What the HRTA’s little missive on taxes says about the special session in June (and it’s not good)

Jim Bowden has noticed that the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority has issued a release on the taxes it would have collected but for the Supreme Court junking their plans.  Bowden takes it to mean the HRTA intends to start taking in the taxes as if the Supreme Court decision didn’t exist.  I’m not so sure of that, given that the language specifically says the taxes will be collected “to the fullest extent permitted by law” - which in this case would be not permitted at all.

However, this release is important for what it says about the upcoming special session on transportation - and it’s not good.  I’m guessing the HRTA wouldn’t have even bothered to put this out unless they thought the state legislature would restore the taxes in some form.  Since the only people who are actually pushing these taxes are Bill Howell and his minions in the House GOP leadership, that pretty much means - as we expected - that the House GOP leadership will be as useless this summer as they were last spring.

Meanwhile, the one transportation plan that does not ask the taxpayers to cough up more money is waiting for a sponsor in the legislature.

Thus endeth the Corey Stewart campaign

From WAVY-10 in Hampton Roads:

Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling says he will seek re-election next year, foregoing an anticipated run for governor.

. . .

Former state Senator Jay O’Brien of Fairfax County, Delegate Timothy Hugo of Fairfax County and Prince William County Board of Supervisors chairman Corey Stewart had considered a run for lieutenant governor, but today threw their support to Bolling.

This is why the Corey Stewart banner has come down.

Truth be told, had Stewart stayed in the race, I would have stayed with him.  It took a lot of guts to oppose HB3202 when everyone else was drinking the Kool-Aid (including Bolling), and honestly, the GOP will desperately need someone who can show Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads that it has learned from that debacle.

So now it’s McDonnell, Bolling, and Insert-NoVa-politician-here.

If I have time, I have my thoughts on this later today.

As the transportation debate rages on in Richmond, where is Jim Gilmore?

It’s been nearly two weeks since the State Supreme Court wiped out the unconstitutional taxes imposed by HB 3202.  The legislature has been engulfed by a cacophony of voices on how to “fix transportation.”  Sadly, my ideas have yet to inspire a good pair of legislative lungs.

For the most part, far too many Republicans are willing to force local government to raise their taxes (what Jim Bowden dubbed “the son of Frankenstein” in a phone call with me last week), while the Democrats are pushing a combination of onerous sate taxes aand onerous local taxes.  Bob Marshall, of course, is determined to stop any tax increase from replacing the ones he just sued to erase.

However, there is one voice whose silence on this matter has been deafening - Jim Gilmore.

Throughout the entire debate on HB3202, Gilmore said not a word.  I can actually understand why - he was running for president at the time.  Now, however, as a Virginia GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, he has no excuse.

To the extent that the Establishment GOP backs anyone in this race, it backs Gilmore.  If he were to tell Bill Howell et al to cut this nonsense out, there is a good chance we can get through this summer without any tax increases.  At the very least, Gilmore could reveal that he still has his ear closer to the ground than the power brokers in Richmond.  Yet he says nothing.  Why?

I don’t want to hear about the car tax reduction.  I credit him for that, but it was ten years ago.  We are in the midst of a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party right now, and Gilmore is repeating Jerry Kilgore’s mistake of sitting on the sidelines and hoping it all goes away.

This is a terrible message to send to both the party activists and the millions of Virginians who have emphatically demanded that taxes not be raised.  After all, if Jim Gilmore remains silent for fear of alienating Bill Howell, Bob McDonnell, and other Richmond Republicans, how will he fare against the “Old Bulls” in the Senate when it comes time to stand on principle?  How can we be certain he will be a conservative Virginian first and a Republican politician second in 2009 when he won’t even do it in 2008?

The way I see it, Gilmore has three choices.  He can throw in with his new-found Establishment buddies and make it clear he is no longer the anti-tax man he was; he can remain silent and reveal that he has lost the courage of his convictions; or he can take a chance, stand on principle, and endear himself to millions of Virginians inside and outside the Republican Party. 

Until and unless Gilmore takes that final option, the reality is this: only one Senate candidate is standing up for Virginians against higher taxes today - and that man is Bob Marshall.

Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall

My transportation policy

It’s been nearly two months since I first delved into the transportation issue, with an implied pledge to revisit the issue later.  Well, it’s long past later (at least to me), but I finally have had a chance to think things through, and now I have a transportation policy with which I’m fairly comfortable.  I can’t call it “Part II,” because I am more refining an altering what I posted earlier, not adding to it.  I also won’t call it a plan because, as will soon be seen, to call it such would imply it is something it is not.  Thus it is my refined policy - and based on the “debate” out there, it’s a pretty radical one.

My transportation policy comes in four parts.

Part 1: All secondary road maintenance and construction would be downloaded to the localities.  They would decide what to build, what to maintain, and who would pay.  Highway and primary road maintenance (i.e., the ones not numbered 600 or higher) would remain the state’s responsibility, but that’s it.  State funding for secondary and city roads would come to an end.

Part 2: No regional authorities to deal with transportation issues unless Part 1 is implemented.  As for the authorities themselves, they must be formed by the localities voluntarily, i.e. not forced from Richmond, and obviously they cannot have taxing power.  Nor can they be granted tax revenue from the state - only county revenues (preferably fees) voluntarily contributed as per the terms of the agreement to create the authority.

Part 3: Counties should be given a free hand as to how to divide the cost of road maintenance; leaving the gas tax as their only tool won’t cut it. 

Part 4: All subdivision roads would be removed from the government maintenance grid and would be privately maintained by law.  No government can maintain subdivision roads - period.

This would save the state government more than $1.3 billion for this biennium alone, and get the state government out of areas it in which it should not have a role.  Yes, you read that right, the government’s role in transportation is too heavy and must be scaled back.

For a lot of people, even right-wingers, that statement is a little odd.  After all, it was Adam Smith himself, the icon of market economics, who said the government should be building and maintaining roads.  Moreover, here in Virginia, it was one of the icons of limited government and “pay as you go” (Harry F. Byrd), who instituted the statewide transportation system.

My response to this is simple - this isn’t 1776, or even the 1930s, anymore.  At the time Smith was writing The Wealth of Nations, Great Britain was still a largely agricultural society less than a decade into the Industrial Revolution.  The only way to integrate markets and people spread across the isle was to build roads.  In North America, we dealt with the same thing, which is why the right on both sides of the 49th parallel championed major public transportation projects.

Meanwhile, in the 1930s, when Byrd proposed his statewide system, Virginia was a largely agricultural state reeling from the early effects of the Great Depression, with its few cities barely connected to each other.  Moreover, while Byrd today is known as the archetype organization conservative, in his time he was radical reformer.  His road-building plan all but revolutionized the Commonwealth.

We are now nearly two-and-a-half centuries removed from Smith’s time, and more than seven decades from Byrd’s innovation, long enough to see what those two could not: some roads have a narrower set of beneficiaries than others.

This is why decentralization must occur.  The state highway system should, of course, be state-funded.  Those roads are clearly designed to bring together far-flung communities in the Commonwealth.  Secondary roads are something else again.  They clearly benefit the residents of the respective counties far more than anyone else.  These should be the counties’ responsibility, not Richmond’s.  Hence Part 1.

As for Part 2, without Part 1 becoming policy, regional authorities could easily become pawns of Richmond (see the current “debate” on transportation).  These authorities will never be what they should be - i.e., voluntary associations created by like-minded counties looking for efficiencies and/or joint transportation opportunities - if Richmond is either creating them or funding them.  The funds should be handed to the authority only by the proper elected Boards or City Councils in the localities that join to ensure accountability to the voters.

Part 3 may seem odd to the many folks who have become convinced that the gas-tax is the best way of distributing transportation cost.  I disagree with that notion.  In fact, I believe the entire idea of charging by “use” is a mistake.  Rather, the cost should be determined by how much a road network is valued.

I’ll explain with an example.  County roads are fewer and more “far between” in western Virginia than in Northern Virginia.  As such, folks out west need to use more primary roads - and take far less direct routes in many cases - than Northern Virginians.  Yet, by being forced to take more roundabout methods, the rural driver pays more gas taxes - and thus a higher “fee” - for a road network that is clearly less valuable to him or her.  Meanwhile, those whose have road system so developed that they can avoid cars altogether (biking or walking) end up paying zero in fees for a clearly more valuable network.

Many, upon hearing this, would note that reducing driving is part of the gas tax’s purpose in the first place.  To which I respond, you can’t raise revenue and discourage consumption at the same time.  The former implies inelastic demand (changes little in reaction to the price), while the later implies elastic demand (changes dramatically in reaction to the price).  Demand can be elastic or inelastic, but not both.  Furthermore, the data clearly shows that gasoline demand is inelastic, therefore discouragement of consumption simply does not happen.

Shifting road charges from a use system to a value system is sure to be controversial (in fact, I’m guessing all four parts of my policy are), but it is I feel the best way to ensure the folks who benefit from the roads (which is not the same as merely using them) pay the cost for it.  In the case of secondary roads, it could be a number of options - a charge by square inch of asphalt on or adjacent to the property, a city block fee, a fee for all property owners who abut a particular road, etc - but I’m not sold on the gas tax being one of them, and I certainly do not think it should be the only one at the localities’ disposal.  Thus Part 3.

Actually, my comments on road value versus road use also work for Part 4.  As of right now, Jerry Fuhrman, Lynn Mithcell, Chris Green, Shaun Kenney, Jim Riley, Jason Kenney, and every other blogger that comes to mind pays for the maintenance of my subdivision roads.

Why?

Those roads are located completely within my subdivision boundaries.  The above named bloggers get no use from them.  Meanwhile, I get far more value from these roads than the mileage I drive on them (easier mail delivery, easier pizza delivery, a safer place for the neighborhood kids to play touch football - try that on an unpaved road - etc.).

These roads aren’t part of the state’s vital transportation network, nor are they part of the counties’ network.  They are, in fact, Common Area under asphalt, and they should be treated that way.

In short, the government does too much transportation maintenance, and even some maintenance or construction that should be done is being done at the wrong level of government.  Unless these problems are fixed, we will face one transportation “crisis” after another with no end in sight.

Virginia Democrats manage to make the Republicans look good

The Republicans in the Virginia legislature seem determined to annoy, enrage, and insult the voters of northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.  Of course, the Democrats would do worse - forcing the entire state to swallow a tax hike - but at least they would be smart enough to avoid the pitfalls of regional government that incensed so many in these regions.

Or at least that’s what I thought until this evening, when the Democratic majority in the state senate unveiled its plan (Washington Post):

Senate Democratic leaders said Thursday they want a statewide increase in the wholesale gasoline and car titling tax as well as new regional taxes in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise money for transportation.

. . .

Under the Senate plan, which was delivered to House Republican leaders Thursday morning, those regions would see a half-cent increase in the sales tax, a tax of 40 cents for each $100 of assessed value on the sale of a home, and a $5-a-night tax on hotel rooms.

. . .

As part of the effort to salvage the regional taxing authorities, Senate Democrats are also pushing for a statewide solution to pay for an estimated $400 million deficit in the part of the budget used to repair and maintain roads.

To solve that, Senate Democrats are suggesting a 3 percent increase in the wholesale gas tax over three years as well as a 0.5 percent increase in the car titling tax.

In other words, the Senate Democrats want to force upon NoVa and HR the very sales tax increase that they rejected in 2002.  It is an unbelievable slap in the face to the voters in those regions.  Not even the Republicans (who are going still stuck on their put-the-gun-to-local-officials-to-hike-taxes plan) have planned something that egregious.

Richmond Republicans may have upset the NoVa and HR voters, but the Democrats’ plan is far worse to them, and imposes taxes on everyone else to boot.  As impossible as it seemed just yesterday, Richmond’s Democrats have made the weak, tax-hiking GOP leadership look better by comparison.

For those of us who don’t want any tax increase, the best bet may very well be the special session I feared; at the very least it woul bring a cooling-off period and give Virginians the chance to let their elected officials know they do not want a tax hike.

Does Bill Howell WANT to be Minority Leader?!

I held out hope that when the State Supreme Court voided most of the taxes and fees in HB3202, the Republicans in the General Assembly would take this second chance to craft a transportation solution without raising taxes (the G.A. Democrats wanted a gas-tax hike then and sadly, they still want one now).

Alas, they seem determined to repeat their initial mistake, and put the proverbial gun to the heads of local officials (Washington Post):

House Republicans are floating a proposal to require local governments to vote on which taxes and fees to impose — an idea opposed by local governments last year.

So, once again, Bill Howell et al are hoping their idea of limiting the tax hike to those two regions will mitigate the damage to the party and the economy.  Well, they were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

Worse yet, some Republicans haven’t even realized that they’re hollowing out their own rhetoric.  Take House Majority Whip Kirkland Cox (please), for example (WaPo):

“To say anything is a nonstarter is a mistake. We have tried not to draw lines in the sand,” Cox said. “We need to fix the regional plans, but I don’t think there is much appetite from us to impose a new tax increase.”

So a new tax increase is bad, but digging up an old one is just peachy!

This is exactly the sort of nonsense that sank the party last fall; the idea that Northern Virginians and Hampton Roads residents will sit still for HB3202 II - The Sequel is insane.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Virginia voters will wonder why the supposed party of limited government and low taxes will have helped to enact three tax increases in five years.

There are ways to deal with transportation without shoveling piles of taxpayer money at the problem and hoping it goes away - and yes, Virginia’s tax-hiking Democrats, I’m talking to you, too.  We need to instead download secondary road maintenance to the localities and take subdivision roads of the state-maintained schedule entirely.  I’ll expand on that when I get the chance, but the simple version is this: Who should pay for my roads?  I should.

Why a special session to fix transportation funding is a bad idea

Now that the celebration is over, those of us who opposed HB3202 for so long must come to terms with the next phase - and the painful reality that the tax-hiking ciphers in Richmond have a third-of-a-billion dollars excuse (roughly, From on High) to sock it to us again.

After all, what was an unconstitutional series of tax hikes has become a “funding gap” - and we know what the Democrats in Richmond like to do with “funding gaps.”  The good news is that the Senate and House GOP seems to have seen the light on taxes.  The bad news is that because we are now back to the status quo ante 3202, we may get the political status quo ante 3202, i.e., panicked Richmond Republicans convinced that a tax hike is better than “doing nothing” on transportation.

Meanwhile, just about everyone assumes the “fix” for transportation will come in a special session this spring and summer.  I think that is a terrible mistake, and here’s why.

In the short-term, if the funding question is not included in the budget, it will almost certainly involve a tax increase: When even Chris Beer (Mason Conservative) responds to the new reality by whining about money, it’s abundantly clear funding will be the top issue in the short-term.  I don’t mean to sound simplistic here, but funding issues should be resolved in and by the state budget, period.  In my line of work (Department of Defense cost estimating), we have what we call the “rack and stack” - namely, we set priorities and establish the budget line.  What’s above the line gets funded; what’s below the line doesn’t.

I know the legislators have already had to make some painful choices, but the time has come for more painful ones.  Delaying the decision on transportation funding is actually making the decision - the decision being to sock the taxpayers again.  What the Republicans should do is make clear this funding is more important than Governor Kaine’s big-government wish list.  If, however, this goes to a special session, than the funding will become “supplemental” - and in state government, supplemental funding only comes via new or higher taxes.  That’s the first reason why a special session is a mistake, but it’s not the most important one.

This will not be settled by a two-month session, but rather a two-year dialogue and (yes) and election: The fact is that transportation funding has been a distorted argument from the get-go.  Democrats, who always look to government, play their usual role, but Republicans, who have heard free-market economists defending public transportation funding as far back as Adam Smith himself, end up either muffled, muzzled, or a mess.

However, this isn’t 1776 - or 1932, or even 1976 - anymore.  The notion that only the taxpayer can fund roads makes a lot less sense today, when so many “roads” are actually subdivision streets with very few consumers.  Likewise, the need for a centralized road system may have been wise in 1930 (when there were a lot fewer roads and people out there) but the strain of one-size-fits-all planning in a state like Virginia is obvious.

What we desperately need is a discussion on the future of transportation - a future that involved decentralization, a role for direct property-owner funding (subdivision maintenance especially), and other more exotic things like congestion pricing.  Meanwhile, it will take about five minutes (and I’m begin generous, I think) before this debate spills over into the usual regional argument between wealthy jurisdictions who want funds to continue their dynamism (Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) and the less developed areas who are trying to catch up (everyone else outside of Richmond, its suburbs, and the geographically androgynous Fredericksburg area).

This won’t be resolved in a special session that will likely be dominated by short-term funding issues.  It will take arguments tha belong in the off-year legislative session (i.e., next year’s) and an election campaign.  With any luck, we will see a genuine division on the role of government in transportation, with the voters deciding the state’s direction.

Could it happen?  I think it can.  Will it be far less likely if we shove all of this into a special session this year?  You better believe it.

I doubt Governor Kaine will resist the temptation to call the special session, and the Senate Democrats already want a tax increase on gas.  So it’s up to Speaker Howell to insist the current funding at issue get handled in the current budget without a tax increase.  Then, perhaps the special session can be where the desperately needed dialogue begins.  Otherwise, we’ll just be spinning our wheels, literally.

Reaction to HB3202 ruling reveals a stark regional division

Ever since I started blogging on Virginia politics, I have noticed a deep, albeit obscured, fault-line in Virginia politics - not a partisan or ideological one, but a regional one.  At times, it seemed that western Virginia (which I define as roughly west of I-95 or the suburbs of DC and Richmond) and eastern Virginia were practically different states.

Election 2007 actually revealed it in the most stark manner.  Eastern VA saw a GOP meltdown (lose 4 Senate seats, lose 3 net House seats), while western Virginia was more ho-hum (no net change in either chamber).  However, even that paled in comparison to the reaction to today’s Supreme Court ruling invalidating the regional taxes in HB3202.

In the eastern part of the state, the blogs were on fire.  Bearing Drift had something up before I did.  Jim Bowden, BVBL, Citizen Tom, Ric James (Hoodathunk), Jim Bacon, Doug Mataconis (Below the Beltway), and Riley (VV) were all over it - just to name a few.  In eastern VA, the decision got the respect it deserved.

By contrast, I could find only one blog from western Virginia that even mentioned this case: Roanoke Red Zone - where former Senator Brandon Bell called his vote for this monstrosity “probably one of the worst votes I ever cast” (this quarter applauds his willingness to admit to a mistake).  To everyone else - from Charlottesville to Charlotte County, Winchester to Wise, Lee to Louisa, and anywhere in between - it was as if nothing happened.

Sadly, this silence fits a pattern - the bloggers out west have no idea what’s going on over here.  The raging debate over HB3202 largely passed them by without notice (Spank That Donkey was a rare execption).  While I was happy to join several Valley bloggers in supporting Scott Sayre, I got the impression most of them were angrier about his vote on illegal aliens and in-state tuition than his endless support for higher taxes (again, STD was the exception).

It’s not just the right, either.  Waldo Jacquith actually manages to see the state GOP as having had a “continual crunch to the right” over the last decade - never mind that it caved in and accepted two tax hikes in three years.  He then rips Jeff Frederick as “a far-right Republican, precisely the sort of guy whose positions are losing Republicans the majority” - this is the same Jeff Frederick whose opposition to HB3202 turned his Prince William seat from a nail-biter to a stone-cold, lead-pipe lock.

How can so many people just miss the boat like this?  I suspect two reasons.

First of all, the GOP in western Virginia has a much longer history than in the east - long enough to remember when Republicans were the big-government types.  Old habits can die hard, especially when a slew of social issues make it far easier for tax-hiking ciphers to build “conservative” credentials without ever really giving up on big government.

Secondly (and I would say most importantly) state politics in western Virginia just stoppedafter 2001.  The redistricting did what it’s supposed to do there - elect mainly Republicans who reflect the views of their constituents.  In fact, since 2001 (if memory serves), there have hardly been any party switches in three elections cycles - the only one I can remember off the top of my head is the Democrats taking Lynchburg’s House seat.

In easternVA, however, politics has been at warp speed.  We have seen a referendum for higher taxes crash and burn in NoVa and Hampton Roads - then watched Republican impose higher taxes on them anyway - and that was after John Chichester called for a tax hike more than twice as large as Mark Warner requested in 2004.  This has badly demoralized the GOP base, and led to utter bewilderment when we hear westerners go on about how the party is too far to the right.

The fact is, economic conservatism - to use the popular term - has been in very short supply here in Virginia.  It is the party’s appeal in the eastern part of the state.  The more westerners ignore this, the less they will understand us.

The HB3202 ruling shows why Bob Marshall will win

I know you’ve heard all the pundits, bloggers, and other pseudo-experts who insist that Bob Marshall cannot win against Jim Gilmore, or that Marshall cannot win against Mark Warner in a general election.

Well, most (but admittedly, not all), also insisted that Bob Marshall could not beat Tim Kaine, Bob McDonnell, Bill Howell, et al in the courts on HB3202.

Guess what?  He won.

From this point forward, just about everyone in eastern Virginia (especially Hampton Roads) will know who he is - namely, he’s the guy that led the fight to wipe out unconstitutional taxes imposed on them against their will.  Northern Virginians, who already know him pretty well, will remember that he was the one who helped wipe this nonsense away.

The HB3202 episode has been a microcosm of the numerous advantages Marshall has over Gilmore and Warner:

• The experience of knowing how a legislator must do battle in order to advance our values and interests against the lefty elite
• The willingness and courage to take on the leadership of both political parties in order to do the right thing
• The determination and doggedness to keep up the fight in public in order to ensure the powers that be cannot thwart the will of the people in the darkness

Keep in mind everyone in Richmond was arrayed against Bob Marshall on this one.  Bill Howell supported HB3202; the entire Senate leadership supported HB3202; Bob McDonnell’s fingerprints were all over HB3202; even Bill Bolling and Tim Kaine (neither of whom were happy with it at the outset) eventually came around.  Jim Gilmore himself greeted the entire issue with an arctic silence.

Marshall’s refusal to give in was considered whimsical and self-defeating.  

No longer.

Now, to millions of Virginians furious at having these taxes shoved down there throats despite rejecting them in 2002, Bob Marshall is a hero.  He is the man who stood up for them, never gave up the fight, and in the end, killed Tax Hike 9 from Outer Space.

He is exactly the kind of politician we need in the United States Senate - and now, millions of Virginians understand why.

Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall

State Supreme Court rules regional tax authorities unconstitutional (UPDATED AND BUMPED)

The Virginia Supreme Court has invalidated the most egregious piece of HB3202 - the regional taxes that were unconstitutionally imposed by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority.  The Associated Press has the most devastating quote (via WJLA, emphasis added):

In a unanimous opinion, the court said legislators improperly delegated taxing powers to the unelected members of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. The ruling invalidates about $300 million in bonds financed by the taxes. Justice Bernard S. Goodwyn wrote that “the General Assembly has failed to adhere to the mandates of accountability and transparency that the Constitution requires when the General Assembly exercises the legislative taxing authority permitted by the Constitution.”

While the ruling directly wiped out the NVTA’s taxes, its language is broad enough to invalidate the Hampton Roads taxes, too.  HRTA acting chief Art Collins practically had an aneurysm (Virginia-Pilot via Bearing Drift, emphasis added):

“The ruling means that we don’t have an authority,” said Art Collins, acting executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority. “We just went back 12 years in planning. We now have no valid transportation plan. It’s just nuclear. That’s the only way you can describe it.”

This is a fantastic day for all Virginians, but especially those in the affected regions who no longer have to suffer these onerous taxes.

The highest praise is for those who never gave up fighting this thing - such as Bob Marshall, who was among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to his victory.  Also deserving praise is the old Loudoun County Board of Supervisors for joining the suit (it should be noted that the Board did so unanimously, with everyone from Eugene Delgaudio to Lori Waters to Scott York stepping up to the plate here).  If memory serves, Paul Jost (or the Club for Growth) and Dick Black were also plaintiffs in some form.

Then there were the bloggers; I doubt any one of us convinced a soul among the esteemed justices, but we did our part to keep the issue alive long after the powers that be insisted it was “over.”  I especially want to thank Jim Bowden, who not only brought me up to speed on this issue with his numerous posts and emails, but also (though probably not intentionally) delayed his response for a few hours and allowed me to grab the mantle as the first blogger to attack HB3202 from the right.

Remember this day: February 29, 2008.  This was the day Virginians were reminded that accountability and the republican form of government is not dead after all.

UPDATE: Pat McSweeney, who represented Marshall et al in the lawsuit, put it best (Washington Times): “People who are not elected don’t get to tax you anymore.”