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Loudoun legislators grade 2010 General Assembly session

March 24, 2010

Members of Virginia's General Assembly were facing a tough session when they started deliberations in January.
The main business at hand was cutting $4 billion in services to balance the budget.

Loudoun legislators said the two-month session was filled with high and low points, but in the end Virginia's budget fared better than expected.

"It was just one of those very hard-working and very-few-bright-spots sessions," said Sen. Jill Vogel (R-western Loudoun).

Del. Joe May (R-western Loudoun) said he left the session with a sense of hope for the state's economy.

"There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a locomotive," May said.

In a series of interviews, the Times-Mirror asked the county's state senators and delegates to list the good and the bad of the latest General Assembly session and to give the session and Gov. Bob McDonnell a letter grade.

Here's what they had to say:

Sen. Jill Vogel (R-western Loudoun)

Vogel, the only Republican woman serving in the state Senate, said she was especially proud of the work she did on Senate Bill 417, which says it's illegal for anyone to impose an insurance mandate on individuals.

"It speaks to the underlying obligation that we as legislators have to uphold the Constitution," Vogel said.

"To say we're going to impose a one-size-fits-all mandate is not very practical. What works for Massachusetts might not work for Virginia."

The senator said she was disappointed that more work wasn't done on the school calender issue. She said she will continue next session to work to allow local school boards to set a local calender.

"Right now, Richmond sets that calender, which is preposterous," she said.

She gave the General Assembly and Gov. Bob McDonnell a B-plus grade.

"[The General Assembly] finished on time," she said. "We only went over one day. We managed to get a budget balanced in the the worst economic environment in modern history without raising taxes."

Sen. Mark Herring (D-eastern Loudoun)

Herring is in his second term, and is the only Democrat in the Loudoun delegation to Richmond.

Among accomplishments he lists from the 2010 session is his Virginia Innovation Investment Act, which would stimulate capital investment in emerging small-tech companies and incentivize them to locate in Virginia -- not elsewhere. He is also proud of his work to update the Local Composite Index, a complex funding formula that had been unadjusted in former Gov. Tim Kaine's outgoing 2009 state budget -- costing Loudoun schools $34 million.

Incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell took action, at Herring's behest, to adjust the LCI favorably for Loudoun schools.

Herring was disappointed that his effort to criminalize financial scams against elderly and disabled people stalled in a committee. He was also disappointed that the session didn't address transportation issues.

As for the overall work of the 2010 General Assembly, Herring noted that lawmakers "came together to make difficult choices," and hailed the fact that the new budget contained no tax increases. He said it was a "pretty positive" session and gave it a B-plus.

In terms of grading McDonnell, Herring could only muster an "incomplete" for Virginia's chief executive, but he praised the governor's efforts on jobs and economic development.

Del. Bob Marshall (R-south-central Loudoun)

Marshall was first elected in 1991 to the House of Delegates.

He said he worked diligently to get health-care legislation passed that would protect Virginians from what he sees as a mistake in health-care reform on the national level. He's most proud of his efforts on House Bill 10, which states that no resident of Virginia shall be required to obtain or maintain individual insurance coverage.

Marshall would like to continue work on HB 2320, which would regulate credit default swaps as a form of financial guarantee insurance.

"Credit default swaps were the financial device which enabled so much unsecured debt of residential and commercial real estate to be issued with the resultant collapse of Bear Stearns, AIG and other companies without sufficient capital reserves," Marshall said.

The delegate refused to grade the General Assembly or McDonnell.

"That's for the people to decide, not me" he said.

Del. Tag Greason (R-northeastern Loudoun)

Greason is one of two freshman lawmakers representing Loudoun in Richmond.

He touted as his main accomplishment HB 1252, which allows law enforcement to access electronic records in efforts to find missing people.

As his next issue to work on, Greason called out a bill that would have provided tuition assistance for National Guard members to enter into theology studies at state universities, which is prohibited under current law.

He said he was "pleasantly surprised" at the lack of partisanship in the recent session, given that the House is Republican controlled and the Senate is controlled by Democrats.

"Largely, people worked together," he said.

He gave the session and the governor a B-plus or A-minus grade.

McDonnell, Greason said, named a "good Cabinet" and worked well with the legislature.

Del. Joe May (R-western Loudoun)

May is currently serving his eighth term in the House of Delegates.

He said he worked with Greason and Herring on HB669, which eliminates the requirement that a census of all school-age children living within each school division take place every three years.

Loudoun County was spending $800,000 on the census in the past, he said.

Like his colleagues, May said he wished there was time to work on the transportation funding bill that would have allowed funds raised in Northern Virginia to be used in Northern Virginia for infrastructure.

He gave the General Assembly a B-plus for its bipartisanship efforts.

"Everyone understood that this was a tough session," May said.

McDonnell, he said, gets an A-minus for being an accessible leader.

Del. Jim LeMunyon (D-Dulles)

LeMunyon, a freshman lawmaker, said he was proud to come out of the General Assembly session with a balanced budget.

"It was certainly the most complex bill of the session, and addressed virtually every aspect [of] state public policy," he said.

His legislation, HB 778, to require that members' voting records be published on the Internet, passed the House 86-13, but was "carried over" in the Virginia Senate until 2011, he said.

"There's no good reason to make it hard for voters to find our voting records," the delegate said.

The General Assembly, he said, gets a B grade for the tough decisions its members made in balancing the budget without new taxes. Lawmakers, he said, secured a fair share of state tax dollars for education in Northern Virginia.

McDonnell gets an A, he said.

"The governor came into office in mid-January and immediately began to work in a bipartisan way to solve the budget crisis as well as make good on his ‘jobs and opportunity' campaign promises – most of which were approved by the General Assembly," LeMunyon said. "He made a special point to reach out to first-term members of both parties, including me. Not bad for the first 60 days."

Del. Tom Rust (R-Sterling)

In the past session, Rust introduced 18 bills, and a majority passed.

He said the most important bill allowed local jurisdictions to curtail individuals from promoting goods and services on rights of way, such as intersections and medians.

Rust also touted HB 513, which cracks down on state drivers who do not have a driver's license, and legislation that maps out a statewide program for making communities more "livable" for the elderly and disabled in the areas of mobility, services and health.

The delegate said he wished he could have seen legislation relating to Lyme disease adopted.

Rust said Loudoun is the "epicenter" of Lyme disease in the state.

He said the General Assembly and McDonnell both deserve a C-plus/B-minus.

The General Assembly, he said, ended with a "pretty good budget" considering the economic limitations.

He described the restoration of the Local Composite Index for Northern Virginia as "a huge win."

Originally posted in the The Loudoun Times
by Crystal Owens and Nicholas Graham, Times-Mirror Staff