Creigh Deeds experiencing a failure to communicate?

            Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds is lagging behind in the gubernatorial polls.  What’s more, he’s running about even with his opponent in Northern Virginia—a majority-Democratic area within a state that voted for Barack Obama and Mark Warner last year…and Jim Webb and Tim Kaine in the cycle before that.  What’s handicapping Deeds?

            Two things: one, it’s not a “Democratic year.”  Independents who were willing to give Obama a chance and are now wary of his policies are taking their frustration out on statewide elections.  There is not too much that can be done about that unless the economy turns around (it will eventually, just perhaps not by November).  But the other factor is fixable: liberals, particularly in Northern Virginia, are just not that enthusiastic about Deeds.

            Which is strange—considering that he beat two Northern Virginians in the primary by large margins even in their own backyards.  Former Congressman Tom Davis, who is a Republican but not a staunch conservative, said of Northern Virginia that “People here don’t get up in the morning and ask if I can go hunting and fishing.”  The inference is that Deeds is too much of a backwoodsy, gun-loving, Bible-thumping enigma to be trusted with cosmopolitan issues—even though his opponent fits almost the same caricature.

            Republican Bob McDonnell may seem like the more urbane candidate on the surface.  As a legislator, he represented Virginia Beach in the House of Delegates, he worked at Newport News at an Army hospital as a lieutenant colonel, and he is sure to mention that he grew up in Fairfax County.  But Fairfax County in the early 1970s was a far cry from Fairfax County today.  In McDonnell’s childhood, Fairfax had fewer than half a million residents.  There was no Metro, no commuter rail, no HOV lanes, and no corridor of defense contracting and IT firms.  Today, the County is affluent, one-third non-white, with large enclaves of Asian and Latin American immigrants, and has excellent public schools.

            So, neither of these men is really familiar with the Northern Virginia lifestyle.  What are the issues important to us?  Well, healthcare and the economy, of course.  But the governor does not really have control over those issues.  Deeds could try to run away from the controversial stimulus package and healthcare legislation.  Or he could embrace what the Obama administration is doing, saying that thousands of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and state workers have avoided being fired because of the stimulus.  He could also agree with Obama that every citizen needs quality, affordable insurance—something he can appreciate after growing up in rural poverty.

            The issues over which he will have control, however, are essentially two: education and transportation.  At George Mason University this week, he made an earnest—though at times stuttering—defense of state-funded public schools and universities, citing his own experience and that of his children in working their way through college.  On transportation, he has made only one thing clear: his opponent’s plan to divert money from schools and utilize the one-time revenues from liquor store privatization is bad news.  Deeds is open to any other means of funding, which traditionally infers that “new sources of revenue” (or higher taxes) are on the table.

            These are good core issues around which to run a campaign.  But the message needs a medium in order to get through.  Deeds needs to stand out on Metro platforms at 7 a.m. and rap with commuters about transportation funding.  He should hop into one of Arlington’s enviroCAB “green” taxis or get on a bus with local officials and drive through the Springfield Interchange.  He and Mark Warner (the most popular elected official in Virginia) should be touring the construction of Metro’s Silver Line and talking about how many jobs the Metrorail extension will bring to the Dulles corridor.

            Unfortunately, Deeds has hinted at his willingness to bring abortion into the campaign to rile up social liberals.  Now, I’m not saying that abortion isn’t a fair issue, considering that McDonnell pursued anti-abortion policies quite vehemently as a legislator.  And obviously if the McDonnell camp tries to link the moderate-to-conservative Deeds with liberal Obama policies, Deeds is right to pull the mask off of McDonnell’s centrist costume.  But considering that Deeds won the primary amid misguided negative campaigning by his two rivals, having a progressive plan and demonstrating it to voters may be a better strategy—as is constantly reminding the base that his opponent has a bad plan that is regressive.

Congresswatch: healthcare (in)action, gun (mis)action

            Members of Congress have one simple responsibility: to make laws.  All the other stuff—cutting ribbons at new train stations, getting their pictures taken with Little League teams—provides a nice ego boost, but is superfluous at best.  Thus it is a bit mystifying why, six months after President Obama’s inauguration and a decade-and-a-half after the Clinton administration’s effort, congressmen are looking to the White House for more guidance and more time on healthcare reform.

            As of now, I believe there are only two committees—one in each chamber—that have yet to finalize a bill.  The main sticking points are how to fund both an expansion of healthcare to the currently uninsured (deficit-neutral) and how to decrease costs over the long run (bending the curve).  House Democrats are concerned about a tax on the wealthy, which some have pointed out as being unfair to small business owners, who apparently have to report their income with their revenue.  The “small business” defense always arises every time the issue of raising the marginal tax rate comes up, so why can’t Congress simply fix the tax code to prevent these people from being snagged by the system, rather than forgoing a legitimate and necessary source of revenue?

            Having said that, I don’t think that only the wealthy should pay for healthcare reform.  Since we are creating a new public good, everyone has to pitch in.  And if that means taxing health benefits for union members and other workers, then that should be part of the solution.  The important part is to just do something—anything.  During the Bush administration, Congress’s will to do stuff atrophied a little, as signing statements, evasions of subpoenas, and blatant disregard for regulation rebuffed the legislature’s role as a check on the executive branch.  Now that Obama has given them free reign, legislators have splintered into 535 different interest groups, each with a Napoleon complex and access to partisan cable talk shows.

            Being in Congress might be the only field of work in which generous deadlines can be ignored and no one is penalized.  At first, a bipartisan compromise seemed like the ethical as well as the most equitable form of deal making.  But now, with the Democrats feuding among themselves and the GOP determined to kill the still-ambiguous reform plan, it is useless to try talking to all but a handful of Republicans. 

Where Obama can come in handy is in urging Congress not to abandon several decades worth of reform planning.  To do otherwise would be letting him down, letting their country down, and letting themselves down.  But as influential as Obama is, he is not going to be vote number sixty in the Senate or number 218 in the House; Democratic leaders need to instill some discipline in their ranks.

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            Virginia Democratic senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner are no conservatives.  Webb, a former Marine, and Warner, a former business executive, are results-oriented pragmatists who happen to lie left of the ideological center.  That’s why it was strange and disheartening for both men to vote in favor of Sen. John Thune’s (S.D.) amendment to a defense bill that would have irresponsibly allowed concealed firearms to be carried across state lines.

            Warner’s vote in particular is disappointing because he should recognize, being a former governor, the struggles that accompany administration of the criminal justice system in any state, even without external complications such as this one.  Furthermore, the amendment would have given preference to states with the loosest laws regarding firearm possession, in effect depriving state law enforcement of the ability to enforce the regulations which have been dutifully debated, voted on, and signed into existence across the country.

            I’m very comfortable with ensuring protections for gun owners, but it concerns me when our senators are so afraid of getting slapped on the wrist by the NRA that they forget that the Second Amendment still has a long way to go in court before the John Thunes of the world can carry as many guns as they want wherever they want and for any purpose.

Virginia’s single term limit: a unique aberration

            When Sarah Palin called herself a lame duck—in reference to her resignation from the governorship of Alaska—it struck me as an odd use of the term.  After all, she has two more years left to govern, meaning there are two legislative sessions that require her input.  What’s more, she could have run for reelection, meaning instead of assuming “lame duck” status, she could have ramped up her efforts to pass key legislation to boost her portfolio of achievements by 2010.

            In fact, there is only one state in the country in which a first term executive is always a lame duck: Virginia.  Article V of the Virginia Constitution reads that the executive “shall be ineligible to the same office for the term next succeeding that for which he was elected….”  Now, technically, this language allows a governor to serve as many terms as he is elected to; they simply cannot be succeeding terms.  This odd scenario happened once in the twentieth century: Mills E. Godwin served as a Democrat from 1966-1970 and as a Republican from 1974-1978.  But as a practical matter, no recent governor has attempted to reclaim his job—most have attempted (and all but one have succeeded in) running for the Senate.

            I wrote to Dick Howard, a professor at the University of Virginia and author of Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia, asking why Virginia has remained the sole bastion of the single-term limit.  Here is his answer:

When I directed the most recent revision of the Constitution of Virginia, I laid this question before the Commission on Constitutional Revision.  The commissioners (who included two former governors, Colgate Darden and Albertis Harrison) chose to leave the one-term limit in place.  For my own part, I would allow a governor to run for a second term.  Virginia is now the only state in the country retaining a one-term limit.  The conventional argument, which I think overblown, is that Virginia’s governor is sufficiently powerful vis-a-vis the legislature that he ought not to have more than one term.

Democratic governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine

            Upon ratification of Virginia’s first constitution in 1776, the executive was weak (like most governors, powers were mostly limited to commanding the militia and granting pardons) and was appointed to a one-year term, twice renewable, by the General Assembly.  The governor shared power with an eight-member Council of State, also appointed by the General Assembly.  In 1851, the governorship became an elective office, the Council was abolished, and the term became a four-year, non-renewable one.

            The legislature has made multiple attempts to raise a constitutional amendment to repeal the single term limit, but it has never been approved twice (two votes are required, before and after a general election) in order to be submitted to voters; the last attempt was made in 1995.  The argument against a renewable term is that Virginia’s executive has been strengthened with succeeding constitutions, now having line-item veto power and the ability to make some appointments.  Legislators would like to see the appointment power curtailed in order for the governor to be eligible for reelection.

            While recent governors, including Douglas Wilder, Jim Gilmore, and Mark Warner, support a two-term limit, at the time of the last constitutional revision (1970) there was no interest among former governors to scrap the provision.  With every passing election, this part of our Constitution becomes more and more archaic.  A single term provides no ratification or repudiation of the incumbent’s agenda by the voters.  The proxy measure of success is whether the next governor is of the same party as the incumbent, but think of how much more work could get done with the cultivation of relationships between legislators and civic leaders if one individual were to serve for eight years.

            Gov. Tim Kaine, for instance, has few legislative victories to boast of besides a smoking ban in bars and restaurants and a significant buildup of the Democratic Party machinery.  His campaign promise to fix transportation issues has gone unfulfilled, and he blames this impasse on an adversarial Republican legislature.  Furthermore, his last year-and-a-half in office has been consumed by steering the state through a recession—cutting budgets rather than implementing new policy. 

         And while few people will suggest that Kaine is not a hardworking executive (at least, compared with other governors whose personal antics or managerial skills have embarrassed their states), he already has a job lined up after his term expires—as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.  That is something we can avoid with a renewable term: preventing the governorship from becoming a placeholder position on the road to bigger and better things.

         Virginia has myriad legislative battles to fight in the coming years.  But some time in the near future, I would hope that the General Assembly will see fit to give incumbent governors the ability to put their tenure on the line for voters to renew.  It could not only tame the parochialism in the legislature, but it could reward excellent managers with the ability to establish a more permanent legacy.

Letter to Va. Sens. on healthcare

To Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner

Re: Healthcare

Gentlemen,

         First and foremost, I believe two things.  One, that my health, your health, and the health of our fellow Virginians should not merely be a line item to a for-profit industry.  Operating for profit always creates an “in-group” and an “out-group”, in which the corporation need only respond minimally enough to the needs of the in-group to retain them as investors or customers.  For the healthcare industry, this not only means that rationing of care takes place (i.e. preexisting conditions) where unprofitable, but people themselves are rationed when they are ineligible for health insurance.  No one should be relegated to the out-group simply because of accident, circumstance of birth or wealth, or an economic downturn.

         Along those lines, my second belief is that at this stage in our country’s history, it is a disservice for our government, which is constitutionally tasked with promoting the general welfare of society, to tolerate a system in which the richest nation in the world either cannot provide care to its hardest working citizens or provides inadequate care vis-à-vis other industrialized nations.

         Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 outlined an “Economic Bill of Rights,” saying “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,” naming the rights one has to competition among businesses, an adequate industrial job, a home, and protection from accident, illness, or debility.  Indeed, how can we be expected to fully exercise our constitutional freedoms if we are too infirm to participate productively in society?

         To me, the key to healthcare reform is to ensure choice: choice of doctor, choice of insurer, and even the choice to purchase care from the government if the private sector is too expensive or inadequate.  I am in favor of a mandate for employers to provide coverage for their employees, or else pay them the monthly minimum amount to purchase the least expensive regional form of coverage.  The government’s plan, rather than edging out all private competition, could be the insurer of last resort for millions of families, albeit one whose quality of care and whose ease of enrollment would preclude stigmatization.

         To pay for this, new revenues must be raised.  Some conservatives are arguing that we should cut spending, and I cannot disagree with that in principle.  But the actual act of reducing spending is nearly impossible for this Congress.  The singular question is: what do we cut?  As a Virginian, I enjoy being able to ride Metrorail into the nation’s capital, as I’m sure Marylanders do as well.  But if funding for Metro were put before representatives of the other 48 states, they would unflinchingly exorcise it from the budget as pork spending.  Repeat that process for federally-funded projects all around the country and the critics will clash with the defenders in such a way that nothing ever really is eliminated, no matter how small a constituency it serves.

         I do, however, advocate the implementation of pay-as-you-go legislation to limit the soaring deficit.  Although it may preclude valuable projects from being supported by Uncle Sam’s pocketbook, it would also force lawmakers to prioritize budget items at the national level.  In the interim, though, taxes must ultimately be raised to pay for this expansion and the aftereffects of a $787 billion bailout and years of deficits under the Bush administration. 

         I would argue that the best target is the federal gas tax, currently at 18.4 cents per gallon.  Raising this tax gradually and substantially would not only increase revenues for this particular undertaking, but would promote numerous agenda items of the Obama administration: reducing dependence on oil (foreign oil particularly), providing down payments on new renewable energy and mass transit projects, replenishing the Highway Trust Fund, and encouraging people to drive less frequently and thus reduce carbon emissions.

         There is no obvious solution to fixing health care and there are many pitfalls to each approach.  What I hope you will support is a plan that reduces the discretion of insurers to extort those who need care the most and that covers every individual from cradle to grave without indebting the nation further.  Expanding freedom of choice is key way to ensure quality of care over profitability, and a dedicated funding mechanism that cuts across legislative priorities will be both efficient and effective.  This momentous foray into reform need not be perfect, but it must be better than where we are today.

Creigh Deeds: the little lawmaker who could

            By any measure, the results of Virginia’s Democratic primary for governor yesterday are remarkable.  Creigh Deeds, a rural state senator with a genuine southern twang, beat his opponents—and not, as the media had reported, by a slim margin.  Rather than being the toss-up race that most had expected, Deeds catapulted to the top with fifty percent of the vote, with his opponents splitting at 26 and 24 percent.

            This is truly an underdog story: Deeds did not have the most money, a famous name, or the network of operatives which the two other candidates enjoyed.  In fact, he was all but ignored in the debates and on the campaign trail as former state delegate Brian Moran and former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe were too busy believing that they were the frontrunners.  He made the risky move of not resigning his senate seat (meaning he could not fundraise for the first two months of the year) and stayed in Richmond to work while his rivals toured the state.  But in these last few weeks, Deeds earned an endorsement by The Washington Post, ran several television ads, and cobbled together a plan on transportation.  The result was, embarrassingly, that Deeds won the vote of liberals in Arlington and Fairfax counties—the homes of the other two candidates.

            Personality differences and tactical mistakes surely hastened the demise of the perceived frontrunners.  Terry McAuliffe believed he could bring Obama-style grass-roots organization and hype to an off-year governor’s election and shout his way to victory.  Although the outsider-turned-politician model is not unprecedented in Virginia (as Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner essentially showed in their first runs for office), simply having a larger-than-life persona with no roots to speak of is not enough.

            I gave Brian Moran my absentee vote almost one month before the election, and since then I have come to regret it.  His campaign was fueled by negativity; at one point in the final debate, he responded to a question posed by McAuliffe about payday lenders by sniping at McAuliffe’s lack of a record, saying “I don’t have time to teach you the legislative process, nor do Virginians have time for you to learn.” He also positioned himself as the most liberal of the candidates, even though he certainly would have to back off to the right in the general election (with allegations of flip-flopping sure to ensue).  But some of his positions were just bizarre: he refused to consider exploring for oil or natural gas off Virginia’s coast, even though Webb, Warner, and Gov. Tim Kaine have allowed that fossil fuels should play a small part in the overall push for energy independence.  Further compounding Moran’s belligerence was his criticism of “rural legislators” for failing to vote to raise the gas tax—even though Deeds did, in fact, make that politically-risky vote and Moran did not.

            But now that Deeds is the nominee, he occupies a comfortable space—he is conservative on some issues (like guns) and liberal on others.  In other words, his record occupies the center ground, while the record of his opponent, well-coiffed former Attorney General Bob McDonnell, lies to the right.  Deeds was the “safe” choice—he can appeal to traditionally-Republican rural areas, and still win suburban Democrats who have no other option.  Speaking with a thicker Virginia accent than all of the other statewide-elected Democrats (and McDonnell, for that matter), he can talk earnestly about the issues in a way that shows he has done his homework.  And not only will he be wary of how McDonnell operates (Deeds lost the attorney general’s race against him in 2005 by 323 votes), but he will have the backing of popular Democratic senators, a governor, and perhaps even the president.

            If reading the primary was this unpredictable, it is impossible to tell who will win in November.  During the next five months, the economy could recover, GM and Chrysler could ramp up production, stimulus money could put people back to work, Obama’s policies would be vindicated and a Democratic victory could be teed up.  But if his policies at the national level fail, this could easily be a Republican year.  The selection of Deeds, in my estimation, has turned a race in which McDonnell has a slight edge into a toss-up.