Virginia's Tertium Quids: Preventing “Irresponsible Government” in the Commonwealth

By Brian Gottstein

“It took 386 years for Virginia to reach a $30 billion biennial budget. It only took the last 10 years to add another $30 billion. Tertium Quids’ Freedom & Prosperity Agenda gives citizens and their legislators a game plan to restore the balance between the people and their government.”
– John Taylor, president of Tertium Quids

In 2004, a concocted “fiscal crisis” led the Virginia General Assembly to pass the largest and most unnecessary tax increase in Virginia history.

Just two years later, with a budget surplus of more than one billion dollars as a result of the 2004 tax increase and with more than two billion dollars identified as wasteful spending that could be eliminated but won’t be, the Virginia legislature is again considering tax increases of a billion or more dollars a year. The reason? Another so-called “crisis” – just in a different part of the government this time.

Politicians and lobbyists who want more money and power for government have learned to invoke the word “crisis” when they want us to break out our wallets. The media megaphone then blares “crisis” with all the related dubious arguments to all corners of the commonwealth.

If Governor Kaine gets the budget he wants this year, spending will increase 16 percent over the last budget, while the last budget already increased state spending by 19 percent over the previous one.

The taxpayers who have to foot the bill for ever-growing government ask, “Will the tax and spend cycle ever end in Virginia? Will the level of spending ever be enough for the politicians and lobbyists who feed off the largesse from Richmond? Will we always have a new ‘crisis’ that can only be solved through new taxes each budget cycle?” (Alas, the Medicaid funding “crisis” is already being discussed as the mantra for raising taxes yet again in 2008.)

Peter Ferrara, president of the Virginia Free Enterprise Fund, said in a recent commentary that, “Virginia has the most out-of-control state budget growth in the country. Tax and budget growth trends in Virginia are now well to the left of California and Vermont, not to mention formerly liberal Maryland and whacked out D.C.”

A solution

In the midst of this spending spiral, Tertium Quids and the Virginia Institute for Public Policy are two organizations that are working to craft policies for more responsible government.

Tertium Quids is a nonpartisan issue advocacy organization, standing for more fiscally conservative and less intrusive state government in Virginia. Tertium Quids (Latin for the “third way,” meaning independent of the political parties) has promoted legislation this session to lower taxes, protect private property rights, and improve public education in Virginia.

Using policy research from its sister organization, the Virginia Institute for Public Policy (an independent, nonpartisan think tank), the minds at Tertium Quids created the first Freedom & Prosperity Agenda – an 11-plank agenda for the 2006 General Assembly session. Those planks were then turned into corresponding legislation that is being promoted to the electorate and the General Assembly through grassroots education and mobilization, as well as direct contact with legislators.

The planks include constitutional amendments to limit increases in state spending to the rate of population growth plus inflation, to rein in skyrocketing real estate taxes by basing them on the acquisition value of property, and to use Transportation Trust Fund money only for transportation spending. Unfortunately, the General Assembly decided this year not to consider any newly proposed constitutional amendments, so these bills will have to be introduced again in the 2007 session.

The planks also propose fully eliminating the car tax, eliminating Virginia’s death tax, as well as eliminating a tax that was originally put in place to raise revenue to fight the War of 1812, the Business Professional and Occupational Licensing tax (BPOL tax). One plank would also require expiration dates for all new taxes and all tax increases.

The Agenda also promotes reform measures to strictly limit the public uses for which private property may be confiscated from private citizens through eminent domain; and to allow parents, rather than the government, to choose the schools their children attend through the use of education tax credits.

(More information on each of the planks can be found at http://tertiumquids.org/agenda.html)

Other than the tax debate for transportation spending, one of the biggest debates this year is eminent domain reform. It is also one of the most critical planks of the Agenda.

Much of the moral outrage that existed when the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision came down this summer seems to have dissipated. Legislators in both chambers are debating what most citizens would consider non-debatable: Should citizens be protected from local governments and state agencies that want to confiscate their private property for economic development purposes?

The debate has led to a strong eminent domain reform bill in the General Assembly as well as two weaker ones that leave enough wiggle room for developers and local governments to continue to abuse landowners.

The excuse from many politicians who favor the weaker reforms is that Virginia has never really abused its eminent domain powers. Either they are misleading the public or they are ignorant of the facts (either one is inexcusable in a situation dealing with such a fundamental right). There are many example of governments’ heavy-handed abuse in Roanoke, Norfolk, Northern Virginia, and elsewhere; and legal experts who have argued property rights cases across the nation agree that Virginia is one of the five worst states in the country for protecting landowners.

Key legislators on both sides of the debate held a meeting one evening in early March to try to craft a solution – with Attorney General Bob McDonnell as the mediator. Those in support of stronger reform left the meeting refusing to compromise on watered-down legislation. That could mean that no bill is passed in this session.

The support of a strong coalition

Tertium Quids and its Freedom & Prosperity Agenda are supported by a coalition of more than 200 conservative and libertarian citizens groups, research institutes, and public advocacy organizations, as well as approximately 40 members of the General Assembly from both parties. These organizations in turn represent thousands of activists throughout Virginia, and these activists form the grassroots that gave the Agenda life.

“Each Agenda bill that passes will be a victory for the people of Virginia, as each bill is stemming the tide of ever-growing state government,” said John Taylor, president of Tertium Quids. “For those bills that don’t make it through this session of the General Assembly, we’ll be back next year. We’ll also have legislators on record voting against them or tabling them, and that means we’ll have some very angry voters in Virginia wondering why their legislators didn’t do more to cut wasteful spending, allow school choice, give hard-working taxpayers some of their money back, and protect private property rights.

“It is going to become clear to the voters which legislators served the special interests and which served the citizens. We trust they’ll use that information wisely when they go to the polls in 2007.”

Brian Gottstein is the Lead Consultant of Positive Impact Consulting, a Virginia-based political consulting, public relations, and marketing firm.