Republicans in the House of Delegates don't want the public to know how they vote.

 

Roanoke Times Editorial

Imagine you're a delegate in the Virginia House. The Senate passes a bill the public seems to like but you absolutely loathe. Maybe senators think the state should ban smoking in bars and restaurants, for example.

Now you're in a bind. If you vote against the bill, your next opponent might make it a campaign issue. But you can't vote for it and risk offending the restaurant lobby or your smoking supporters. What's a delegate to do?

If you're a Republican, you ship the bill off to an obscure subcommittee, where you and two or three of your allies can kill it during a predawn meeting in a cramped, out-of-the-way chamber. Best of all, you won't even have to record the vote. No one will be able to hold it against you.

That's what passes for accountable government in Richmond these days.

House Republicans stopped keeping track of subcommittee votes a couple of years ago. As a result, nearly 500 bills died in subcommittees in 2006 and more than 800 died last year without any concrete evidence of who the killers were.

When the General Assembly session opens on Wednesday, Democrats will again urge their Republican colleagues to abandon this shameful secrecy.

In past years, Republicans have responded that they must eliminate bills in subcommittees because there are too many of them to handle in committees and on the House floor.

Even if that is true -- and there is good reason to think it is not -- nothing prevents Republicans from jotting down who voted which way. It boggles the mind that they think Virginians so gullible.

Representative democracy only works if voters can hold elected officials accountable on Election Day. All of an incumbent's pretty words pale next to his actions in office. Without recorded votes Virginians have little beyond rhetoric on which to base their decisions.

That might be what Republican delegates prefer, but Virginians should demand better. When lawmakers can conduct the public's business out of the public's eye, government is broken