Citizen Tom

The General Assembly is in the process of trying to figure out how to tax us and spend our money. In the latest edition of the Cuccinelli Compass (February 22, 2008), Senator Ken Cuccinelli’s provides a summary of how he thinks Republicans are doing in the Virginia Senate.

February 22, 2008

Dear Fellow Republican:

For my long-time readers, you know that I have occasionally struggled in the past with my own Senate Republican caucus. So today I’m pleased to write to let you know that our caucus stuck together through yesterday’s long battles over the budget.

Yesterday was the day that all of the budget amendments were considered and we voted on the passage of both budgets. There is one budget bill (SB 29) that adjusts the current fiscal year’s budget to address the slowdown in tax revenues, and there is one budget bill (SB 30) to set the budget for the next two fiscal years (July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009 - FY 2009, and July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010 - FY 2010).

SB 29 - The Caboose Bill

We began with SB 29, called the caboose bill. We offered three amendments.

First, we tried to undo the raid on the lottery funds. John Watkins spoke so effectively to this amendment, that we got 7 Democrat votes! Combined with all 19 Republicans, the vote to undo the raid on the lottery funds won 26-13! (Sen. Ticer didn’t vote). We were stunned that we won the first fight right out of the blocks! The Dems clearly were not as organized as we were, and that held true all day. The Dem Senators that voted with us to stop the raid on the lottery funds were the freshmen, Sen. Puller and Sen. Yvonne Miller.

They regrouped, lectured their ‘wayward’ Senators, had the amendment reconsidered, and from that point on through the rest of the day they voted in a bloc.

The next amendment was attacked by Walter Stosch. He went after the IMMENSE withdrawal from the Rainy Day Fund the Democrats have proposed in their budget. The last time we had a withdrawal any where near the size of what is in SB 29 was when the two-year shortfall was around $6 billion. Our two-year shortfall is less than 1/3 of that amount, yet the Democrats are withdrawing nearly the same amount of money! Unbelievable!

We had one other budget amendment and then we moved to my floor amendment to restore funding for abstinence education. Because of the strong evidence supporting the success of these teaching efforts in Virginia, we knew that this would be a tough vote for the Dems. Again, all of our Republicans stuck together in support of abstinence education.

I passed out to all of the Senators a copy of a press release from Gov. Tim Kaine’s Department of Health of February 16, 2006 lauding the success of Virginia’s abstinence education programs. The Dept. of Health release further noted that Virginia’s successes were consistent with the success of abstinence education across the country. So, when Edd Houck got up and said the opposite, i.e., ‘abstinence education doesn’t work,’ one could reasonably wonder if he was questioning the executive branch’s honesty or accuracy in their press release. Sen. Houck didn’t cite a single study supporting his position, while I rattled off 7 different studies from a wide variety of peer reviewed medical journals. But hey, who needs facts?

Interestingly, just before the vote, Sen. Chuck Colgan walked off the floor and didn’t vote. So, with a party line vote (minus Chuck Colgan), my amendment lost 20-19. The closest vote of the day. Now, it is my understanding that at the NAACP forum on October 3^rd, 2007, at the First A.M.E. Church of Manassas Sen. Colgan said: “There’s nothing more important that we can teach our children than abstinence.” I am going to try and get the video of Sen. Colgan’s quote and put it up on YouTube. if we can get that video, then this will be part of another Compass. Stay tuned on this one. we may have the video of saying one thing in the campaign back home and doing another thing down here in Richmond.

As a side note, I will say this, Sen. Colgan walking to avoid voting against abstinence shows that it is nearly impossible to be a pro-life Democrat and actually vote your conscience on the issue while still remaining viable within the Democrat Party. It is obvious to me that the strong majority of vehement pro-choicers in Sen. Colgan’s caucus won’t stand for a pro-lifer running the Finance Committee and actually voting pro-life.

SB 30

Next came the two-year budget and the Republicans pulled a number of amendments out to challenge them individually, including the raid on the lottery funds, amendment language drawn to advance unions, Mark Obenshain’s amendment to re-dedicate the raided transportation funds in the event of a future surplus, and another amendment from me to restore cuts in abstinence education.

Things got testier as the day went on and the questions and comments coming from the other side became sharper and sharper.

Interestingly, all of the NoVa Dems voted against Obenshain’s common-sense transportation funding amendment. Ouch.

Sen. Emmet Hanger even had an amendment to fix a genuine mistake in the budget. He didn’t cut or add anything, all his amendment would have done is move about $199K for military training from VMI to VWIL (Va. Women’s Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin). That was supposed to be where it went in the first place, but the Dems would hear none of it. They were in hunker-down mode and they weren’t going to vote for any amendments to anything.

Last but not least was my amendment to the bill to restore the cuts to abstinence education, and once again, Sen. Colgan bolted off of the floor! In between the bills, I had gotten some more information via email about the Democrats in Washington even continuing to fund abstinence education, while the Dems in the Va. Senate were trying to kill these effective programs at the behest of their Planned Parenthood enablers. My amendment died 20-19, but I am hopeful that the House of Delegates will stand strong, and who knows, maybe Sen. Colgan will have trouble trying to remove such funding when he gets to the conference committee on the bills.

We’ll see!

Side Note

After the vote on each bill, the Lt. Gov. ruled that the bill failed because it did not have the 4/5 vote needed under the Constitution to withdraw lottery funds. The Dems (eventually, after they figured out what had hit them) challenged the LG’s ruling and overruled him with what is called “the rule of 21.” I.e., the rules are whatever 21 people say they are (b/c that’s what you need to overrule the LG).

In a later Compass, I’ll address this in more detail.

Yesterday the GOP minority in the Senate was clearly the focused, on-message, united team; meanwhile, the Democrats stumbled through the day disorganized and making uncompelling arguments in defense of their tax increases, raiding transportation dollars and raiding lottery funds, all while starting millions upon millions of dollars of new and expensive programs.

Well, is anyone surprised?

Sincerely,

 

Senator Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia 37^th District

Others can sign up for The Compass at Senator Cuccinelli’s website at:

http://www.cuccinelli.com