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For the first time, female senator named to budget conference panel

January 18, 2008 12:43 am

By Chelyen Davis

RICHMOND--General Assembly leaders took the unusual step yesterday of appointing budget negotiators a month before House and Senate budget writers unveil their budget proposals.

The appointments are also unusual in that two women were named negotiators--a first in the male-dominated legislature. The House had a female budget negotiator in the 1980s, former Del. Dorothy McDiarmid, who was chairwoman of the House Appropriations committee at the time, but the Senate has never appointed a woman to the budget conference before.

Sen. Chuck Colgan, D-Manassas, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, said House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, first suggested to him that the two houses appoint their budget conferees early, as a way to get a head start on budget talks in a tight spending year.

Typically, the House and Senate wait until near the end of session to pass their respective budgets, which are always different from each other, and name their negotiators. Until then, they work on their budget proposals separately and privately.

The negotiators then spend their evenings in the last week or two of session huddled on two different floors near the top of the General Assembly building.

There, they alternately work together to reconcile differences in their budgets, or, when they've stalled over something they can't compromise on, send stiffly worded letters to each other from their own office sanctums.

Three out of the past seven years, budget negotiations have broken down over serious differences in fiscal philosophy, leading to months of extended sessions and increasing bitterness between the negotiators.

In a news release yesterday, Howell said given the revenue shortfall in the current budget and the "fiscal uncertainty" in the upcoming budget, "designating House budget conferees early makes good sense."

Colgan said he readily agreed with Howell's suggestion to start talks early.

"We make the people's most important decisions at 2 o'clock in the morning," Colgan said. "We're exhausted, we're aggravated."

Colgan appointed Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, to the budget conference. Houck has been a negotiator for the past couple of sessions.

But he isn't sure how early budget talks will work, given that lawmakers don't have final revenue numbers.

"We haven't done this before, so I don't have a whole lot to judge it by," Houck said.

Houck and Colgan have both been budget negotiators before. Colgan reappointed two Republican senators who have been budget negotiators for years, Sen. William Wampler of Bristol and Sen. Walter Stosch of Henrico.

He also appointed Sen. Janet Howell, D-Alexandria, the Senate's first female budget negotiator.

"She's very pleased and proud of that," Colgan said. "She's the Susan B. Anthony of 2008."

Howell said she's flattered by the appointment.

"I'm very aware that it's a historic first, and I'm going to do everything I can to represent the whole commonwealth in the budget negotiations," Howell said.

The House negotiating team has several returning faces as well: Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, a longtime budget conferee who is also now the House Appropriations Committee chairman, Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News, Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, and Del. Johnny Joannou, D-Portsmouth. They'll be joined by Del. Beverly Sherwood, R-Winchester (the female delegate), and Del. Clarke Hogan, R-South Boston, both new to the budget conference.