ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS AND LISE OLSEN STAFF WRITERS
GEORGE ALLEN AND JESSE JACKSON on the same side? They are, when the issue is the popular election of Richmond's mayor.
The politics and ideology of race are turning Gov. George Allen and Jesse Jackson into allies in a fight over how this black-majority city elects its mayor.
The issue seems small-town simple: Can voters elect the mayor, or will City Council members continue to choose among themselves. The General Assembly must approve the switch. The governor intervened after the issue stalled in the House of Delegates over how it would affect black voting strength.
What happens could affect struggles over representation in cities and counties across the state. And the fundamental disagreement between prominent black politicians may well signal a new age in the civil rights movement.
The issue - to protect a ward system or open up elections - is dividing traditional allies and forging odd partnerships.
Tuesday's unusual result: Two Democratic caucuses refused a request from Jackson to meet and discuss the issue, while the Republican governor accepted it. Jackson and Allen both support a change to an elected mayor.
"It is an interesting alliance,'' acknowledged Ken Stroupe, a spokesman for Allen. "There have been few occasions when we've found ourselves in agreement with Jesse Jackson."
Jackson said he still plans to visit Richmond on Thursday to try to bring the two sides together despite his rejection by the Senate Democratic Caucus and the Legislative Black Caucus. "Sometimes in politics, good people collide. I'm trying to make sure that the collision is not so devastating that it sets back our common quest," he said.
Jackson said he thinks everyone needs to get together and hash things out behind closed doors. But that might not be so easy.
Jackson and Allen argue that Richmond voters should get their wish - expressed by a 2-1 margin in a referendum last November - for a popularly elected mayor.
That side also is supported by Mayor Leonidas Young, the Richmond City Council and a coalition of black ministers.
But others, including Richmond's first black mayor, state Sen. Henry Marsh, argue that at-large elections erode black voting strength and would disturb the racial balance.
Marsh has been able to attract many traditional allies to his side: NAACP leaders, other prominent Baptist ministers and other assembly members.
The different life experiences of Marsh and Young have prompted some to suggest that the Richmond mayor crisis illustrates a generation gap between Virginia's black leaders.
Young, who was elected by wooing both black and white voters, is not worried that an at-large mayor system would hurt black representation - in fact, he's already said he would run under the new system.
"The day of racial argument has come to an end," he said. "We are near the end - at least in Richmond."
Marsh, who became Richmond's first black mayor after a court battle, is more worried about diluting black voting power. He spent decades fighting injustice, arguing school desegregation cases in Hampton Roads and across the state, and seeing Richmond progress from an all-white to integrated government after years of court battles and demonstrations.
Marsh wants the General Assembly to take more time to study the ramifications. The issue already has been delayed for study by the House of Delegates. Marsh wants the same result in the Senate.
Young, though, says Marsh has unfairly exploited and personalized the issue - even writing speeches for some of his old allies, and using backdoor tricks to defeat the measure. Said Young: "Marsh told me the General Assembly was a club and he would do all the horse trading he needed to get what he wanted."
Young invited Jackson to Richmond to convince people that a popularly elected mayor was a step forward, not back. Jackson, he said, could deliver that message.
Young won a victory Tuesday when a Republican-dominated Senate committee passed the governor's bill to allow the direct elections - on a 9-6 vote.
But in the General Assembly, Marsh might have the last word: "It's a question of changing a system that has been working to a system that we don't know what we're going to get."
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB