Virginia tea party aims to put General Assembly lessons into practice

[Derechos]

RICHMOND - If half the battle of politics is just showing up, activists with the Virginia tea party won the day during this year's General Assembly session.

But if the other half is actually winning the day, the political movement came up short in its first significant foray into state legislative action.

Citizen activists, largely novices to Virginia's legislative practice, roamed the halls of the Capitol each day of the 47-day session, lobbying for an ambitious 10-bill agenda.

But of those bills, lawmakers passed just one during the session that concluded Feb. 27, a bill that would start the process of adding new protections for private property to the state constitution.

Some measures were approved by the GOP-held House of Delegates and killed by the Democratic-led Senate, strengthening the resolve of activists who say they hope to play a major role in legislative elections in November and knock off the Democrats and moderate Republicans who they think stood in the way.

But other tea party priorities were killed by Republicans in the House, raising questions about whether the movement is being fully embraced even by those who say they agree with its aims.

"It is a painful reality for the tea party movement both in Richmond and Washington," said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political analyst at George Mason University. "They would be surprised to learn the process of governing is more difficult than campaigning. There is a certain 'welcome to the show' mentality."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030603134.html

[FSogol]

1. The Tea Party: Loud and lazy; Stupid and ignorant..

:shrug:

[tcaudilllg]

2. and dangerous. n/t