Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Editorial: Return Putney in the 19th
Del. Putney's grasp of the state budget and function puts him far ahead of his challengers.
From the RoundTable blog
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After 47 years in the House of Delegates, independent Lacey Putney is an elite power broker capable of forging important and complex financial agreements.
His skills will be in demand in the General Assembly as Virginia navigates through the remainder of the recession.
At 81, Putney says he's up to the task ahead, and there is no cause to doubt him.
He is chair of the House Appropriations Committee, with a seat on the budget conference committee, and on the House Privileges and Elections Committee, which will oversee redistricting, an area that will be important after the upcoming census.
While he caucuses with the Republicans, his independent status permits him to break ranks occasionally.
He uses his elder statesman status to both the commonwealth's and region's advantage. During his last term, he pulled together a higher education bond package that will invest $1.46 billion in state universities and community colleges, with $59 million to construct the new medical school in Roanoke.
His challengers' shallow knowledge of state government puts them in a league quite separate from Putney. Lewis Medlin challenged Putney in 2007. He has not spent the intervening two years mastering the complexities of budgets and legislation.
Medlin's answer to the substantial drop in state revenue and the shortage in transportation funds is to call for an audit. He seems to think auditors can magically swoop in and tell lawmakers what to do. He fails to grasp that is a duty of the job he seeks.
The other candidate, Will Smith, is yin to Medlin's yang. As chairman of the Botetourt County Constitution Party, Smith would turn back federal funding to free Virginia from the national government, and force the Virginia Department of Transportation to contract most work, though he could not explain how this would save money.
Voters in the 19th District, which includes the city of Bedford and parts of Bedford and Botetourt counties, could do no better than to return Putney to office.
