Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And there's no paycheck for this work - unless they win.
Says George Allen, the Republican candidate for governor who hasn't seen his Charlottesville law office for months: "There's no way to practice law in the midst of a campaign for governor. It wouldn't be doing your clients justice, nor would it be doing your party justice, trying to do two tasks at one time."
So how do Democrat Mary Sue Terry and Allen keep the mortgage and the light bills paid while they try to earn the $104,000-a-year job as Virginia's next governor?
"Well, it's not easy," Terry admits.
Both politicians have been out of regular work - and paychecks - for nine months. Allen's 13 months in Congress ended in early COMMENTARY January, and Terry resigned as Virginia's attorney general several weeks later.
Neither candidate enjoys the independent wealth that makes working for a living unnecessary. Neither draws expenses from their campaigns, as some past candidates for governor have done.
Allen says he's been living off investments and dividends. He gets monthly income from the house he owns in Charlottesville's historic downtown. He bought the place in 1978 and lived there while he renovated it himself to house his law practice. Now he uses two rooms and rents out the remainder. The rest of the money to run his household, which includes his wife, Susan, and two young children, comes from dividends and interest, he says.
Terry contends that such questions are not the public's business.
"I'll be filing all the appropriate disclosures at the appropriate time. I'm not going to go into the particulars of my personal finances," she says. "I think that's a rather unusual question to ask folks."
Terry won't say whether she is living off investments or savings. She says she does not draw a salary or expenses from the campaign, and private individuals are not supporting her.
"But if they were, it would be disclosed. There are laws that govern this," she says.
That disclosure, by the way, would not come until January, long after the election. Then, if she wins, Terry would be required to file financial disclosure statements that might or might not show how she is making ends meet during the campaign.
In August 1989, the financial affairs of Douglas Wilder dominated the gubernatorial campaign, as stories about Wilder-owned rental property that had been cited as substandard, and other financial holdings, came to light.
This past summer, all but one of seven state legislators who invested in a new mortgage insurance company gave up their seats on the board of directors and indicated they will unload their stakes. The legislators dumped their fledgling investment amid negative publicity, public criticism and condemnation from Terry, who said that it was improper to concentrate that much power in a business regulated by the state.
So it appears that, at least in some cases, Terry would agree that a politician's personal finances deserve public attention.
Past candidates have lived by different means while running for office. Chuck Robb drew on the considerable personal wealth he and his wife, the former Lynda Bird Johnson, share from her Texas family's fortune. Robb's opponent in 1981, Marshall Coleman, took considerable heat for keeping part-time status and partial salary as attorney general while he ran.
In 1985, Democrat Gerald Baliles, who like Terry devoted much of his adult life to politics rather than building a private law practice, lived off a kitty deposited in his name by a crowd of friends and supporters.
Terry's reluctance to discuss her own financial situation might seem reasonable for most people, who would agree that their checkbooks should be closed to community scrutiny. But most people aren't asking to become governor, with the power to direct how every state tax dollar is spent.
Voters might find it instructive to learn how this pair of would-be leaders is managing on a tight budget, a problem faced by most Virginians every day. We might get some insight on how each might manage a state economy that continues sluggish growth.
Keywords:
POLITCS
by CNB