The General Assembly breezed into River City for the day and, while they failed to elect any appeals court judges, or fill a vacancy on the state’s supreme court, they did manage to have a bit of a food fight over the budget and taxes:
During Monday’s one-day special session, Marshall warned House leaders of dire political consequences after Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, blocked consideration of an amendment that Marshall proposed to prevent wholesale gasoline prices from rising Jan. 1 if Congress does not enact legislation to allow collection of sales taxes for Internet transactions, as provided in the transportation bill Howell sponsored last year.
“You are facing the citizens of Virginia who elected you to confront issues and not duck them,” Marshall said indignantly.
Yes, what would a session, even one that’s just a day long, be without an outburst of some sort. And while I have a degree of sympathy for Del. Marshall’s position (the transportation tax hike was passed with more winks, nods, nudges, and violence to good policy principles than usual), the political reality is simple:
That bell can’t be unrung. The gas tax will rise by about a nickel in January. Congress won’t pass the comically named “Marketplace Fairness Act” and so Virginia drivers will pay the price.
If anything, this puts us somewhat back on the path to the user pays principle the worthies trashed when they first approved the law. That’s a good thing.
And Marshall is correct when he says the higher tax may convince some to take out their frustrations on those incumbents who plumped for the law. Or it would be had gasoline prices not begun a steady, downward march. The nickel increase gets lost in the process.
But that wasn’t all of the fun:
One abstaining vote in the House was cast by Del. Mark J. Berg, R-Frederick. He voted with Marshall in challenging Howell’s ruling that the amendment to block the wholesale fuel tax increase was not germane to the budget bill because the tax increase is tied to the Marketplace Fairness Act in Congress.
Marshall appealed the ruling and said, “I’ll take whatever consequences that the Republican caucus may impose on me.”
After Howell quipped, “No, you won’t,” Marshall responded defiantly.
“Make my day; kick me out,” he said, “because I really don’t care at this point.”
There are those who would say the Speaker should do just that.
But it’s better to leave that decision to Mr. Marshall. And hope that when the full session begins in January, all sides are fully rested and ready to start scrapping once again.
