Patrick McSweeney



On Taxes and Secret Meetings

Republicans should beware Gov. Warner's beguiling rhetoric about finding "common ground" on tax reform. They might find themselves out-maneuvered. 


 

Every now and then it’s well to remember one of Virginia’s truly remarkable politicians — Henry Howell.  One needn’t be a liberal Democrat to admire his unabashed populism and to acknowledge the profound effect he had on public affairs in the Old Dominion.

Whether voters supported Howell or not, they knew where he stood. His belief that “there’s a whole lot more going around in the dark than Santy Claus” assured him the enthusiastic commitment of at least a third of the Commonwealth’s voters before he said another thing.

 

Howell’s campaigns made for the kind of participation by voters that really matters. He laid out a clear path that he had in mind for Virginia. Voters had a real choice: They could embrace it or reject it.

There’s still a whole lot going on in the dark in this state. The prevailing view seems to be that the voters can’t be trusted with their own governance. A recent manifestation of that view is the preliminary decision by Gov. Mark Warner and some Republican legislators to hold a meeting on tax reform behind closed doors.

 

Warner’s justification for the closed-door meeting was that a private meeting would reduce the attendees’ inclination to posture. The governor says he wants to find “common ground” on tax reform.

 

Some Republican legislators were only too quick to accommodate Warner, who obviously had himself in a difficult political box. Del. Harry Parrish, R–Manassas, and Sen. Emmett Hanger, R–Augusta County, not only agreed to meet with Warner, but initially agreed to do so in private.

 

Parrish and Hanger are apt to find themselves in a box of their own. They should learn from the experience the late Harry F. Byrd had at the White House during the Johnson Administration. Byrd as a powerful committee chairman in the U.S. Senate had bottled up legislation that then President Lyndon Johnson desperately wanted to have enacted. After a pleasant meeting on another subject, the two men emerged to a waiting press corps. Johnson threw his arm around Byrd and began to make a spirited case for his legislation. Turning to Byrd, Johnson asked pointedly, “Harry, you aren’t going to deny the American public a floor vote on my bill, are you?”

 

Byrd had been had. He allowed the bill to reach the floor, where it was promptly approved.

 

Warner is the stage-master of this tax reform meeting. Because Speaker of the House William Howell, R-Fredericksburg, has announced his position that tax reform won’t be a cover for raising taxes, Parrish should be exceedingly careful not to allow Howell’s position to be undermined.

 

Undermining Howell’s position is Warner’s objective.  He will use the feel-good language of tax reform to push Republican legislators to “common ground.” That means ground more to Warner’s liking than the battlefield that Howell has laid out for the governor.

 

This is a high-stakes game. Warner feels he was burned by Howell’s predecessor, Vance Wilkins, in 2002 when the two met to reach “common ground” on legislation to raise the sales tax. He would like nothing better than to put leading Republican legislators on the spot on tax reform.

 

The Republican participants have already been burned by the now–abandoned agreement to conduct the meeting in private. How far must they go along this trail that Warner has laid for them before realizing it is an elaborate political trap?

 

July 14, 2003


 

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