While it’s an imperfect metaphor, we tend to think of the typical General Assembly legislative session as a poorly plotted television series. It may be filled with interesting characters and over-the-top drama, but there are way too many subplots, and it never ends up exactly where you think it should. It’s like, one moment you’re absolutely certain that the show is going wrap everything up in a tidy, satisfying package, and the next you’re fuming because it actually ends with all of the characters sitting in a church mumbling some stupid crap about the afterlife.
And so it went with Richmond’s most recent legislative rodeo. The just-completed 2013 session started out as a wan sequel to last year’s epic “Transvaginal Wonderland” session, which proposed so many pieces of ludicrously extreme legislation that we sometimes suspected that members of Stephen Colbert’s writing staff had somehow infiltrated the capital.
Sure, there were a number of laughable bills floated this year (including a proposal to study the feasibility of Virginia minting its own currency, and a conspiracy-minded bill that would “oppose United Nations Agenda 21 due to its radical plan of purported ‘sustainable development’”), but the level of crazy seemed sadly lower than in years past. And even the expected Republican-backed measures to further limit abortion rights, loosen gun laws, and increase punitive voter ID requirements weren’t quite as terrible as one might expect, given the extremely conservative makeup of the House of Delegates.
But then, like a bizarre mid-season plot twist engineered by a desperate network, Virginia’s Senate Republicans tried to ram through an audacious mid-decade redistricting plan, and all hell broke loose.
That plan was eventually shelved, but the furor it provoked fundamentally changed the tone of the session, and seemed to set the stage for some surprising bipartisan compromises over the last few weeks.
The largest, and perhaps most surprising, piece of legislation to emerge during this final flurry of deal-making was a $3.5 billion transportation bill, spearheaded by Governor Bob McDonnell, and helped across the finish line by Senate Democratic Leader Dick Saslaw, who finally dropped his opposition to the measure after securing a written promise from McDonnell that he wouldn’t block a planned expansion of Medicaid set to take effect under the terms of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
This promise, along with the fact that the transportation deal involves significant new taxes, infuriated many on the right (including Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who tried and failed to scuttle the Medicaid deal). But McDonnell has obviously decided that he no longer needs to kowtow to his party’s most conservative elements, and is more than willing to sacrifice a little Tea Party love for a signal legislative accomplishment at the end of his gubernatorial term.
Now, there’s still a real question if the transportation bill, as currently written, will pass constitutional muster. But regardless of the eventual outcome, McDonnell got to showcase his pragmatic and effective side, which—given his transparent national ambitions—is all he really wanted.
Cuccinelli, on the other hand, simply marginalized himself even further by opposing the plan, and made it ever more likely that either Democrat Terry McAuliffe or possible independent Bill Bolling (who both supported the bill) will be overseeing Virginia’s Assembly asylum in 2014.