02/08/13: The integrity of the institution

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

NON-GERMANE.

It has been a long 16 days, waiting to hear that word. Day after day, House Bill 259, as amended by Republicans in the Virginia Senate, appeared on the floor calendar of the House of Delegates. Time and again, it was passed by for the day or for a couple of days.

In the interim, we heard that the governor was not happy with the way the legislation was passed in the chamber. He never said he would veto the power-grabbing bill, however, should it land on his desk. The one person who could make a decision, House Speaker William J. Howell, was mum.

Howell, in his 11th session as speaker, could allow the bill to go to a vote on the floor of the House. With Republicans holding 68 of the 100 seats, passage looked likely. But Howell also could block the vote by ruling that the Senate amendments were not germane.

Rumors that the speaker would employ this procedure made the rounds throughout the long wait. Tuesday evening, reports were published that it was going to happen.

After two recesses for the House Republican caucus to confer, the question was finally put to Howell on Wednesday afternoon. The speaker, sounding a little uncomfortable, gave the longest speech I’ve ever heard him give.

In it, he spoke about the basic parliamentary principle of germaneness, one in which a proposition of a more narrow scope may not be amended by one with a more general scope. He said that the concept is one that has been around for hundreds of years. He ridiculed an unnamed previous speaker who said that the definition of the term was whatever that speaker thought it meant.

And then Howell said, “I think it is much more important for the integrity of this institution … to have a more narrowly drawn rule.” Senate modifications to the technical corrections bill of the House went “well beyond” the normal tweaks. Those changes, Howell said, were “non-germane, in accordance with the rules of the House of Delegates.”

With those words, Howell singlehandedly reinstituted The Virginia Way.

No, the speaker didn’t opine on whether the move by his fellow Republicans in the Senate was the right one for them to make. He made no reference to their poor timing — done on Martin Luther King Day, when Democrats were missing a member, a civil rights leader who was attending the president’s inauguration.

He didn’t have to. By ruling the bill non-germane, the speaker relied on the traditions that have made Virginia unique. The Virginia Way trumped Washington-style politics, at least for the moment.

Mark Twain, upon hearing that his obituary had been published, famously remarked, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” So, too, are the reports, including my own, of the death of The Virginia Way.

And for that, I say thank you, Mr. Speaker.