roanoke.com Real Politics / Preston Bryant

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

One thing that makes it tough for a part-time, citizen legislature to keep things checked and balanced with a full-time executive branch is the fact that legislators are, well, part-time.

Legislators are in Richmond full-time for only about two months each year, while the governor and his vast executive branch are year-round fixtures. While the General Assembly does control the purse strings — powers significant, to be sure — the 140-person legislature still stands at a disadvantage in the face of the governor’s 100,000-person workforce.

However, there are many in the House of Delegates and Senate who, despite their part-time status, work long and hard to help shape policies that, in turn, will help shape Virginia’s future. In fact, when former Del. Vance Wilkins addressed his House colleagues immediately upon being sworn in as Speaker in 2000, he challenged them to do more of that kind of policy planning. He challenged them to think long-term and envision what Virginia could and should be and how that vision could be implemented and then measured for results.

Wilkins clearly wanted his band of merry part-timers to have at least a much influence on coloring Virginia’s future as the full-time executive branch. One legislator who has taken the Wilkins challenge quite seriously is Del. Michele McQuigg. Hailing from Prince William County, McQuigg spent six years there as a county supervisor. She’s a plotter and planner herself who likes to see government, whether local or state, run smoothly, with a mission, and with accountability.

McQuigg is a Republican whose belief in government efficiency is widely known. Even Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, acknowledged McQuigg’s acumen when he appointed her to his 2002 Commission on Efficiency and Effectiveness, a panel charged with rooting out wasteful government spending, streamlining state agencies’ operations, and making better use of technology for procurement and service delivery.

It’s obvious, though, that McQuigg has been thinking far beyond the charge of Warner’s commission. Also in 2002, she authored the Government Performance and Results Act, legislation that would have required every executive branch agency to adopt a strategic plan and submit it to the General Assembly. In turn, legislative powers would be able to offer informed suggestions to the governor as well as take into account the agencies’ plans as delegates and senators set out each year to write or revise the budget.

McQuigg’s plan would have been more than mere checks and balances — it would’ve been something of a partnership between the executive and legislative branches. Unfortunately, though, despite McQuigg’s bill having passed the House, it languished in the Senate Finance Committee.

Undeterred, however, McQuigg showed up in 2003 with another good piece of legislation, one establishing the “Roadmap for Virginia’s Future.”

The Roadmap, as it really is called, is all about the state planning its work and working its plan — and then having that planned work appropriately measured. The General Assembly would work with the executive branch — in fact, the council McQuigg’s legislation creates to oversee the Roadmap is chaired by the governor — to develop jointly a long-term vision for the Commonwealth that is properly reflective of public sentiment. Core state services would be analyzed and defined by established objectives, and strategies would be set to carry out those service objectives. And as is signature with most any McQuigg initiative, performance measures would be set for every core service program and an account would be taken of every dollar spent.

The House and Senate passed McQuigg’s Roadmap bill, and Warner signed it into law. The Council on Virginia’s Future is starting its work now to establish its Roadmap, and beginning in November 2004, a scorecard will be published so that all Virginians will see just how well the state is planning its work and working its plan.

Oh, and what else did McQuigg’s Roadmap legislation do? Well, it established that thing called the Government Performance and Results Act — the very same strategic-planning initiative that withered in the Senate the year before.

Yes, it is indeed difficult for part-time legislators to keep checked and balanced the work of the full-time executive branch. And ergo it’s equally difficult for governing partnerships to be formed between the General Assembly and governor.

But McQuigg’s Council for Virginia’s Future — and the Roadmap it prepares — will go a long way toward bringing about a state government that’s increasingly well-planned, effective and efficient, and it likewise will do good things toward creating a partnership between the two governing branches. Let any elected or appointed official know what you think and how you feel by clicking here.

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