Special session set for June

RICHMOND (AP) — Gov. Tim Kaine is calling the General Assembly into a special session June 23 to consider a new transportation funding package, lawmakers said yesterday.

Delegate Thomas D. Rust, Fairfax Republican, disclosed the date to a gathering of Democratic and Republican lawmakers from Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia called to discuss legislation.

Mr. Kaine’s office declined to comment on the report but did not deny the date.

The governor said last week he intended to convene the House and Senate in the final two weeks of June. He had alerted Democrats to his plans earlier this week.

Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, will ask lawmakers to consider statewide taxes to fund highway maintenance and regional transportation districts authorized to generate their own revenue for projects in the state’s two most-congested regions — Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.

The session comes in response to legislation less than a year ago that created separate authorities with power to levy taxes for road projects in the regions.

It also comes a day after 25 lobbying organizations in Richmond — representing retailers, developers, real estate agents, contractors, schoolteachers and localities — called for increases in the sales tax or the gasoline tax — or perhaps both — to pay for road maintenance.

The authorities were voided in a Feb. 29 Virginia Supreme Court ruling, which stated the authorities were unconstitutional because their members were not elected officials.

Another provision of the law — levying steep surcharges on motorists who committed “abusive” traffic violations — was repealed in March after Virginians complained about the fees not applying to out-of-state drivers.

The punitive fees, in force for only nine months, never approached the $65 million they were intended to generate annually for statewide road maintenance.

Lawmakers at the gathering yesterday acknowledged the need to generate new, statewide revenue for transportation projects and to keep pace with the increasing costs of road upkeep and repair.

However, partisan and regional disagreements likely will interfere with a compromise.

Delegate Paula J. Miller, Norfolk Democrat, was among those who said residents in rural areas must help pay.

“We have some political muscle here, and it’s time we flex it,” she said. “The patience of Hampton Roads residents is running out.”

With a large population growth in Northern Virginia and strong growth in Hampton Roads, several legislative seats will shift to those areas from rural parts of the state when district lines are redrawn in three years.

Much of the money in the state budget comes from the economies of those regions.

“We’ve got to tell our rural friends that they’ve got to help us or there will be serious consequences,” Mr. Rust said.