McDonnell stands aside on highways

The "easy fix' that Attorney General Bob McDonnell is pitching for last year's transportation plan is no fix at all for Hampton Roads.

Last week, McDonnell opined on these pages that "[t]he regional options for Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia can be easily fixed legally restoring the total new funding of last year's bill to $1.2 billion annually."

McDonnell's "simple" solution requires cities and counties to raise fees and taxes to pay for their region's priority road projects.

Under the plan adopted by the General Assembly last year, the taxes were imposed by an unelected regional authority, an arrangement ruled unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court.

House Speaker Bill Howell is reluctant to revise the bill by having the legislature enact the taxes because he fears the measure could be amended into a statewide tax increase. He wants local governments to do the job, and McDonnell has endorsed that proposal.

On Wednesday, Del. Phil Hamilton, a high-ranking House Republican, acknowledged that the tactic is merely a "constitutional fix" unlikely to generate any real dollars for roads in Hampton Roads. Local government officials have loudly and repeatedly said they don't want to be forced to take over responsibility for major highways, a function long entrusted to the state.

Localities in Northern Virginia are not keen on the idea, either, but it's a more plausible plan there. That region's priority roads are smaller and generally located within individual counties, unlike those proposed here. Supervisors and council members are more likely to raise taxes if they are assured the money stays within their communities.

In Hampton Roads, the projects involve interstates, bridges and tunnels. They wind through multiple cities and counties, over and under many bodies of water. Some taxes raised in Virginia Beach would necessarily be spent widening Interstate 64 on the Peninsula, and Newport News residents would contribute to improvements to U.S. 460.

Either McDonnell, a Virginia Beach Republican, does not understand the unique challenges facing his own community or he is knowingly backing a plan that favors Northern Virginia and leaves his Hampton Roads neighbors to fend for themselves.

"'You're on your own,' is what he's saying," Gov. Tim Kaine said during a meeting this week with this editorial board.

Kaine strongly opposes any effort to dump road funding onto local governments. It is understandable that the Democratic governor and the Republican who hopes to succeed him will not always see eye to eye. However, it is disappointing that McDonnell would not offer some support to long-time allies in the House of Delegates who have concluded that only the legislature can provide a real fix for this region's transportation needs.

Republican Dels. John Cosgrove, Bob Purkey, Terrie Suit and Sal Iaquinto all signed onto a plan earlier this year that would create a regional sales tax enacted by the legislature.

That puts them in a precarious position because of Howell's opposition, so they could have used a little moral support from a high official like McDonnell. Instead, the attorney general has made their task more difficult.

Republican lawmakers in Hampton Roads are working to find real solutions to the region's most pressing problems. McDonnell is a statewide official who must balance the needs of all Virginia. In doing so, however, he should be careful not to take his hometown friends and colleagues for granted if he expects to have their support in the future.