Wednesday's reconvened special session on transportation featured plenty of legislative drama -- fiery speeches, parliamentary gamesmanship and partisan jousting.

Yesterday, however, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine likened what he saw in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to a situation comedy.

"It was like a Seinfeld episode -- a show about nothing," Kaine told reporters at the Capitol, hours after lawmakers adjourned following a marathon 12-hour day, closing the six-day special session with no transportation fix for the state.

"And in the House, it was a road session about nothing."

Republicans offered similarly scathing reviews of the governor. They faulted him for calling a special session that, they charged, was politically motivated and not ready for prime time.

Kaine took aim at House Republicans who rejected his own tax-and-fee transportation initiative and also defeated a compromise Democratic transportation plan.

He said Republicans failed to present a credible alternative plan to fill the mounting $375 million gap for highway maintenance and fund $500 million in regional transportation needs in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. And he questioned whether House leaders ever really wanted to solve the problem.

"I've never seen a group work so hard to do nothing," Kaine said. "It was doing nothing taken to an art . . . how to wrap up nothing to make it seem like it might superficially be something."

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican who presides over the state Senate, said the special session "was a colossal waste of time and money." He said fixing Virginia's roads must come from revenues already collected by the state.

"There was never a consensus about this session around any specific resolution to transportation," Bolling said.

Del. William R. Janis, R-Henrico, said Kaine was responsible for a session that suffered from a lack of direction.

"If you don't know where you're going, just about any road you take will get you there," he said yesterday at 1:45 a.m., as lawmakers left the Capitol after adjournment.

"And here we are."

So where does the state go from here on transportation?

Kaine promised to "take another crack" at getting an agreement when the General Assembly reconvenes //for its regular session// in January, but he signaled that in his last year in office he also would focus on initiatives dealing with energy and the environment.

He said he is prepared to offer legislators a ladder to help the state climb out of the transportation mess. But he questioned whether some would prefer a shovel that will bury the state's transportation system further into debt.

Lawmakers from both parties acknowledge that while the state's transportation needs will not go away, the multiple differences over how to fund a fix will make a compromise as elusive as it was this time around.

"It's going to be very difficult," Bolling said. "You've got divisions between the executive branch and the legislative branch. Division between Republicans and Democrats. You've got division between Democrats and Democrats, and Republicans and Republicans, and the House and the Senate and urban and rural.

"I mean, this is a very difficult issue to grasp."
Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.