Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 12, 1992 TAG: 9201120145
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
`AMAZED' BELL FINDS JOB A MAZE ROANOKE'S NEWEST STATE SENATOR WAS PUT ON THE
Brandon Bell spent New Year's Day at his desk, trying to catch some football games out of the corner of his eye while wading through his first lessons as a new state senator."I've just got paper everywhere," he says. "Before, during the campaign, I had aides. They told me where to go. Now it's just me. I've got 5-inch stacks of position papers from different groups. I got one from the Goat Milk Association of Virginia - a lot of things I'd never heard of. You'd be amazed."
Amaze is a word that comes up a lot in connection with the Roanoke Valley's newest state senator.
First, there was the Republican's amazing upset of incumbent Granger Macfarlane in last November's election - a victory few except Bell thought possible.
Now, there's his transition from underdog candidate to in-the-know legislator - a process he's also found amazing, although in much different ways.
"You go from people - I won't say not returning phone calls, but they weren't that concerned with me because they didn't think I had a chance - to now it's just critical they meet with me immediately," he says.
It's a situation in which Bell finds some humor.
Take fund raising. "During the campaign, it was like pulling teeth. I'd make phone calls and they didn't get returned and I'd have to make three or four calls."
As a result, with eight days to go before the election, he was faced with a critical choice. He could spend the final week of the campaign on the phone trying to raise funds for advertising, but miss meeting voters. Or he could take the risk of going into debt personally but have the time to keep going door-to-door.
He gambled, and chose the latter. Bell put up $4,000 of his own money and his father, a retired Mississippi businessman, kicked in another $8,000. Even so, the campaign still wound up $16,000 in the hole - a debt quickly erased with some post-campaign fund-raising receptions.
"This time," Bell says with a smile, "we sent out invitations and money came in without having to make any phone calls."
As Bell soon learned, when you're a state senator, a lot of things arrive in the mail without invitation.
He's been snowed under by a blizzard of paper - letters and reports, position papers and wish lists - from scores of special-interest groups.
He's been amazed - there's that word again - to find out just how many there are.
"You expect to be called by people in the medical profession, people representing independent car dealers, or unions, or the pro-life people, or NARAL [the National Abortion Rights Action League], the things you read about," he says.
Instead, there's all that and more - such as the Goat Milk Association, which wants some changes in state regulations on dairy farms.
"You go from a campaign, dealing with broad themes, and jump into groups that have very specific measures," he says. "It's really difficult to do - the mass of information to understand. I'm trying to get some focus, by focusing mostly on the committees I'm assigned to."
When the General Assembly convened Wednesday, Bell was assigned - by the all-Democratic group that controls appointments - to three committees: Commerce and Labor, Education and Health, and Local Government.
The first two are considered fairly prestigious panels, and Bell was delighted. "I basically got what I requested. My thinking was if I could get either Commerce and Labor or Education and Health, I'd be happy. When I got both, I was doubly happy."
But the assignments also presented Bell with his first major decision, one that has its roots in the upheaval the Senate is going through as the greatly expanded Republican minority tries to organize itself against a slim Democratic majority intent on retaining power.
In the past, Democrats had outnumbered Republicans on Commerce and Labor by 15 to 1, and many GOP legislators despaired of ever getting a seat on a key business-related committee. Now it's Democrats 8, Republicans 7.
But one senior Republican legislator - Bell wouldn't say who it was, but other sources pointed at Walter Stosch of Richmond - wasn't happy when the Democrats left him off the committee, and he leaned hard on Bell to switch for what Bell considered a less desirable post.
"It was something I wasn't expecting, frankly," Bell says. "You expect to go into a partisan situation and you think all Republicans are pulling together. First, I wasn't expecting the plum of the appointments and I wasn't expecting someone, I don't want to say pull rank, but make an official request to switch."
Unsure of the unwritten rules of Richmond, Bell quickly called home for advice. He talked to Bill Sandy, a retired Roanoke businessman who had helped raise money during his campaign, and to Dominion Bankshares Chairman Warner Dalhouse.. He also conferred with two close political advisers - his former campaign manager, Mary Carter of Henry County, and consultant Tim Phillips of Richmond.
Bell then decided to turn Stosch down. With the slow-growth Roanoke Valley so eager to attract new business, Bell felt he had to keep the Commerce and Labor seat to help his district, even if it meant ticking off fellow Republicans in Richmond.
"Since that time, it turns out I really gained more from it, for sticking to my guns," Bell says.
A fellow Republican familiar with the situation, state Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo of Fincastle, agrees. "He demonstrated his independence, his resolve," Trumbo says. "He showed he was dedicated to his constituents."
Losing his privacy
Bell has had some awkward moments adjusting to being a state senator in more personal ways.
He's 33, single, with a good job - selling computers - and now an even better one, as a member of what's often called the most exclusive club in Virginia: the state Senate. That ought to make Bell one of the most eligible bachelors in Roanoke.
"Yes, that might be the case," Bell laughs. "Do I get phone calls every night from people asking me out? Absolutely not. But it's a two-edged sword with me, being an eligible bachelor."
Bell says when he was elected, he didn't feel any different about himself. But he says his friends soon started to treat him differently.
"I'm put on a pedestal by my friends, because I've done something they may not relate to," Bell says. "I'm trying to help them understand I'm still the same old guy. But it's tough for them to understand that." Especially when the fellow they used to chum around with is now being wooed by high-powered lobbyists.
"Politicians talk about losing their privacy," he says. "I always thought that meant the Gary Hart stuff, people sneaking around the door, looking in the garbage. At the state level, I thought that was probably not a big thing, that I was not going to lose that privacy."
Instead, Bell has found even his most casual comment to a friend, or his most routine activity, becomes a hot topic of conversation.
"They may say, `I talked to Brandon; he's going to Richmond this weekend, or he's going to Greensboro this weekend.' That's become big news," he says.
Bell has found that kind of gossip vaguely unnerving.
"Sometimes you just want to go to Greensboro and not have anyone know about it," he says. "I didn't realize I'd have to watch everything I say outside the press. People want to say they these things because it shows, `Hey, I know something about Brandon Bell.' "
Bell also has been careful to carve out some time while he's in Richmond to maintain a personal life. "Every night, there are a couple of receptions. People think you're out there partying, when you're actually being cornered by one group or another group."
Fortunately, Bell says, some friends from Roanoke have recently moved to Richmond.
"I'm going to try to spend some time with people who don't care about your position on parental notification, or the right-to-work law."
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