'Repeal amendment' tops tea party goals

For the second year in a row, the tea party has found a voice in the state legislature and is using it to send a message to Washington: Leave us alone.

Whether it will get there is another question. The Democrat-controlled Senate will decide the fate of the legislation.

Shedding federal constraints is at the forefront of a wide-ranging package of bills introduced on behalf of and supported by the state's various tea-party groups.

The highest-profile effort is the so-called repeal amendment, backed by House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford.

House Joint Resolution 542, sponsored by Del. James M. LeMunyon, R-Fairfax, easily advanced through the Republican-controlled House of Delegates last week. It supports a constitutional amendment under which two-thirds of the states could collectively repeal a federal law or regulation.

"That's our main initiative for this year," said Angie Parker, head of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation's legislative committee. "It's not, to me, a partisan issue. With our national debt the way it is, there really needs to be some sort of check on the expansion of the federal government and specifically the budget."

Other bills backed by the tea party, which have also cleared the House, would exempt Virginia-made products from federal oversight and exempt certain homes from provisions of federal "cap-and-trade" legislation that has stalled in Congress.

The House on Monday approved House Joint Resolution 577 urging Congress to limit the Federal Communications Commission's authority over regulation of the Internet, and House Joint Resolution 578 to encourage Congress to refrain from expanding the Federal Trade Commission's rulemaking authority.

It also passed a measure to honor state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Del. Christopher K. Peace, R-Hanover, called House Joint Resolution 46 "a modest effort to communicate the House's desire to see a return of a proper balance between federal and state government."

The success of the tea party's legislative agenda in the House is not surprising considering the backdrop. In a legislative election year and political climate in which the tea party enjoys some sway, Republicans are eager to please the movement's supporters.

"In American politics, it's not just mere numbers, it's intensity that counts, and these people are surely intense," said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. "Clearly, legislators are listening, especially Republicans, of course."

In a floor speech on Monday, Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, scolded colleagues for spending time on what he called "silly, symbolical states' rights" issues.

He said some bills that have come through the chamber may not even be constitutional.

"Not only are these bills symbolic, but they are of zero legal, statutory and constitutional efficacy," Morrissey said. "We took an oath to protect the Constitution. We didn't take an oath to promote ourselves and get elected in a primary. ... We're preening, we're posturing, we're placating and we're pandering to our base."

Legislation similar to the bills that have cleared the House has been killed in the Senate. In many cases, the House bills likely await the same fate at crossover, the point at which each chamber concludes work on its bills and sends them to the other body.

There was uproar among Senate Republicans last week after Democrats controlling the Privileges and Elections Committee refused to hear the repeal amendment and other tea party-supported bills that had already been shot down in subcommittee.

While legislation is routinely killed in subcommittee in the House of Delegates, bills in the Senate are typically decided by full committees.

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Last year, the tea party's influence at the General Assembly was evidenced chiefly by passage of the Health Care Freedom Act.

That law, which established that Virginians cannot be compelled to purchase health insurance, set the stage for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's challenge to the federal health-care-reform law.

The challenge cleared a major hurdle in December when U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson found a portion of the federal health-care law unconstitutional. On Monday, a federal judge in Florida went a step further, declaring the entire health-care law unconstitutional.

This year, legislation introduced by Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, would set up a similar situation as a pre-emption if Congress were to pass cap-and-trade, meant to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

That's a big if — the U.S. House of Representatives passed the measure in 2009 but the Senate never took a vote on it.

Still, Marshall's bill would exempt residential buildings or manufactured homes in Virginia from being subject to the federal legislation if the buildings comply with the Statewide Uniform Building Code.

A section of Marshall's bill explicitly says that "the attorney general may initiate legal action against the federal government if there is any federal law, regulation, or policy that seeks to apply federal legislation relating to residential energy efficiency standards to Virginia."

House Bill 1397 sailed out of the House 68-30 last week with support from Democrats, some in districts unfriendly to the cap-and-trade provisions.

House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry, was among the Democrats who voted in favor of the measure, despite its potential to tee up another lawsuit against the federal government.

"I'm not real thrilled with all the lawsuits," he said, "but I'm also real concerned about the effects of cap-and-trade on Southwest Virginia."

And while much of the movement's pet legislation might fall short, it will have an impact come November.

"What I see them doing more than anything is setting up issues for the election this year and providing a lot of support and energy for who they consider to be the good Republicans and possibly posing some intra-party challenges," Rozell said.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said he hasn't noticed a marked difference in the tea party's lobbying effort this year but that it could be they see him as a "kindred spirit" philosophically.

He stood on the House floor last week and said House Bill 1438, the measure to shield Virginia products from federal oversight, sponsored by Del. Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, is about "Virginians deciding that our federal government has become too big and too powerful and we're just not going to take it anymore."

Push-back efforts predated the tea party, he said, but "certainly their presence gives us, we think, an additional strong voice in trying to advance some principles that have been important to us for a long time."

And Rozell said the tea party is not a force to be taken lightly.

"This is where a lot of the energy in the conservative movement is in Virginia right now," he said, pointing to the success of the Richmond Tea Party Patriots Convention last October, which drew nearly 3,000 attendees.

Jamie Radtke, former president of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, helped organize that event and recently announced her run for the U.S. Senate in an effort to personally deliver the tea party's message to Washington.

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