The Loudoun Times-Mirror does a good job of covering the latest dust-up over transportation. Though, I do the story a disservice in calling it a dust-up. To summarize, in the Fall the Governor asked Democrats for ideas to deal with the transportation funding problem in Virginia, seeing as his ABC privatization plan was a feverish dream of pink elephants. Our own Sen. Mark Herring responded with no fewer than five constructive ideas on November 1st. The Governor and his team never responded, but some of the ideas the Governor announced shortly thereafter sounded very familiar to Sen. Herring.

In a bid to share the political burden of tough choices on road funding across both parties and chambers in Richmond, McDonnell’s letter asks Herring and others for “specific ideas and concrete input on how best to increase transportation funding.” The letter set a Nov. 1 deadline for response.

Herring responded on Nov. 1 to McDonnell and several staff aides, with five specific and more general transportation related initiatives, some of which he sponsored in the past General Assembly session. They include privatizing Virginia’s interstate rest areas, changing the state’s revenue sharing program, the creation of a “bipartisan blue ribbon transportation commission,” and the formation of a state “infrastructure bank” to provide financing for qualified roads projects in the state and “leverage resources to stimulate public and private investment.”

“I never heard back from them,” Herring said Dec. 10, referring to the Governor and his chief policy aides. But Herring said when McDonnell made his transportation funding plans known at a state conference on Dec. 9 in Roanoke, “one or two things the Governor mentioned [as part of his plan to fund roads] sounded very familiar.” Herring believes at least one of his ideas was taken from his letter and included in the Governor’s proposal. – The Loudoun Times-Mirror

And now, Republicans are accusing the Democrats of having no ideas on Transportation.

This is classic Republican projection. They accuse Democrats of doing the very things they, themselves, do as a matter of course. Another term for these kinds of accusations are “lies.”  I, for one, am ecstatic to see Sen. Herring pushing back. Far too often, Democrats in the past have taken these kinds of slanders in stride, believing in the inherent goodwill of their fellow elected officials, Republican or not. Sen. Herring has shown that falsehoods about records and actions must be, and can be dealt with swiftly and directly.

Thank you Sen. Herring, for standing up for yourself, and for the rest of us here in Loudoun and across Virginia.