Via the diaries, here's the latest stunt from the House GOP:Virginia House Republicans on Wednesday blamed county supervisors, particularly those in Northern Virginia, for the state's transportation crisis as they proposed laws to shift responsibility for neighborhood roads to the local officials who approve subdivisions...."The easiest job in the world is to be a supervisor approving subdivisions," said Del. C.L. "Clay" Athey Jr. (R-Warren), who leads the House GOP effort to design land-use legislation. "You can approve it, and as soon as it's over and done with, you can say any impacts to the roads you don't have to consider at all and you can just start blaming the state."
Is unchecked development one of the causes of our transportation crisis? Of course. Is it the only reason? Of course not. A lack of investment in roads and mass transit - a failure to keep pace with Virginia's economic growth - is a big culprit. And that failure falls squarely on the GOP-controlled House of Delegates.
But the best part of this latest stunt?
The GOP legislation unveiled at the Capitol largely takes aim at future development by requiring local governments or homeowners associations to maintain new subdivision roads. It does not give local governments greater authority to deny subdivision developments because of traffic impact, a power supervisors have requested for years.Simply amazing. They create headlines blaming localities, but fail to give local governments the tools they would need to address the very issue the Delegates are criticizing localities for! All talk and no real action from the GOP delegates. As the Washington Post editorial reacted, "These are just more tactics in [House Speaker William] Howell's ongoing snooker strategy."
Ridiculous rubbish from a bunch of un-accountable children. Sounds like some grown ups are needed in Richmond urgently.
Spiteful, vindictive, irrational, childish... most any description is valid when it comes to these bozos, who simply cannot govern, refuse to govern, and are proud of their inability to govern. Just like their fearless national leader, Bush.
Can the business community in Northern Virginia and elsewhere finally come to grips with their unreasonable continued support of Republicans and start spending lots of money for advertisements on television and in newspapers in support of Kaine's transportation plan and against the Republican Assembly miscreants? Plus spending more money for the next two years to support more reasonable moderates (even, gasp, for Democratis) running against these bozos? They'd better step up to the plate, becaue it will take a concerted, expensive effort to pry these jerks out of office and force a reform.