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The Virginia League of Conservation Voters rated 140 General Assembly members’ votes on conservation-related issues this year, giving a perfect score to Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg.
Thirty-nine other members of the House of Delegates, all but two of them Democrats, also received 100 percent ratings from the league on bills it selected.
Del. Watkins Abbitt, I-Appomattox, was the next highest-rated legislator from the Lynchburg area, with a 63 percent score.
Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, scored near the bottom of the league’s scale with a 25 percent rating.
Legislative bills on the league’s scorecard rated delegates and state senators for their votes on such issues as land-use reforms, energy-related issues and performance standards for the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Senators’ votes on a bill to study the safety of uranium mining also figured into the league’s scorecard. The measure died in a House committee.
Legislation that would have established bipartisan redistricting also was on the scorecard. This measure also failed in a House committee.
The league said lawmakers would become more responsive to conservation issues if their legislative districts were redrawn every 10 years by an administrative committee. Currently, the boundaries are decided by whichever party holds the majority in the General Assembly.
Other bills chosen by the league, which also hands out political endorsements during election campaigns, included:
A measure to eliminate proffers, the system local governments use to negotiate with developers to pay for roads and other infrastructure (carried over to 2009);
Regulation of natural gas rates to encourage energy conservation (approved).
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We have seen sagging house prices and rising gas prices each take their own toll on the economy. But what happens when they start interacting into a spiral? Gas prices will eventually reach a point where these new “McMansions” in sprawled developments will lose much of their value, since such development requires so much driving, which people will not want to pay for. So many Americans have so much of their net worth tied up in such houses that this will be an economic disaster of mammoth proportions. Therefore, the League of Conservation Voters is doing the economy of Virginia a favor by pushing smart growth over sprawl.
So she did a good job on some checklist ... whoopee. We elect people to legislate and in that Valentine has a very weak record in Richmond, much weaker than the rest of the other local legislators. She has not left anything to be remembered by in her time in Richmond. How about an article on actual legislative achievements? Not for voting along with this herd or the other.
If you score 100 on this it means you have no conception of what housing means to the economy. I’ve never met Del. Ben Cline, but he’s getting a $250 PAC check from me. The League of Conservation Voters isn’t about conservation. It’s about no-growth. They’re a group that doesn’t care how high taxes might go. Support them and you support hurting Virginians.
..now that regulation of NATURAL GAS,,is a joke,,its more like give our money to ceo,s ,share holders,,and supporting a monopoly,,why??,,next to COAL ,we have the largest gas deposits in the world,,and the cost of COAL went up!!power of the lobbist of/for the rich and campain $$ for the polo..
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