House vote corrodes civility

RICHMOND(AP)— What little remained of bipartisanship in the House of Delegates lay in shambles yesterday after a rare procedural move by Republicans triggered a fierce floor dispute.

The extraordinary partisan rancor arose over a delegate’s routine request to withdraw a bill he sponsored and left in doubt whether the House Republican majority and the Democrats can cooperate effectively in the remaining 43 days of the 2008 General Assembly.

“It was not a good day for the commonwealth,” House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong said after lambasting the Republicans as bullies and tyrants.

“They put a bill in, then they’re too cowardly to take a vote on it,” House Republican Leader H. Morgan Griffith said after the clash.

Delegate Adam Ebbin, Alexandria Democrat, had asked that his legislation to allow collective bargaining by state and local government employees be withdrawn. Such requests are often made and routinely granted every year.

But Republicans refused, intent on forcing Democrats to take a floor vote that could alienate unions, among the Democrats’ most generous constituencies.

In a roll call vote, the House’s 53 Republicans and two allied independents voted against a motion to withdraw the bill for the year while 43 Democrats voted for it.

The floor speeches that ensued bordered on breaching the House’s nearly 400-year-old rules on civility: fingers jabbed angrily toward partisan adversaries amid icy glares and heated rhetoric.

Mr. Armstrong, Henry County Democrat, urged his fellow Democrats not to debate or vote on a subsequent motion to engross and advance Mr. Ebbin’s bill, then pointed toward the Virginia flag bearing the state motto, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (thus always to tyrants).

“The tyranny of the majority is what you want, it’s what you shall have,” Mr. Armstrong said.

Mr. Griffith shot back: “I have not heard such philosophical tripe in all my years here, in all my life.”

The ensuing roll call showed 55 Republicans, two conservative independents and two Democrats voting not to advance the bill. There were no votes in favor of it, and 42 of the House’s 44 Democrats did not vote.

Then, invoking a rare parliamentary privilege, Republicans singled out 25 Democrats who did not vote and, one by one, ordered that the official record reflect that they had voted no, just as the Republicans had, creating an inflated final count of 82-0 to effectively kill Mr. Ebbin’s bill. Mr. Griffith said he quit after 25 because he got tired.

After the vote, Delegate Lionell Spruill Sr., Portsmouth Democrat, was angry but worried. “This — the rest of this session — is going to be rough if we can’t find a way to put this behind us.”

Mr. Griffith acknowledged a measure of payback in making an issue of Democrats’ ties to labor. Unions have helped Democrats gain House seats in every legislative election since 2003.

“They receive money from the large union groups in the nation and in Virginia, and they tell them ’We’re going to be with you on these issues.’ Then they go to the business community and they say ’We’re very proud Virginia’s the No. 1 state in the union for doing business in, and we’re going to help you keep it that way,’ ” Mr. Griffith said.

Labor interests in 2007 gave Democratic House candidates about $208,000 compared to a total of $300 for Republican House candidates, according to the campaign finance data compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project.

“What they’re doing is talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue and they proved it today because they weren’t willing to take a vote.”

AP writer Larry O’Dell contributed to this report.