The Virginia Supreme Court Stomps Albo

Talk about a bad two months for Delegate Dave Albo. First, his concealed box cutter law gets killed in committee along with his bill to regulate fireplace smoke, and his push to make it a felony to use an emergency exit after shoplifting (CLICK HERE).

Then, today the Supreme Court of Virginia called his transportation brainchild from last year, HB 3202, an unconstitutional gimmick.

If payment of the regional taxes and fees is to be required by a general law, it is the prerogative and the function of the General Assembly, as provided by Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, to make that decision, in a manner which complies with the requirements of Article IV, Section 11 of the Constitution. Accordingly, we hold that the provisions of Chapter 896 permitting NVTA to impose the regional taxes and fees are invalid because they violate the Constitution. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. City of Newport News, 158 Va. 521, 545-46, 164 S.E. 689, 696 (1932). Therefore, such taxes and fees that NVTA has already imposed are null and void. Marshall v. NVTA, Page 22 (Feb. 29, 2008).

In other words - if Delegate Dave Albo wants to impose a tax don't delegate it to some unelected unaccountable body:

HAVE THE COURAGE TO VOTE ON IT YOURSELF

This also comes on the heels of the massive implosion of Delegate Dave Albo's coveted "Abuser Fees."

Remember what Delegate Dave Albo said about this "marvel"?

Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who helped craft the funding bill, said the plan should resolve concerns of transportation funding for the next 30 years and "could be a permanent fix.""Within a year, people will start seeing improvements to secondary roads, and soon after that, we will probably be turning dirt on some big projects," Albo said. Va. Transportation Bill on Verge of Approval, Washington Post, 4/4/07, B01.

So what do we now have after untold thousands of hours invested in this scheme, hours in courts, hours of negotiations - all to avoid a vote on raising the gas tax for some gimmick that was unconstitutional? Nothing - not a single interchange, lane built, or even a new stoplight for Fairfax County.

So what's your next scheme Delegate Dave Albo?

Also, see the following:

AMG, Delegate Marshall Calls a Spade a Spade
AMG, The Daily Press Sets Albo Straight

AMG, Albo & a Transportation "Stepchild"

AMG, The Albo & Oblon PLLC Abuser Fees Plan Part II
AMG, Albo Hammers Renters Again

AMG, Albo Brings SW Virginia It's Fair Share
AMG, Albo Kicks and Misses Wide Right

It's Miller Time - Leveraging Booze & Smokes for $$$?

Some people might wonder what motivates Del. Dave Albo to recently state that prohibiting smoking from restaurants "is a good idea," but that we can only do it AFTER we change some other laws first?

Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax, said he would be willing to consider tighter smoking regulations if the state ever establishes separate categories for bars and restaurants. The current law only defines restaurants, some of which are licensed to sell alcohol. House Panel Rejects Last Batch of Anti-Smoking Bills, The Daily Press (Feb. 14, 2008).

Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax County, who made the motion to table and effectively kill the bills, said he's "not against doing something" but thinks the legislature needs to rework its laws regarding the definition of a restaurant first. Smoking Bills Die in House Panel, Roanoke Times (Feb. 15, 2008).

Del. David Albo, R-Springfield, said state rules don't distinguish between bars and restaurants, which makes passing a smoking ban more difficult. Final Four Bills to Halt Puffing Are Extinguished, The Virginian-Pilot (Feb. 15, 2008).

Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax County, pointed to a possible compromise solution, though it won't come this year. He suggested that bars and restaurants should be separated within state code, with different standards for smoking to apply to each. 8 Bills that Ban Public Smoking Die in the House, Roanoke Times (Feb. 8, 2008).

It's strange. Some of us at Albo Must Go have been to smoke free bars in other states. It's actually nice to come home and not stink up your pillow with that with that fresh nicotene effervesence. So, what's this all about?

Due to Virginia's prohibitionist roots, alcohol is highly regulated and restaurants are required to sell a minimum amount of food relative to alcohol - 45%. Here's the law (see section 1). Here's an example.

Restaurant Albo - 45% Food-Booze Ratio
(Current Law)

Gross Revenue From Food Sales	$50,000.00
Gross Revenue From Non-Alcoholic Beverages	$50,000.00
Total Food & Non-Alcohol Bev. Revenue	$100,000.00
Statutory Food-Alcohol Ratio	45.00%
Gross Revenue Permitted for Alcohol & Food	$222,222.22
Minus Gross Food Revenue	$50,000.00
Permitted Alcohol Sales	$172,222.22

For decades, the Virginia restaurant industry has been lobbying for legislation to legally segregate bars and restaurants and/or to reduce the ratio of food to alcohol that must be sold. For example, here's a 1995 bill trying to lower to ratio to 35%.

So what happens at Restaurant Albo if you lower the ratio?

Restaurant Albo - 35% Food-Booze Ratio

Gross Revenue From Food Sales	$50,000.00
Gross Revenue From Non-Alcoholic Beverages	$50,000.00
Total Food & Non-Alcohol Bev. Revenue	$100,000.00
Food-Alcohol Ratio	35.00%
Gross Revenue Permitted for Alcohol & Food	$285,714.29
Minus Gross Food Revenue	$50,000.00
Permitted Alcohol Sales	$235,714.29

You get to sell a lot more alcohol! What happens when you eliminate the food-alcohol component altogether by creating a separate classification for bars? You really get to sell a whole lot more alcohol!

Note that Albo is hedging his tune on this. Last year, he said the following:

"Why do you need a law to protect people when people can protect themselves by not going in" restaurants that allow smoking, said Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax. Proposed Ban On Smoking in Public Places Fails, The Virginian-Pilot (Feb. 24, 2006).

Early this year, he said this:

"If the restaurant guys and ladies want to be regulated, I think something could be done," said Delegate David B. Albo, Fairfax Republican. "Until then, you have the same problems with these bills we have had for years: It is un-American to come into someone's restaurant or bar and tell them what to do with their family business." Virginia restauranters want state to butt out, Washington Times, (Dec. 28, 2007).

He must have read this blog (AMG, Albo & Big Tobacco Run With With Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy (Jan. 2, 2008)) or a lobbyist gave him an idea because now all of a sudden, he's saying this:

Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax County, who made the motion to table and effectively kill the bills, said he's "not against doing something" but thinks the legislature needs to rework its laws regarding the definition of a restaurant first. Smoking Bills Die in House Panel, Roanoke Times (Feb. 15, 2008).

His continued opposition is all very strange given that all polls show that 75% of Virginians support a ban on smoking in ALL public buildings and workplaces and given that Lorton and Springfield haven't really had much of a tobacco industry for about 200 years.

One other logical question someone must ask would be - Gee, I though Delegate Albo really hates people who drive while intoxicated - after all in 2004 he led the fight to make Virginia's penalties on DWI's some of the harshest in the nation, he led on abuser fees, and this year he introduced legislation expanding his abuser fees and then revising it to mandate a $2,250 fine for a first offense DWI and he voted for mandatory ignition interlocks even for first offenders.

In light of all of this, why would Delegate Albo want to do anything to increase alcohol consumption in bars?

Albo's Campaign Contributions From Alcohol & Tobacco Industries

Alcoholic Beverage Distributors	$120,700.00
Alcohol Manufacturers	$22,300.00
Tobacco Companies	$19,095.00
Alcohol Industry Gifts	$795.00
Tobacco Industry Gifts	$1,780.00
TOTAL	$164,670.00

Albo's Contributions From Specific Donors and His Rank

	Albo Amount Received	Albo Ranking Among Non-Statewide Candidates/Committees (In Red If In Top 5)
Va Beer Wholesalers	$24,250.00	#1
Service Distributing, Inc.	$24,250.00	#2
VA Wine Wholesalers	$20,500.00	#2
Altria (FKA Phillip Morris)	$12,845.00	#5
National Distributing Co.	$9,250.00	#1
Associated Distributors	$8,500.00	#5
Guiffre Distributing Co.	$8,250.00	#1
Diageo North America, Inc.	$4,750.00	#2
Distilled Spirits Council of US	$4,500.00	#1
Anheuser-Busch	$4,450.00	#8
Oasis Vineyard	$3,000.00	#1
Reynolds American	$3,000.00	#19
Miller Brewing Co.	$2,550.00	#1
S&M Brands	$2,250.00	#12
Coors Brewing Co.	$1,680.00	#17
Premium Distributing of Va.	$1,500.00	#4
Lorillard Tobacco Co.	$1,000.00	#3
Va Vines and Wines PAC	$870.00	#4

So, is Delegate Albo concerned for the residents of the 42nd District or has he just found a wildly popular issue to leverage different special interest groups off each other to get more campaign donat.... er ... uh... we mean to get a bill passed that's been bottled up for decades?

And what does this say about the motives behind his strong stand against drunk driving? If Delegate Albo were really so opposed to drunk driving why is he pushing all of this legislation to enhance the alcohol industry's ability to say IT'S MILLER TIME!?!?

You decide (and see our old trusty graphic here from last year (AMG, Cash, Booze & the Albo Cycle (Apr. 15, 2007)).

(CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE)

Albo + Tobacco + $$$ = A Legislative Coward

We bring you this from today's edition of our Tennessee border newspaper, The Bristol Herald Virginia Tri-Cities Courier:

Doing the Bidding of Big Tobacco

In a supreme show of political cowardice, six Virginia delegates acted unilaterally Thursday to prevent a floor vote on smoking ban legislation.

They thwarted the people’s will.

Seventy-five percent of Virginians want a restaurant smoking ban. So do Gov. Tim Kaine and 28 state senators, including Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Lebanon, and Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol.

In fact, the Senate passed four bills that imposed various restrictions on public smoking earlier this month. All passed by healthy margins and had bipartisan support.

Too bad those bills didn’t get a fair hearing in the House of Delegates. Instead, they were consigned to a subcommittee with a reputation for killing such measures. The outcome was predetermined.

As expected, the Alcoholic Beverage Control and Gaming Subcommittee dispatched all of the Senate’s bills without debate – or a recorded vote. The gang of six subcommittee members left no official trace of their nefarious act.

The subcommittee includes four Republicans, Dave Albo, John Cosgrove, Thomas Gear and Thomas Wright Jr.; independent Watkins Abbitt Jr., who caucuses with the GOP; and a local Democrat, Dan Bowling of Tazewell.

All six members took campaign contributions from Big Tobacco last year, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Gear took the most, just under $5,000; followed by Abbitt, $4,150; Albo, $3,750 and Wright, $1,750. Bowling and Cosgrove took $1,500 each.

Albo and Gear also dined on tobacco’s dime last year and Abbitt accepted a $122 box of cigars as a gift. Perhaps he plans to smoke them in a restaurant near his Appomattox home.

Shame on them all. And shame on the House GOP leadership for allowing these bills to go down without a full and fair hearing and a floor vote.

The House has 100 members; six percent of its membership should not decide an issue of such importance to state residents’ health and welfare.

The slimmest of opportunities remains to revive the legislation. The full House General Laws Committee could ignore the recommendation by the subcommittee and bring the ban bills back for a hearing. The full committee has 21 members, including nine Democrats. Surely, not all of them are obligated to the tobacco industry.

We urge the committee to revive the bill and send it to the House floor for a full and fair debate.

Six delegates – all with financial ties binding them to Big Tobacco – should not have the final say on smoking ban legislation. Do the will of the people.

Doing the Bidding of Big Tobacco, The Tri-Cities Courier (Feb. 17, 2008).

Disgusting.

We've been blogging on this for two years now. For more on Delegate Albo's "relationship" with big tobacco, see these below:

AMG, Albo: Just Don't Light Up In Your Fireplace (Feb. 15, 2008)
AMG, Albo & Big Tobacco Run With Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy (Jan. 2, 2008)
AMG, Albo - "Nobody Expects Anything In Return" (Apr. 23, 2007)
AMG, Doing the People's Bidness Albo-Style (Jan. 30, 2007)
AMG, Delegate for Sale? (Apr. 1, 2006)

The 42nd District Deserves Better

Albo: Just Don't Light Up In Your Fireplace

Delegate Dave Albo has a long history of helping out the smoking industry that we've covered here before.

AMG, Albo & Big Tobacco Run With Jim Crow & Joe McCarthy (Jan. 2, 2008)
AMG, Albo - Nobody Expects Anything in Return (Apr. 23, 2007)
AMG, Doin' the People's Bidness Albo-Style (Jan. 30, 2007)
AMG, Delegate for Sale? (Apr. 1, 2006)

He also has a long history of shilling for the alcohol industry which we've covered here:

So what does that buy you if you're a tobacco-alcohol donor-lobbyist?

12 Dead Smoking Bills

From today's Washington Post:

A House general-laws subcommittee considered four bills that the Senate had passed, including one favored by Kaine that would have prohibited smoking in restaurants and bars. The six-member subcommittee, controlled by Republicans, did not debate the bills before Delegate Dave Albo (R-Fairfax) suggested that they be set aside. Committee members agreed after chairman Thomas D. Gear (R-Hampton) had repeatedly asked why restaurants do not ban smoking. "I'm sympathetic, but I don't see something I can live with," Albo said. Last week, the same subcommittee killed eight similar proposals from House members. Thursday's action means all the anti-smoking bills introduced in the 60-day legislative session are dead. Hopes for Public Smoking Ban Are Snuffed Out, Washington Post, B05 (Feb. 15, 2008).

Who was the #2 biggest tobacco money recipient on that committee back in 2006 according to the Virginian-Pilot? See AMG, Delegate for Sale (Apr. 1, 2006). His last name starts with an "A" and ends with an "O." See Panel That Snuffed Ban Had Strong Tobacco Ties, The Virginian Pilot (Feb. 25, 2006).

So what kind of smoking legislation does Delegate Dave Albo have in mind? Well, this year he introduced this nifty bill to give local governments the authority to regulate fireplace smoke, yes, fireplace smoke.

HOUSE BILL NO. 265 Offered January 9, 2008 Prefiled January 2, 2008 A BILL to amend the Code of Virginia by adding a section numbered 15.2-922.2, relating to regulation of wood burning fireplaces. ---------- Patron-- Albo ---------- Referred to Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns ----------

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 15.2-922.2 as follows:

§ 15.2-922.2. Regulating wood burning fireplaces in certain localities.

In any locality with a population density of greater than 1,000 persons per square mile, the locality may by ordinance regulate the use of wood burning fireplaces in any portion of the locality where such use may constitute a nuisance to adjacent residences. Such ordinance shall not apply to any dwelling that does not have an adequate source of heat without burning wood.

See smoke from chimneys is a huge problem in Lorton, Virginia. Everyone's smoking up each other's yards with their out of control fireplaces.

So see, the bottom line is that Delegate Dave Albo's position is that the Government really needs to be regulate it's good citizens smoking cigarettes in their fireplaces or in their woodstoves, just not in restaurants.

Because remember what our hero says:

Living It Up At Hotel Albo?

One head, one bed, two busoms & one troth....
A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare

This just in from the "You Gotta Be Kidding Me File." It turns out Delegate Dave Albo is friendlier with the lobbyists than we ever imagined. We already pointed out to you his annual lobbyist extravaganza, aka "Albopalooza." AMG, Albopalooza! (May 4, 2006). Well on Sunday, The Richmond Times Dispatch reported in an article entitled "Living in Truly Close Quarters" that Delegate Dave Albo actually rents his Richmond apartment from a Richmond lobbyist. This is not a joke.

It doesn't stop there. The article seems to say that Delegate Dave Albo actually was not paying this lobbyist landlord rent until just recently (when the guy decided to quit his government job and become a lobbyist).

And did Delegate Dave Albo ever disclose this "free" rent from the lobbyist mentioned in the article landord as a gift (state code section on gifts here) either before or afterwards???

Nope. (click here)

Is that it? Nope. The article says Delegate Dave Albo had this lobbyist landlord to write him a letter of recommendation when he decided to adopt a child.

Does Delegate Dave Albo think that any of that creates an appearance problem?

Nope.

Why? Well the article says because this guy was a college buddy and because the landlord lobbyist college buddy doesn't lobby on bills before Albo's Committee - Delegate Dave Albo says only cable television issues and lobbying for uranium mining. Did that cause Delegate Dave Albo to abtain on all uranium votes?

Nope.

Does the guy only lobby on "uranium mining and cable television?"

Nope

Looks like he has 32 or so clients. Including the Virginia Association of Regional Jails - they don't have any business in front of the Courts of Justice Committee or the Virginia Crime Commission that Delegate Dave Albo chairs do they? (note tongue in cheek)

And you know how it is down there - Republicans don't talk to other Republicans who are not on their committees. See - there's this Chineese wall thing. They don't help each other out, scratch each other's backs, or work together on bills at all. Nope. Not at all. (note tongue in other cheek)

And you know these landlord lobbyists college buddy types don't really ever expect anything in return. That's why there's the "college buddy state employee exclusion" to the gift reporting law. All this gift stuff isn't important anyway. Remember what Delegate Dave Albo said about those pesky lobbyists gifts a couple years ago?

Del. Dave Albo (R-Fairfax) went to Wolf Trap and took in a Redskins game courtesy of Dominion, and to a NASCAR event and two dinners on Altria. "These are two of the largest corporations in Virginia," he said, adding that it's to be expected that firms with large interests "would be more involved." "Nobody expects anything in return. It's a chance to talk. That's what we do," he said.
"Lobbies Treated Va. Lawmakers to $211,000 in Gifts, Food, Trips," Washington Post, B05 (Feb. 4, 2005).

See these lobbyist guys just want to talk about the weather, the meaning of life, smoking in restaura. . . er, I mean the cosmos. Client matters don't really come up much. Lobbyists just to smoke stogies and drink lots of beer in close proximity to legislators - apparently even rent them rooms. . . .