Why is Managing Growth Anathema to Both Parties?

But I had to laugh when I read today in The Post that the Republican Party is currently denigrating a staunch member of its own because she dares to challenge the automatic pro-growth policies of her fellow Republicans on the Loudoun Board of Supervisors.  What gives?
Regular readers here know what is happening with Charlie, and new readers can follow the links above, so here is the rest of the story about Republican Loudoun County Supervior, Lori L. Waters, who basically personifies all the Republican policies that make Democrats cringe (anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, etc).

Waters was elected in 2004 as part of a slate of pro-growth Republicans promising to make Loudoun friendlier to business and approve large developments in exchange for millions of dollars for roads and schools. Since then, however, Waters said she has come to believe that too much development can lead to higher taxes because developers don't always pay their share.

She broke with her GOP colleagues last year when she voted against a compromise crafted by Supervisor Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run) to allow greater housing density in the county's rural west. Waters also has voted against allowing 30,000 new homes south of Dulles International Airport and a large development south of Leesburg, proposals that were supported by most of the GOP majority.

It has gotten to the point of unabashed juvenile theatrics:

For months, she has been booed at Republican committee meetings. Party insiders have promised in internal e-mails to ostracize her. During a discussion on limiting development in rural western Loudoun last year, three committee members sat in the audience wearing safari hats and peering at her through binoculars.

They said they were hunting RINOs: Republicans in Name Only.

Hmmmm, reminds me of a Where?s Waldo game indulged by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce against Charlie Hall.

But hey, this is serious:

Scott K. York, the board's chairman and another moderate on development issues, declared as an independent during the 2004 campaign. Although he said his situation was different from Waters's, he sympathized with her predicament.

"She is the one [on the board] you could label a Republican's Republican, and yet, because of this one issue, there are people in the party who want to kick her out," York said.

Holy heck!  Does this remind you of prior Fairfax Democratic Party shenannigans or what?

So we have to ask - Why for pete's sake are the two parties virtually CHANNELING each other when it comes to devouring their own members who balk at growth at all costs?

Anyone not clear on the answer should reach into his pocket for a clue: Money.

Obscenely huge amounts of money, starting at the state level:

Lobbyists, companies and trade associations paid to send Virginia lawmakers on trips to Mexico, Sweden, Israel and Taiwan and showered them with dinners and tickets to theme parks, NASCAR races and football games, according to records filed for 2005.

One lawmaker joined a lobbyist for a $3,600 moose-hunting trip in Canada. Four others attended a trade association convention at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, a trip valued at more than $7,500 for the group. A Prince William County delegate took $800 worth of Redskins tickets

Altogether, Virginia lawmakers accepted more than $186,000 in gifts last year, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure documents released last week. Gifts totaling more than $11,000 were accepted during the give-and-take of last year's legislative session, when lobbyists frequently appear before legislators in committee rooms less than 24 hours after treating them to expensive dinners or buffet receptions.

Developers are the source of a great deal of this money:

In the past decade, residential builders, contractors, developers and real estate agents have handed out about $1.4 million in campaign contributions to 14 members of the Senate Local Government Committee and 22 members of the House Counties, Cities and Towns Committee, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign data compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project. No other industry has given as much to the lawmakers on those two committees.

In addition, some of those lawmakers accepted dinners and tickets to banquets and other events from developers and contractors, state disclosure documents show.

And of course this goes on at the local level as well. In Loudoun County, the tradition of developer influence runs long and deep.  So deep that the FBI is investigating the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors for possible corruption in connection with its land-use decisions.

And in our own Fairfax County, Chairman Gerald E. Connolly has received "more than a third of his campaign contributions from the real estate development and construction industries, according to financial reports."

Connolly (D), who is running for a second term, is the top fundraiser on the local level in Northern Virginia, the reports show. He has amassed $311,700 from developers and builders, which is 38.5 percent of the $808,293 he has raised since the beginning of 2004, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project.

In 2005, the Connection Newspapers reported that since 2000, political contributions from developers and others with a direct financial stake in redeveloping Fairfax County around existing and future Metrorail stops had contributed at least $228,000 to the 10 members of the Board of Supervisors.

And, of course, incumbent Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth gets her sizeable share

So now you see why the whole political party structure on both sides goes BATSO when an elected official or a candidate gets out front with citizens advocating managed growth based on the capacity of infrastructure.  What if the developer money dried up? 

Charlie Hall, meet Lori Waters -- the one thing you have in common is that you are both party pariahs for having listened to citizens over developers.

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