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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