Miller Defends Transportation Vote, Balks at Prince William Chamber of Commerce

OPINION

This news website covered the Prince William Chamber of Commerce’ Legislative wrap-up earlier this week. I attended. For full disclosure, I am a Charter Founding Member of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce, and serve on the Government Affairs Committee. I did not participate in this years score card exercise.

This annual event give the Chamber the opportunity to grade Northern Virginia’s legislatures on their past year’s performance on business issues identified as priority legislation. This year was particularly interesting because some of Northern Virginia’s most stalwart defenders of business received much lower scores than in the past.

Most of the legislatures accepted their lower scores with certain humility; however, Delegate Jackson Miller, R-Va. 50, called it like he saw it.

The legislation that cost Delegate Miller and others a high score was HB 2313/ SB 1355, the Governor’s Transportation Bill. Miller thinks the Chamber was wrong in its assessment of the final version of the bill, and didn’t adequately consider the consequences (perhaps intended and unintended) of its contents.

The Prince William Chamber of Commerce,which supported transportation funding reform in Virginia, gave one of its most pro-business representatives in Richmond a “gentlemen’s C” (79%) for not doing it their way. He was not at all shy telling the attendees at the Legislative wrap-up that.

“If the Chamber is going to give me a ‘C’ then I’m going to give them a ‘D+,'” Miller told a crowd that gathered at a legislative wrap-up meeting.

Miller had a plan for Northern Virginia. He signed on to sponsor the Governor’s proposal, and worked hard to get it passed. When it morphed into something that raised Northern Virginians’ taxes from five to 5.3%, with another possible raise to a full 6%, benefitted wealthy Fairfax County at the Expense of Prince William County, and put local businesses at a disadvantage compared to Stafford and Fauquier County, Miller said that’s why he joined many other Northern Virginia Senators and Delegates in opposition.

I asked Miller if we could chat about this. He invited me over to his office in Old Town Manassas.

Miller, like several other Northern Virginia Delegates, recognized tax policy that was bad for Prince William County when he saw it.

The Northern Virginia Transpiration Authority will decide where the additional tax money goes. While some on who make up the Authority assured Miller that we would probably do fairly well under this model, Miller simply doesn’t trust a good outcome will appear.

According to Miller, Prince William County is locked into its 30% share of tax transportation tax dollars it receives from Richmond. Northern Virginia missed the opportunity to revisit the Commonwealth’s formula in the future, that 30%, when the Delegates from rural southern Virginia offered a bargain to agree to the original transportation bill. HB 2049 would have increased the total membership of the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) from 17 to 20 members by doubling the representation for the Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Northern Virginia highway construction districts. This would have allowed the CTB to perhaps revisit the formula in the future, and increase Prince William County’s share.

HB 2049 was defeated, and with it hope of changing the Commonwealth’s formula (or increase our share). The Governor’s Transportation Bill, the focus of the bargain was changed to its current form. The bottom line is that the regions with the greatest transportation problems have the least representation on the CTB.

Miller discussed the “new reality” of Northern Virginia. While the “lines on a map” define Planning District 8 (Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax et.al), the reality is that Stafford and Fauquier counties are really part of today’s economic engine in Northern Virginia. While Prince William County businesses pay higher taxes for new roads, and perhaps keep the least in terms of return on those taxes, our neighbors to the south get a free ride (literally), said Miller.

Those roads we are so proud of add to the economic advantage of Stafford and Fauquier giving them yet another advantage when competing with us for new businesses.

The man and his plan, supported by other Northern Virginia legislators, wouldn’t go along with a bad deal for Prince William County just because it raised revenue. It had to be a good deal for Prince William County, or no deal at all.

“A lot of people are mad at me, …but I’m not going to put through a bill that’s bad for Prince William County,” said Miller.

Folks in his district unfamiliar with the details or the ultimate cost are ruthlessly criticizing him. His Tea Party base is unhappy that he proposed a tax plan in the first place.

His business base  is unhappy that he fought the cobbled together plan that passed. Some criticize him unfairly for not having a plan, when he was among the first at the table to support Governor McDonnell’s original package.

I asked Miller how he felt about the Chamber’s 79% grade. “I have to live with it. It doesn’t change how I will legislate in Richmond, which is as a pro-business legislature.”

Delegate Jackson Miller did the right thing when he opposed HB 2313/ SB 1355, the final version of the Governor’s transportation package. At the details of this legislation come out and the consequences of this legislation become apparent, I suspect the public will revisit their assessment.

I, for one, will always support elected officials who value doing the right thing in Richmond.