One day after voting in $ 300 million in new taxes and fees, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority yesterday filed a lawsuit seeking a ruling on the legality of those fees:
The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority formally asked a court yesterday whether it has the legal authority to raise and spend more than $300 million worth of new taxes and fees.
The authority voted late Thursday to impose the taxes and fees to fund regional transportation projects. The revenue measures are slated to go into effect in January, but critics have questioned whether the state law that created the NVTA passes constitutional muster. The legal request, filed yesterday in Arlington Circuit Court, asks a judge to quickly rule on the authority’s right to raise taxes across the region.
Authority members said the Virginia attorney general’s office has said the NVTA is on solid legal ground. Nonetheless, said David F. Snyder, a Falls Church council member and an NVTA member, “we wanted to do the special proceeding that allowed objections to be heard so we don’t jeopardize bond ratings or have to stop multimillion-dollar projects in their tracks or rebate tax payments.”
He said the board hopes that court cases and appeals are decided by the beginning of next year.
However the Arlington Circuit Court rules in this matter, its clear that the issue will go all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
This is a trick. If you think you might have to defend a law, the best thing you can do is file your OWN suit about it, in the hopes that you have all the correct answers to questions and can convince a court of it before the opposition is really ready to counter your arguments.
Who is the “defendant” in this “request” to the courts, who is going to argue forcefully for the opinion that the law is unconstitutional? Certainly not the NVTA, and certainly not the State government — and they are the only two parties in such a suit.
Of course, the opposition will be able to file their own suit, but by then there could be a “precedent” from this suit, plus the public opinion may be swayed against them by a court ruling of constitutionality.