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.

Let’s give Philip Shucet the credit he’s due.

When the state highway chief saw Prince William County’s Republican voters fail to renominate their longtime delegate in June’s primary, he saw an opportunity to tap that dismissed talent. And in no time, it was announced that Jack Rollison would be joining the Virginia Department of Transportation.

“If people want to throw away a good man,” Shucet’s known to have said about Rollison, “I’ll take him.” A good man, indeed.

Rollison, you see, served in the House of Delegates for 17 years when this summer he was challenged in a Republican primary. To the surprise of many and the shock of many more, Rollison lost to an upstart challenger, Jeff Frederick, who’d gone after the incumbent for his high-profile support of last year’s failed referendum in Northern Virginia on increasing the state sales tax to better fund that region’s road- and bridge-building needs as well as its mass transit system. Rollison, a committed Republican, not to mention a class act, immediately endorsed Frederick, who’s now the district’s GOP nominee for November’s general election.

A month or so after Rollison’s defeat, he announced that he would resign his House seat in mid-September -- 3 ½ months before his term would’ve naturally expired -- and join VDOT as Shucet’s point man on urban transportation issues. Rollison, who at the time of his defeat was chairman of the House transportation committee, moved into his new office two weeks ago, which is just a few doors from Shucet’s, and he’s now busily working on an initiative empowering the cities of Newport News, Hampton, Virginia Beach, and Richmond to handle their own road construction programs.

Those who’ve played the Richmond political game with Rollison -- or merely observed him from the sidelines -- know that when it comes to transportation policy, few can match him. Whether the question is about the primary or secondary road system, the latest study on bridge conditions, the urban allocation funding stream, the intricacies of our rail system, the status or details of the latest federal transportation reauthorization bill, the teetering balance between VDOT’s maintenance and construction budgets, or even how much was spent last winter on snow removal, Rollison knows the answer.

And when he gives you the answer -- even if it’s asked antagonistically in the heat of a House debate over who might be stealing whose road money -- it’s always in his trademark low-key, steady tone of voice, usually followed by a half smile.

It was Rollison’s expertise on Northern Virginia’s transportation needs that led him to push the referendum for a half-penny sales tax increase, producing billions of additional dollars to be used solely for new roads and expanded bus and commuter rail programs. Its passage would be a huge step toward unclogging the infamously clogged roads between Occoquan and the Pentagon and points west of both.

But when Northern Virginians went to vote, 55 percent of them gave the tax increase a thumbs down. The referendum’s defeat at the hands of well-organized anti-taxers eventually led to Rollison’s own.

The exceedingly collegial Rollison will be missed from the House by folks on both sides of the aisle. But there is a good deal of comfort to be had from his hovering near the top of the state’s embattled transportation department, where for several years staffing, organizational, and money problems have hindered the planning, financing, and construction efforts to improve Virginia’s 70,000 miles of interstates, highways, and county and city roads as well as our more than 12,000 bridges.

When Gov. Mark Warner and Secretary of Transportation Whitt Clement, both Democrats, recruited Shucet from the private sector and asked him to take VDOT’s helm, Shucet moved quickly to reorganize the agency’s leadership. And while Clement himself is a former delegate, highly regarded by all, what remained missing from VDOT’s leadership team was someone whose face was known well by all 140 House and Senate members, the great majority of whom are Republicans. That void is now filled.

While Rollison’s VDOT duties center on urban congestion relief, federal funding, and community outreach, Shucet will certainly tap him to help communicate the department’s needs, which are many, to say the least , to the legislature.

And when Rollison returns to the Capitol in January -- working diligently in his new role to argue as passionately as he ever did for a better transportation system -- there is little doubt that he’ll be welcomed home by all.

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