Virginia’s House Republicans voted Wednesday to continue the spineless practice of killing bills in subcommittees without recorded votes.

The unaccountable status quo was opposed by all 44 House Democrats and a lone Republican, Delegate Bob Marshall, a conservative firebrand from Prince William County. We applaud Marshall for supporting open government rather than blindly following his party leadership.

As justification for their cowardice, the other 52 Republicans offered the flimsiest of excuses: legislative efficiency.

Come on. Taking a quick roll call vote in a subcommittee meeting and scribbling the results on a notepad isn’t a burdensome task. The argument that it will gum up the legislature’s works is simply preposterous.

Here’s a more plausible explanation. House Republicans don’t want to be accountable for their actions. They don’t want the voters to know what they’re doing.

Under the secretive status quo, House Republicans can assign legislation that they don’t like to an obscure subcommittee. Then, they can get their colleagues to kill it without leaving their fingerprints on it.

Don’t want a public smoking ban? Send it to the subcommittee. Don’t want to vote on a death penalty moratorium? Off to the subcommittee, never to be seen again.

The beauty of this system is that the controversial bill simply disappears. There is no official record of anything. There is nothing for voters to hold against legislators or for challengers to use in a campaign ad.

There are other problems, beyond the lack of record keeping, with the subcommittee system as it exists in the House. Subcommittee meetings take place at inconvenient hours and in cramped meeting rooms. In small subcommittees, as few as two lawmakers can kill a bill. Meetings aren’t always announced ahead of time.

The system is designed to make it as hard as possible for the press and the public to keep up. It is a mockery of the principles of open government.

We had hoped that House Republicans would do the right thing this year, particularly given the unlikely coalition that had blossomed in support of the rule change. Editorial pages across the state had called for recorded votes. So did the League of Women Voters, AARP and, improbably, the staunch economic conservatives at the Virginia Club for Growth.

During the most recent election, some Republican lawmakers, including Delegate Terry Kilgore, had even pledged to bring sunlight to the subcommittee system. Kilgore went on record in favor of recorded votes in a questionnaire for Virginia FREE, a non-partisan, pro-business organization. Perhaps Kilgore believes it’s OK to say one thing at election time and then do another. Some might call that sort of behavior dishonest, even deceitful.

Kilgore has some explaining to do. He should tell the voters in Southwest Virginia why he prefers to do their business in secret rather than out in the open. If Delegate Marshall can muster the courage to vote against secrecy, Kilgore can too.

The recorded-votes measure wasn’t the only open government concept nixed by House Republicans this week. They also voted against allowing live broadcasts of the House session, either on television or over the Internet. Kilgore made the case against the broadcasts – contending that his colleagues couldn’t be trusted to behave if their speeches were broadcast in real time.

Apparently, playing to the camera is not a problem in the Senate, where proceedings are broadcast on the General Assembly Web site as they occur. This enables state residents who cannot travel to Richmond to watch their lawmakers work. It’s a wonderful use of technology to open up government.

House Republicans, by their votes, said they don’t want open government. They don’t want accountability. Their constituents should ask them what are they trying to hide.

Source: http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/opinions.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2008-01-11-0001.html