When the General Assembly gathers this week, it won't run the way legislatures usually do.

There won't be a provision for committees to hold hearings and exercise their usual power to kill or recommend consideration of new policies or spending.

But the rules for the special session are set up for fast progress toward an end goal. The question: Is that goal the full debate of Medicaid expansion that Speaker Bill Howell and Majority Leader Kirk Cox promised once this summer's gridlock over a budget broke, or do two of the most canny politicians in the state have something more in mind?

What the two will outline Monday is a proposed set of rules and procedures that say the session will not only debate the Affordable Care Act-funded Medicaid expansion already rejected by the House of Delegates, but also any legislation related to health care coverage or medical assistance services for indigent Virginians, Cox said.

Unlike the usual process when the legislature convenes, any legislation introduced would move directly from the Rules committee to the floor of the House. The Rules committee will not make any recommendation on the bills, but will simply forward them to the full House for debate, he said.

"This will allow for a full debate of the Medicaid related bills on the House Floor," Cox said.

It's an extremely unusual approach, to hold a legislative session to consider legislation without committee, said Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University. Committees are at the heart of the process of making law, providing an opportunity for the public to comment and for legislators to hear from experts and from entities directly affected by any proposal.

Skipping that step "could suggest ... that the outcome is predetermined, if there's some kind of proposal, or that the aim is for nothing to be done, or that there is not a lot of interest in having the issue debated anymore," Kidd said.

Kidd is not sure the goal is simply to stage political theater, as some Democrats, impatiently waiting for the rules for the past several weeks, have suggested.

"You know, I had a chance to hear Speaker Howell, saying what he wanted was a full and fair debate, and I didn't hear anything or read any body language that said his aim was anything else," Kidd said. "The end result could be simply: we said we'd have a full and fair debate, and we had a full and fair debate and we did what we said."

On the other hand, Howell studiously avoided giving any hint about how he felt about any of the ideas floating around, Kidd said.

Ideas

One, from state Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, takes a Senate proposal intended as an alternative to Medicaid expansion a few steps further, detailing additional reforms of Medicaid to be accomplished before any expansion but also making it harder for a special legislative panel which must approve any expansion to block such a move.

Another, from Del. Thomas Rust, R-Herndon, proposes a fund to recover Affordable Care Act taxes Virginians are already paying, and using the money to provide coverage for low-income Virginians not currently covered by Medicaid as a stopgap measure. While that stopgap is in effect, Rust's bill proposes converting all of the state's $8 billion Medicaid system into a block grant program. That's an approach long advocated by Republicans, in which Washington pays the state a lump sum for a program, which is left to the state to design and run.

Howell may not want to be backed into a corner, in case there is a move by Republicans toward those bills, or to any other proposal that might emerge, Kidd said. So far, Republicans aren't showing a huge wave of enthusiasm for either.

There is one more hint that the special session might be more than a cut-and-dried rehash of the bitter battles over Medicaid during this year's regular and special budget sessions. It comes from Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was pretty much check-mated by General Assembly Republicans in his push to expand coverage, said Kidd.

Theater?

In the wake of that defeat, McAuliffe promised he would use his power as governor to expand coverage.

But the 10-point program McAuliffe announced last week was so modest that he may have been trying to calm still-angry legislators in order to look for some kind of compromise to cover more of the more than 350,000 uninsured Virginians who would have been able to get coverage if Virginia expanded Medicaid, Kidd said.

Cox, meanwhile, said that a number of House Republicans are working on ideas to reform Medicaid, improve access to care, and strengthen the safety net.

But he suggested they probably wouldn't surface in the special session.

"We look forward to discussing those ideas down the road, but this session is and always has been about debating Obamacare's Medicaid expansion." Cox said.

Democrats had been prodding Republicans to come up with some kind of plan to cover more low-income Virginians, and say the way the Republicans have declined to issue rules for the session until it is just about to gather means GOP leaders' aim is simply to stage some empty theater.

Theater over the Affordable Care Act could be something Republicans aren't averse to, with midterm federal elections approaching.

"I can promise you this: those rules were very carefully thought out," Kidd said. "The Speaker and the Majority (Leader) are some of the best legislative tacticians around. The question is, what do they want?"

Ress can be reached by phone at 757-247-4535.