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Jeff E. Schapiro reports:

The Virginia League of Conservation voters is rolling out its General Assembly report card.

It can be found at http://www.vaclv.org.

The House just voted 39-59 against Sen. Saslaw’s amended gas tax increase bill.

Jim Nolan reports that with little to legislate while House lawmakers across the hall engage in partisan parliamentary jousting over transportation funding proposals, state senators are spending the afternoon waiting, like the rest of Virginia.
The Senate side of the reconvened special session has been punctuated by repeated recesses as House Democrats and Republicans jockey for position on who will take the blame for not passing a plan.
A handful of Democratic senators are huddling around a laptop computer carrying a live broadcast of House proceedings. Some Republicans, meanwhile, amiably chatted about baseball and other topics on the other side of the aisle, welcoming into their conversation bouquet Sen. Dick Saslaw, the Democratic majority leader, whose gas-tax bill was still waiting to be considered and amended in the House.
Sen. Ralph S. Northam, D-Norfolk, used one of the many breaks in the action to run over to the Library of Virginia parking lot to put air in a leaky tire. Meanwhile, Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington, lamented the extra $300 she had to fork over to change her flight plans to attend her grandson’s wedding in Denver this weekend.
Upstairs at the governor’s suite in the Capitol, Gov. Tim Kaine could be seen pacing from his office with a cell phone glued to his ear, reading glasses propped on his forehead. Administration officials were not optimistic a day of delays and debate would yield a plan to fix Virginia’s roads. But whether they agree or not on how to fix the problem, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle know that it isn’t going away, especially during tough economic times and skyrocketing gas prices.
Sen. Richard H. Stuart, R-Westmoreland, said he turned in his wife’s large SUV for a minivan. His pickup truck has been replaced with a mid-sized Toyota sedan.
—Jim Nolan      

The House just voted 95-1 to strip the gas tax increase out of Sen. Saslaw’s bill and members are now debating the plan. Conversation is focused on sales tax hikes included in the bill.

The House Republicans got the House Democrats to vote on Kaine’s bill—at least in theory.
Del. Clifford Athey tried to substitute Kaine’s transportation bill for Sen. Saslaw’s gas tax increase plan. In the midst of lengthy and often heated partisan back-and-forth, both the House Republican leader and the House Democratic leader urged a no vote. It failed 98-0.

Del. Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry, said he thought lawmakers on the other side of the aisle want to embarass Kaine and the Democrats by making them vote against the bill. He said it wasn’t a vote against Kaine’s bill, it was a vote against the procedure. He followed that up with saying the House Democrats prefer Sen. Richard L. Saslaw’s bill with the gas tax increase taken out.
“There is a relative consensus that we’ve found,” Armstrong said. “The Saslaw bill is the way to go.”

Saslaw’s gas tax increase plan remains alive and is being discussed now on the House floor.

—Olympia Meola and Tyler Whitley