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The Legislature adjourns, without much glory

Date published: 3/14/2006

Repeat performance

After a rather dismal session, the General Assembly needs one

IT'S SOMEHOW FITTING that the General Assembly, unable to pass a budget or agree on a transportation package, is heading back to Richmond in a couple of weeks to try again. Apart from collecting "incomplete"s on these critical items, the legislature produced a final report card so dismal that its members deserve to repeat the session.

There were some successes. Locally, state Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, and Rep. Bobby Orrock, R-Thornburg, shepherded through the GA's committee system legislation defining a "dangerous dog," providing felony penalties for reckless owners who let their dogs harm others, and establishing a registry of such canines. The genesis of these efforts is, of course, the fatal mauling last year of 82-year-old Dorothy Sullivan of Partlow by a roaming pack. Pioneering prosecution by Spotsylvania Commonwealth's Attorney Bill Neely pinned an involuntary-manslaughter rap on owner Deanna Large, but the Houck-Orrock measure makes justice in such cases more assured. Kudos, gentlemen.

Also, consumers should applaud a new law that breaks cable companies' hammerlock on localities by allowing other telecom firms to provide cable-TV services. Over time, competition should force down rates and expand choice. Other successful legislation to applaud permits parents with just a high school sheepskin to home-school their children (whose academic progress still will be state-monitored); increases hard time for pedophiles and facilitates the electronic monitoring of sex offenders on conditional release; and directs college presidents to take steps to hold down the costs of college textbooks, a racket that would make Al Capone wonder why he ever wasted his time peddling hooch.

The "F"s for the session, however, loom large. Legislators failed to protect Virginia homeowners from the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision, which allows tax-lusting local governments to condemn private property solely to benefit developers. (It's an indictment of Republicans' competence that a Democratic legislator offered the most effective Kelo antidote.) The General Assembly also failed to abolish the death tax, which lets the state reach into the crypt to tax assets once-taxed. Legislators also refused to grant more power to local councils and boards of supervisors to control growth--an area where Gov. Kaine's sermons on the bully pulpit dismayingly went undelivered.

Moreover, lawmakers did some things that fret John Q. Virginia, such as supporting natural-gas drilling off the Old Dominion shoreline, and others downright indefensible, like protecting wholesale wine distributors from competition by the state's small wineries, whose profits are being guzzled by these politically petted middlemen. A Republican House that declares itself the nemesis of government inefficiency and the friend of free markets killed a bill that would have advanced efficient freedom in the grape trade.

But America is the land of second chances, and the legislature will have one in a fortnight. The unfinished can be completed, and some failing grades brought up. Our advice: Work hard, play nicely.

Date published: 3/14/2006