Trying to separate a politician from a revenue-enhancing fee is like trying to get a chew toy away from a stubborn Boston terrier puppy.
It's hard to do and you might get bit.
Case in point: the $1 fee added to the cost of registering a vehicle in Virginia in 2003 to pay for Jamestown 2007, the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America.
The fee raised about $6 million a year since its inception with about $4 million going to the Jamestown events; the rest was divided between the Department of Motor Vehicles for driver's license security and the Virginia Land Conservation Fund. According the legislation the Assembly OK'd and then-Gov. Mark Warner signed, the fee was set to expire June 30, 2008.
Well, maybe.
Speaking on a Richmond radio station the other week, incoming Senate Minority Leader Thomas K. Norment, R-James City County, said he thought the fee ought to be extended indefinitely.
The State Senate's top Republican wants to direct the money stream to the Virginia Tourism Corp.
Over in the House of Delegates, the home of many a tax-hating Republican legislator, it's even more ironic. Speaker of the House William Howell, R-Stafford County, has his eye on the pile of cash as a funding source for a hoped-for Civil War commemoration project.
Not to be outdone, Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has gotten into the act, announcing just this Wednesday that he'd like to get hold of the money for tourism initiatives across the state and to funnel into programs in the DMV.
Talk about being dishonest, disingenuous and any other pejorative you can think of.
The General Assembly enacted the license-plate fee for a specific purpose - the Jamestown 2007 celebrations - with an expiration date of June 30, 2008, set in stone. That was what they told Virginia citizens almost five years ago, and now they're trying to take it all back.
It's no wonder the public holds politicians in such low regard.
The folks in Richmond should let this fee expire June 30. It's not that we're tight; it's just the principle of the matter.
If Sen. Norment, Speaker Howell or Gov. Kaine want to introduce legislation to enact new fees to pay for tourism initiatives, a Civil War commemoration or the DMV, they're more than free to do so.
To take the path of a dishonest coward and simply quietly extend the life of the Jamestown fee is not the way to go.
Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a Republican likely to run for governor in 2009, has asked the Legislature to do just that: let the Jamestown fee die the death it was intended to.
That's good advice that the 140 members of the General Assembly and the governor ought to heed.
**Clarification appended Dec. 17, 2007**
In the Dec. 14 editorial, "The sun needs to set on the Jamestown fee," information about the stance of House Speaker William Howell, R-Stafford, was out-of-date. On Dec. 10, the speaker announced he was opposed to the continuation of the $1 annual fee, imposed in 2002 to pay for Jamestown 2007 activities.