RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — For the first time in years, General Assembly Democrats overwhelmingly outscored Republicans in the annual scorecard by the pro-business group Virginia FREE based on one issue: this year’s transportation bill.
The 90 legislators who cast what Virginia FREE deemed to be meaningful votes for the first reform in 27 years to Virginia’s crippled highway-funding system earned a perfect 100 percent score for the 2013 session. Forty-seven were Democrats, 41 were Republicans and one was an independent.
Those who opposed it got a zero, including 45 Republicans and five Democrats.
In the House, 63 delegates got perfect scores — 34 Republicans, 28 Democrats and retiring independent Lacey Putney. In the Senate, 27 were at 100 percent — 19 of the Senate’s 20 Democrats and eight of its 20 Republicans.
Thirty-three House Republicans but only four House Democrats suffered the indignity of a goose-egg score, while 12 Republican senators and one Democrat came away empty.
Virginia FREE’s president and CEO Clayton Roberts said the organization’s members felt this year’s transportation reforms were important enough to warrant an all-or-nothing grade. In his words, “All else pales in comparison.”
“A single vote, a bipartisan vote to fund transportation, was a momentous and defining decision for Virginia’s future. And every legislator knew the gravity of the moment when the roll was called,” Roberts wrote in the preamble to this year’s business report card on legislators.
The transportation funding reform bill became the defining legislative legacy of Gov. Bob McDonnell — something Virginia governors had unsuccessfully struggled for two decades to accomplish. In a remarkable reversal of political polarity in Richmond, the bill deeply divided Republicans, some of whom rejected it as a massive tax increase, while Democrats sided with the Republican governor.
While Ken Cuccinelli, unopposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in this weekend’s statewide GOP convention, opposed the bill and almost derailed it with an adverse legal ruling on the General Assembly’s final day, Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe sought to rally his party’s lawmakers to support it.
The bill would replace Virginia’s 17½ cents-per-gallon retail gasoline tax with a 3.5 percent wholesale tax on gasoline and a 6 percent levy on diesel fuel. It boosts statewide sales taxes from 5 percent to 5.3 percent. It increases the titling tax on car sales and adds a $64 registration fee for fuel-sipping hybrid vehicles. It also rules out proposed tolls on Interstate 95 south of Petersburg.
Altogether, it would generate new statewide revenue totaling $880 million annually for the state’s 58,000-mile network of roads when fully phased in within four years. It could provide hundreds of millions more, provided localities in Virginia’s most critically gridlocked regions of northern Virginia and Hampton Roads adopt elective regional tax increases.
When the 2013 results are considered alongside those of 2012 — the two years of the legislative cycle — the parties rank about even with Virginia FREE. Republicans hold a biennial cumulative voting average of 73.7 to the Democrats’ average score of 73.6.
Virginia FREE has about 500 members and is composed of individual business owners, corporations and trade groups doing business in the state. The organization does not lobby or contribute to campaigns, but provides its members with information services, including the annual legislative scorecard, political briefings and legislative district analyses.
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Virginia FREE 2013 Legislative Ratings: http://www.vafree.com/uploads/2013%20Voting%20Record%20Final.pdf
