Lynwood Lewis

By: Delegate Lynwood Lewis

The 2010 session of the General Assembly begins on Wednesday, Jan. 13 at noon. There will be a State of the Commonwealth address by Virginia's outgoing governor, Tim Kaine, as well as an address by Virginia's new governor, Bob McDonnell, after he has been sworn in at his inauguration on Saturday, Jan. 16.

On Friday, Dec. 19, I was present for Gov. Kaine's presentation of his proposed outgoing two-year budget before committees of the Virginia General Assembly. Under Virginia's budgetary framework, Kaine, although an outgoing governor, is required to present a two-year budget to the legislature. The incoming governor will essentially rewrite the outgoing governor's proposed budget. Not a very efficient or common-sense process and Gov.-elect McDonnell has proposed shifting the writing of Virginia's two-year budget from even-numbered years to odd-numbered years to make this process more efficient during transition from one single-term Virginia governor to another. This is a proposal the details of which need to be reviewed but on the surface certainly seems to make good sense.

Kaine's budget was a dramatic way of dealing with Virginia's significant continued shortfall. Never in Virginia's budget history has it faced two back-to-back years of declining revenue. The great recession continues to take its toll on even the most fiscally sound of states such as Virginia.

We face a $3.5 billion shortfall over the next two years, this after Kaine has already trimmed $7 billion from Virginia's last $77 billion two-year budget. Kaine's proposal closes that shortfall (Virginia is constitutionally prohibited from having a budget deficit), and involves additional cuts to the budget including the very controversial cut of the car tax relief program, which is a payment from the state to the localities at $950 million per year to make the localities whole from the car tax cut instituted by Gov. Gilmore several years ago.

Kaine proposes to make the localities now whole by replacing the payment with money from a 1 percent increase in Virginia's income tax. This would restore to the localities all sums that they would lose through cessation of the state's payment of the car tax relief money. As you can imagine, this proposal is extremely controversial and is unlikely to meet with much success, especially in the House of Delegates.

McDonnell has already strongly signaled his opposition to Kaine's budget. McDonnell will certainly be faced with several very hard choices in regards to how he proposes to close this very significant budget shortfall. This session, an even-numbered budget writing year, is referred to as the "long session," and it is very likely that it will be even longer this year.

On Thursday, Jan. 7, I traveled traveling to Annapolis for a one day meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. As you may know, there has been a significant move by the administration in Washington and Congress, through the Environmental Protection Agency, to finally make meaningful progress toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay to health. While all Eastern Shoremen should be concerned about the health of the bay and welcome this new focus and devotion of national resources in a meaningful way, we all should be very aware of what the provisions of legislation now before Congress could mean to agriculture in Virginia.

While we all may have to bear some additional burdens in order to restore the bay to health, burdens which I am sure many of us are willing to shoulder, we need to make sure that those burdens are based upon accurate and fair science and data and are distributed equally. Questionable data and assumptions are the fundamental underlying concern of many people in regards to the information used to determine requirements of the new law, which would be put in place should the legislation before Congress pass.

This is very serious legislation with potentially significant ramifications and all of us, particularly in regions whose economy is built upon agriculture, yet which also depends on a healthy bay, should pay careful attention to the debate at the national level about how we proceed with restoring the bay to health.

The fall prior to the General Assembly session is always busy with a series of preparatory meetings with local governments, school boards, and constituents, as we attempt to prepare for the General Assembly session. This week Senator Northam and I held our series of annual town hall meetings, which I have had since first being elected in 2003, and which Senator Northam joined in after his election in 2007. In addition, we customarily follow up in the spring with another round of town hall meetings throughout our district to let folks know what transpired during the Virginia General Assembly. This of course is in addition to any other groups or organizations which request us to appear before them to discuss the General Assembly.

The session will be running from Jan. 13 through March 13. I hope to continue my practice of regular updates from Richmond during the session.

As always, I can be reached while in Richmond at 804-698-1000, by e-mail at Delllewis@home.state.va.us, and by United States Post Office at Delegate Lynwood W. Lewis, Jr., House of Delegates, P.O. Box 460, Richmond, Va. 23218. In addition, we always welcome visitors from the Shore to Richmond. I have a new office assignment, Room 524 in the Virginia General Assembly Building, and my office will be glad to help with groups to coordinate and facilitate a visit to Richmond.