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By DELEGATE JAY KATZEN
R-3lsl District
Readers know of my disappointment over the majority party’s refusal to consider openly and seriously any of Governor Allen’s main proposals this session.
The reason behind this refusal became manifestly clear this week with the revelation of a Democrat strategy plotted before the session by the Alexandria consultant firm of Cooper & Secrest. A pre-cooked Democrat “Playbook” (it was called just that) called for feigned objectivity, orchestration of group protests at supposedly open public meeting and, at all costs — defense of the status quo.
Discussion of the “Playbook” and its Feb. 7 update for “Democratic Planners,” vetted publicly by Del. John Watkins (R-65th District), dominated this week’s floor debate. We all lose when such a cynical approach is taken. While the Majority Leader was described in the Richmond press earlier in the session as a “conqueror,” what truly w'as conquered — as I told a visiting seventh-grader from Coleman Elementary — was our confidence in the process.
Illustrative was this week’s adoption, on party lines, of welfare legislation unacceptable to me, to Governor Allen, and to Virginians who seek genuine reform and statewide imple
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