The legislature's transportation screw-up is feeding backstairs murmuring over Bill Howell and how the accidental speaker runs the House -- or not.

To his credit, Howell delivered big time for conservative Republicans by thwarting Gov. Tim Kaine on new taxes. It was done, however, with all the efficiency of a "Three Stooges" episode.

And while that troubles the more anal-retentive members of Howell's shrinking caucus and the ever-expanding lobbyist corps, the dumb-like-a-fox schemer who preceded Howell couldn't be happier -- kinda.

"He's doing very good from what little I see," said Vance Wilkins, the GOP speaker from 2000 to 2002, when he was driven off by fellow Republicans in a sexual-harassment scandal.

"They've done real well the past few years," Wilkins said of House Republicans. "I was disappointed when they let Mark Warner talk them into a tax increase" -- a reference to the $1.4 billion rise for cops, schools and welfare that led to the Warner presidential boomlet.

That increase in 2004 might not have occurred had Howell not looked the other way. He allowed several Republican anti-taxers to duck a do-or-die vote in the Finance Committee on the Warner package, clearing the way for passage.

During Wilkins' brief reign, one usually got the impression the trains were running on time. Wilkins, from rural Amherst, was ramma'-jamma'. No was the new yes. Discipline was absolute, punishment swift. Wilkins damned with faint praise. He praised with faint damn.

"I might not have let the governor get away with saying that it was a do-nothing session," said Wilkins, as if to suggest that Howell did.

It's not the first time Wilkins has offered a seemingly underwhelming assessment of Howell, who was a little-known trusts-and-estates lawyer from outside Fredericksburg when he was tapped for speaker for one reason: He was the least radioactive guy in the room.

In 2007, Wilkins transferred the entire balance of his political-action committee, nearly $78,000, to the power behind Howell: Kirk Cox of Colonial Heights, the House majority whip -- and a prospective speaker.

For House Republicans, Wilkins -- gap-tooth smile, garble mouth and nervous giggle notwithstanding -- was Moses with a comb-over. Recruiting candidates and raising money, he made good on the promise of a GOP majority but was denied full entry because of allegedly bad behavior.

As Wilkins tumbled, so, too, did House Republicans.

They were north of 60 seats eight years ago and as brutish as their Democratic predecessors. Heading into next year's election, Republicans are at 53 -- 55 if you include the two independents who vote with the GOP.

It's said Wilkins once boasted that his party's computer-driven House majority is "bulletproof" at 54. Wilkins -- now on his third marriage, out of the road business and bankrolling his kids' property and sheet-metal operations -- says the House "should" hold for Republicans; that Democrats have "picked up the easy seats."

In 2009, said Wilkins, the Republicans' stubborn anti-tax line could prove its own reward: "They protected the people's pocketbooks. They did something very good. That sounds positive to me."

This from the same fella who says Jim Gilmore just might beat Warner for U.S. Senate.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 6496814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com. Watch his video column Thursdays on inRich.com. He provides analysis Fridays at 8:33 a.m. on WCVE radio (88.9 FM).