Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 1, 1993 TAG: 9304010406
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SHADOW-BOXING ISN'T ETHICS REFORM
"TAKE THAT, Governor Wilder.""And you take that, Senator Russell."
Punch; counterpunch; thrust; jab. And the sparring over ethics legislation between Virginia's governor and its General Assembly goes on.
The latest punch was thrown by Wilder, who promised to sign a bill to prohibit state party chairmen from working as lobbyists - if the legislators amend it to extend the prohibition to their own law partners, business partners or family members.
That, the measure's sponsor, Sen. Robert Russell, parried, smacks of political retaliation.
Which it does.
Lawmakers can hardly protest, though. They did throw the first punch of this round: The bill they sent to the governor appeared to be aimed specifically at the jaw of one of Wilder's closest political allies, former state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Goldman.
And so it goes, back and forth. Thrust; jab; punch; counterpunch.
The merits of the bill and the suggested amendment aside, is either going to deal a knockout blow to the problem of special interests' undue influence over the legislative process? A crippling blow? A really bad bruise, even?
Goldman, who is certain he is the target of the original bill, points out that he no longer leads the state Democrats and, thus, will suffer no injury to his lobbying activities.
Russell, who insists Wilder's amendment is just a "back atcha" tactic, says that, nevertheless, he has "no problem" agreeing to it. He's certain that few legislators have business partners or family members lobbying the General Assembly.
For the people of Virginia, the message is: No pain, no gain.
There may be some pain, of course. Some legislators apparently aren't as certain as Russell that the "business partners" restriction would have no impact on them.
No doubt Wilder is taking a poke at the lawmakers. They are left to add the amendment, and suffer possible, unforeseen consquences, or ignore it and give the governor a high-minded reason to veto a reform measure that undoubtedly was meant to take a poke at him.
All of this seems suspiciously like taking mighty swings at air.
The General Assembly had an opportunity in the last legislative session to strike serious blows for reforming the political process to better serve the needs of the people over special interests, and it chose to duck.
It passed one proposal offered by the Governor's Commission on Campaign Finance Reform: requiring lobbyists to report spending year-round, rather than from November through the end of the following General Assembly session. The rest of the commission's ideas were shelved for further study.
And the lawmakers' pouty attitude toward its recommendations can be traced to the retaliatory manner in which Wilder set it up in the first place.
Smarting from the assembly's rejection of his proposed health-industry tax, he vowed to take up the fight against special-interest lobbyists, naming a panel that pointedly excluded any members of the legislature. It's been a boxing match ever since.
Both sides have shown an ability to deliver and absorb a blow. They seem pretty evenly matched. It's the citizens of Virginia who are losing the fight.