In his column “Raw Fisher,” Marc Fisher of the Washington Post reported yesterday that Del. Morgan Griffith “let down his hair while talking to the local chamber of commerce: The Republican legislator told the local crowd that the whole purpose of this transportation package is to make sure that rural roads get built and rural interests are protected before those urban folks up in northern Virginia take over the legislature and the state, which is a demographic inevitability.”
This should explain why the Republicans decided to change course and let NOVA and Hampton Roads tax themselves in order to build their own roads. This way the pressure is diverted and the legislators downstate don’t have to worry about taking funds from rural roads. What a compromise, eh?
Fisher continues: “What the Republicans in Richmond are publicly billing as a helping hand for northern Virginia is really a last-ditch attempt to maintain the power and money-allocating sway of rural areas that they know they’ll eventually lose to the D.C. and Hampton Roads regions.”
The column referenced in Fisher’s account comes from the Martinsville Bulletin, “Road Plan Debate Revs Up.”
Who would have thought that the legislators from rural Virginia have roped all the NOVA legislators to do their dirty laundry? While NOVA representatives, like Delegates Albo, Rust and Hugo have been touting the Transportation Compromise as solution for NOVA’s transportation gridlock, they are actually promoting the interests of rural districts.
The legislators representing rural Virginia must be having quite a laugh!