I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group work so hard to do nothing. It was doing nothing taken to an art. They had since February to come up with something and they came up with nothing. It was like a ‘Seinfeld’ episode, the show about nothing. – Virginia Governor Tim Kaine

Well, we were planning to bring you some of the “highlights” from the recent special session of Virginia’s General Assembly – but it seems that Marc Fisher of the Post beat us to it yesterday. But no hard feelings – Fisher’s column is highly recommended reading for anyone out there, Virginians in particular, who feels slighted at the Assembly’s ninth failure in just a few years to pass a transportation bill that does anything to alleviate the gridlocked status of Northern Virginia. The massively failed special session concerning Virginia Governor Tim Kaine’s $1 billlion funding plan will end up costing taxpayers $117,000 – and it’s believed that Kaine, hilarious soundbites aside, will give up the ghost and move on to energy and environmental issues when the Assembly next convenes in January. But as Fisher notes

…energy and transportation are essentially the same issue. Our heating and gas bills have a direct impact on our freedom to move around…By the time we’re shelling out $6 for gas, the public’s eagerness to see real movement toward energy independence and real alternatives to getting in the car will be far more powerful than it is today.

No matter how right Fisher is, the key issue here is that the political schism between Northern Virginia and the rest of the Commonwealth creates an air-tight deadlock which prevents any progress from being made. The sooner both sides realize that transportation funding is tantamount and entwined with nearly every other major economic issue in this election cycle – jobs, commercial development, housing costs, the environment, gasoline consumption, and on and on – the quicker that movement, regardless of party, can be made. Also, it should be interesting to see how Virginia’s status as a swing state in the upcoming Presidential election will affect the Assembly’s next meeting in the winter – since the state’s vote could be used as a mandate to represent either candidate’s pro- and anti-transit ideals.

Since there’s a significant financial and human ripple effect which flows through to both the District and Maryland, here’s to hoping the Assembly and the Governor can solve their “Seinfeldian” conflicts.

photo by Bill Jones Jr.