12 months of legislative posturing? No, thanks

A few weeks back, columnist Vivian Paige made her case for why Virginia legislators should get bigger public paychecks, give up their outside jobs and spend more time in Richmond every year. Now it's my turn to be the contrarian.

First, I have to admit I have a conflict of interest. I live in Richmond, and I'm grateful to have the 140 senators and delegates around each winter. They give me plenty to write about. While Paige says she's not aiming for a full-time legislature, that would be the inevitable result of her recommendations, and that would be too much of a good thing.

Of course, public policy shouldn't be based on my desire to have a break from the insanity of the legislative session. But Gov. Bob McDonnell would back me up on this, and his opinion carries a lot more weight.

I'm sure every one of the commonwealth's past chief executives would be aghast at the idea of a full-time legislature. The General Assembly is a creature of inertia. The labyrinth of subcommittees, committees and back-room intrigues makes it hard to get a bill passed. That's by design. Thomas Jefferson believed incremental changes are better than wild and erratic swings in policy, and he was right. However, inertia as a year-round phenomenon has its drawbacks.

The governor is the commonwealth's action figure. While some of his decisions require approval from the legislature, he can devote much of his term to formulating his top policies and goals, and he has a fair amount of flexibility to implement them on his own. A full-time legislature would be a distraction from that crucial part of the governor's job. At the very least, it would require Virginia to permit governors two back-to-back terms, a reform I believe is needed either way.

There are other reasons a full-time legislature is a bad idea. State law now prohibits legislators from raising money while they are in session. It's true they play footsy with those rules, timing donations to arrive a few days before or after the period when the ban is in effect. But that's not a good reason to make every season an open season for fundraising. Does anyone think it's OK for title lenders to host a legislative reception the evening before a committee vote on a bill favorable to their business?

A change is unlikely to improve candidate recruitment efforts. It's true that middle school principals and pastry chefs can't always take off two months under the current system. But how many would give up their professions entirely for an elected office they could lose in two or four years?

My primary concern with a full-time legislature is what I call the Model General Assembly Syndrome. Many legislators got their first taste of state government as high school students participating in the educational exercise. But every year many real-life legislators forget that they are in the real-life legislature and start treating it like it's a game.

That's what happened this winter when Senate Democrats voted to abolish hotel taxes in Virginia Beach and several other localities. The stunt was intended to embarrass Republicans, but what if the measure had become law, costing cities millions in revenues from tourism?

The Model General Assembly Syndrome seems to take hold near the end of each session when lawmakers are tired and irritable. Unfortunately, that's also when the budget is being negotiated, and it leads to posturing and irrational behavior. House leaders voted to cut reimbursements for health care providers knowing that Senate leaders planned to restore payments. Senators proposed spending one-time surplus on long-term operational needs knowing that the House would object. Final compromises generally weed out the more extreme positions, but if they overlook a line item, they're dependent on the governor to fix it.

Perhaps more important, the habit of splitting the difference on every dispute isn't the best approach for setting priorities on state spending.

Those decisions have dramatic effects on people's lives. A man with cerebral palsy who needs a personal assistant to help him get dressed for work doesn't care about political jockeying. Same for the college student who loses financial aid. But those people are far away and easily forgotten in the hubbub of the session.

Paige made many excellent points in favor of a professional legislature. Assembly members try to vote on too many bills in a compressed few weeks. The tight schedule leaves little time for public comment in committee hearings and gives lobbyists too much influence on the process.

But good lobbyists don't wait until mid-January to bend legislators' ears. If delegates and senators seem to have made up their minds before a committee meeting starts, it's because they've made a decision before they get to Richmond.

If a lobbyist can drive from Richmond to make a pitch to a legislator, there's no reason constituents can't do the same while their representative is still in town. Do you know where your legislator's constituent office is? Have you given him or her a call about an issue lately?

The truth is that Virginia doesn't need full-time legislators. What it really needs are full-time constituents.

Christina Nuckols is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Email her at christina.nuckols@pilotonline.com.