Lt. Gov. candidates spar over attendance

By Laurence Hammack

The candidates for lieutenant governor clashed early and often Monday night, sparring over transportation funding, tax increases, fiscal management and their attendance records at government meetings to address those issues.

Bill Bolling, the Republican seeking re-election, squared off against Democrat Jody Wagner in their first and only debate, held at Roanoke College.

Wagner came out swinging in her opening statement, accusing Bolling of attending just 6 percent of the meetings of the seven state boards and commissions on which he serves.

"These are critical times, and we need a lieutenant governor who's going to show up every day and work full time to make sure we're moving the commonwealth of Virginia forward," said Wagner, of Virginia Beach.

"Instead of coming and leading, you sniped from the sidelines," Wagner said.

Bolling called the comments "a classic example of the distortion, the dishonesty and, quite frankly, the hypocrisy" of a campaign that is trailing in the polls.

However, according to a poll released Monday, the candidates are about even. Bolling entered the debate with a 29 percent to 25 percent lead over Wagner - within the poll's margin of error. A bout 45 percent of those surveyed were undecided.

Wagner "conveniently forgot" to mention that the lieutenant governor presides over the Senate, which makes it impossible to attend every meeting, Bolling said.

Bolling said he made it to about 80 percent of the meetings "when my attendance was required. And when not, I had those meetings attended by a member of my staff."

The lieutenant governor then turned Wagner's accusation against her, saying that she also missed meetings as secretary of finance for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and state treasurer for former Gov. Mark Warner.

Wagner missed about half of her meetings and did not attend a single session of the state's Transportation Accountability Commission, Bolling said.

"If I was a no-show at some of my meetings, Jody, so were you," Bolling said.

When it was Bolling's turn to take the offensive, he accused Wagner of making overly optimistic revenue projections as Kaine's finance secretary.

During his term as governor, Kaine has been forced four times to cut his two-year budget because of revenue shortfalls, putting the total reductions at

$6.9 billion.

Because of Wagner's miscalculations, "we have dug a deep hole, and now we're going to have to climb out of it," Bolling said.

Wagner countered that the process of making revenue forecasts is a bipartisan one, reached in part through an advisory commission that Bolling was invited to attend but never did.

"There was an empty seat for you, waiting for you to show up," Wagner said, returned to the issue of Bolling's attendance record.

On the issue of transportation, Wagner said Bolling and gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell want to take money from the state's education system to pay for roads.

Bolling accused Wagner and gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds of supporting tax increases for road building and maintenance.

About halfway through the debate, the candidates discovered they were operating under a different understanding of the rules about using notes and written material.

Wagner raised the issue after Bolling read from a newspaper article to support one of his points. She said she thought such prompts were not allowed. Moderator Jay Warren of WSLS-TV agreed that the candidates were not permitted to have written comments.

Bolling later resumed reading from the article. "I think you're wrong," he said when Warren tried to stop him.

As it turned out, the rules were silent on the use of notes or written materials. When Wagner called the Virginia Bar Association, which sponsored the debate, to ask about the rule earlier Monday, she was mistakenly told she could have only a pen and blank pad.

The bar association apologized to both candidates, said Travis Hill, co-chairman of the organization's debate committee.

As is often the case, the election for lieutenant governor has been overshadowed by the races for governor and attorney general - the two full-time slots on this year's statewide ticket.

The lieutenant governor's job in Virginia is a part-time gig, with the primary responsibility of presiding over the Senate and breaking tie votes.

Monday night's debate offered voters their only chance to see Bolling and Wagner in a face-to-face confrontation. Plans for a second debate in Prince William County fell through.