groups, while excluding others from this preferential treatment. I think we need to take a comprehensive look at Virginia’s tax code to see if it can be simplified and made fairer. This has been tried in the past without much success due to the overwhelming influence of special interest groups that do not want to lose their preferential treatment in the tax code. In fact, Governor McDonnell chaired a study commission about 10 years ago when he was in the House of Delegates without much success; so I don’t know if I will be successful this time around or not, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.
House Bills (HB) 10 and 24 make changes to the Business, professional, and occupational license (BPOL) tax designed to lessen its potential negative impact on businesses.
HB 35 reduces the period of limitation for the collection of state taxes from 10 years to seven years in order to be consistent with Federal IRS tax policy.
I have a couple of bills dealing with transportation.
HB 11 seeks to use some of the previously authorized bond funds to make improvements to I95’s regular travel lanes (this would be in addition to the Governor’s HOV/HOT lanes proposal).
HB 23 would increase the amount of the current sales tax dedicated to the Transportation Trust Fund. Currently one half of a percent of the current sales tax is dedicated to transportation. My legislation would gradually increase that to a full percent (note: it does not raise the sales tax, it simply increases the amount of the current sales tax dedicated to transportation). It contains a provision that would delay the increase if doing so would result in a reduction of revenue to the General Fund, thereby protecting programs that receive funds from the General Fund from potential cuts.
HB 138 is getting some publicity. It would require local schools to determine if a student is legally present in the US when they register for school. This information would then be collected by the state, which would determine the costs associated with providing an education for those students who are not in the US legally, and submit a bill for those cost to the US government. It would not deny an education to anybody; it just attempts to get the Federal government to pay the costs of educating illegal aliens. The Federal government REQUIRES states and localities to provide a taxpayer funded education for illegal aliens. If Washington is going to mandate it, then Washington should pay for it. Maybe if they had to pay the costs for all illegal aliens in the country, they might take enforcement of immigration laws and border security more seriously.
I am sponsoring some legislation dealing with Concealed Carry Gun permits.
HB 25 would protect the privacy of permit holders.
HB 139 would allow those who are already allowed to carry a gun openly, to carry concealed without a permit. It does not expand who may carry a gun, it just allows anyone who can carry openly to carry concealed without a permit. Having more restrictions on concealed carry than on open carry has never made sense to me. Carrying openly is more likely to cause a disturbance or make someone a target than carrying concealed.
As chairman of the House Privileges and Elections Committee, I am sponsoring several bills dealing with elections including
HB 36 which would require political parties to pay the costs of primary elections,
HB 1132 would allow political parties to determine if they want to allow write-in votes in a primary,
HB 1133 allows political parties to set their own requirements for candidates to get on the primary ballot, and
HB 1151 which clarifies the statewide petition process during years when redistricting has taken place.
HB 9 would require anyone who shows up at the polls on Election Day without ID to cast a provisional ballot. Currently, if someone comes to vote without ID, they have to sign a sworn statement identifying themselves and then can vote. This could lead to someone coming to a poll early casting a vote in someone else’s name; then when the actual voter shows up later to vote they are denied the right to vote because they are shown to have already voted. Casting a provisional ballot would allow the electoral board to retrieve the illegal ballot while allowing the real person to vote. It would NOT deny anyone from being able to cast a vote; it simply helps to ensure the integrity of an election.
TRANSPORTATION
Transportation continues to be a high priority, especially for our area. Prior to the economic recession, the General Assembly, spearheaded by the House of Delegates, had significantly increased transportation funding; yet it seemed the more we spent, the further behind we fell. We were getting little bang for the taxpayers’ bucks. This spurred the House to push for additional scrutiny of VDOT’s use of funds including an audit; which was one of the first things that the McDonnell administration did.
The performance audit revealed $1.4 billion in previously authorized funds that were not being spent on needed highway maintenance and new construction. Many of these dollars are being redirect to long overdue transportation projects. Another positive development came when Governor McDonnell announced $1.1 billion in construction and maintenance projects for the first six months of Fiscal Year 2011.
More recently, the Governor unveiled an ambitious $4 billion transportation initiative as part of his budget and legislative package. With interest rates and construction costs at record lows, many believe now may be the best opportunity to get roads built in modern Virginia history. The challenge here will be balancing the need for additional roads financed by bonds, with the Commonwealth’s debt burden.
In order to preserve our AAA bond rating, Virginia has maintained a relatively low limit for debt payments. The temptation is strong for politicians to run up debt when times are hard. Doing so would be penny wise but pound foolish if it were to hurt our bond rating.
VDOT AUDIT
One of the first things Governor McDonnell did after taking office was to initiate an independent audit of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). The audit found $ 1.45 Billion in unspent funds! I am not surprised that unspent funds were found; I am surprised that the amount is so large (it is roughly equivalent to about one third of VDOT’s annual budget). The McDonnell administration is currently re-programming the money to spend it on urgently needed transportation projects.
In recent years we had significantly increased funding for transportation, but we saw little results from those increases. We pushed for an independent audit of VDOT for years. Unfortunately Governor Kaine did not support an independent audit and legislation requiring an audit would pass the House, but die in the Senate. In my opinion the reason for this was primarily political. Governor Kaine and his allies in the Senate were demanding tax increases for transportation and assumed that traffic gridlock would help their cause. This is why I believe the Kaine administration dragged their feet when it came to spending transportation funds authorized by the General Assembly.
My hat is off to Governor McDonnell for moving forward with the audit so quickly. Just goes to show you what can be done when you have a Governor who is more concerned about getting things done, instead of just reaching deeper into our pockets!
RECENT ACTIONS TO ADDRESS TRANSPORTATION
While we are on the subject of transportation, I wanted to make you aware of steps the General Assembly have taken in recent years to try to address this problem that are rarely reported in the mainstream media:
- 2005, we increased transportation funding by more than $ 1.4 Billion, the largest increase in nearly 20 years, including $ 850 million in funding to reduce congestion on major thoroughfares like I-95. The House of Delegates had proposed $ 1.2 Billion for congestion relief, but the state Senate and then Governor Mark Warner wanted significantly less, so we had to compromise on $ 850 million.
- 2006, we directed an additional $ 568 million to transportation.
- 2007, the General Assembly financed largest transportation investment in two decades by providing nearly $ 500 million in ongoing, new transportation funding and authorizing $ 3 Billion in transportation bonds.
- 2008 we restored $180 million in transportation funding that former Governor Kaine had diverted to other programs.
As stated above, we authorized additional transportation bonding authority in 2007; however, Governor Kaine had declined to issue any of these bonds. This year Governor McDonnell announced that he would begin issuing these bonds in order to take advantage of record low interest rates and jump-start needed transportation projects.
