Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 11, 1994                   TAG: 9405110097
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPECIAL SESSION

Now isn't that special?

The session was called by Gov. George Allen to consider his administration's proposed settlement in the long-standing suit against the state by federal retirees. But lawmakers had already considered it and pronounced it dead in the water, and a group including House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell Vinton had started work on what they hope will be something better.

But the legislators' proposal, it seems, is not ready for prime time. So they say they'll postpone any action till Sept. 19, when the governor has called another special session to consider his proposed anti-crime program.

Allen, a Republican, has said he's willing to compromise with the Democrat-controlled assembly on a retirees' settlement plan. But if the governor knows his own plan as fashioned by Attorney General Jim Gilmore won't fly, and if he knows the legislature isn't ready with a counteroffer, why didn't he just cancel today's session? Is its purpose now simply to embarrass the lawmakers?

And are Democratic legislators also playing a game? They say they're working on their own settlement offer - but they also say that, because they have no constitutional authority to negotiate a legal settlement, it's up to Gilmore to come up with a more acceptable plan.

Meanwhile, today's special session will be, in the words of one lawmaker, "a tea party," that will produce, in the words of another, "diddly-squat." But it's not quite nothing at all. Convening the assembly in Richmond to do nothing will set state taxpayers back about $19,000.

Keywords:
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