ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
With only nine days remaining in the General Assembly session, the House of Delegates and Senate are profoundly divided over who will fill a vacancy on the Virginia Supreme Court.
``It's pretty messed up,'' a visibly frustrated Speaker of the House Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, said Tuesday. ``I don't know whether we'll be able to resolve it or not.''
The legislature faces a Feb. 22 deadline for choosing a successor to retiring Justice Roscoe Stephenson Jr. of Covington. If the legislature can't agree on an appointment, under Virginia law the governor is entitled to fill the vacancy.
Hoping to avoid passing the appointment to Republican Gov. George Allen, legislators in both parties are looking beyond the pool of 12 prospects and are talking about three other candidates not mentioned previously.
The three are former state Sen. Wiley Mitchell of Virginia Beach, a lawyer for Norfolk Southern Corp. and a moderate Republican; Virginia Appeals Court Judge Johanna Fitzpatrick; and Fairfax Circuit Judge Gerald Bruce Lee.
In the evenly divided Senate, the GOP has a virtual veto in the judicial selection. No one can be named without 21 votes in that 40-member body, meaning a Democratic candidate would need the blessing of at least one Republican.
Hoping for a breakthrough on the Supreme Court selection, Moss and House Democratic Leader Richard Cranwell met privately Tuesday with Senate Democratic Leader Richard Saslaw of Fairfax County, Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, and Lt. Gov. Don Beyer.
Cranwell said after the meeting that legislators should keep an open mind in choosing the $112,000-a-year justice.
Former Del. Bernard Cohen, D-Alexandria, was the early favorite of Moss and other senior Democrats. But Cohen, a plaintiff's lawyer, was perceived as hostile to Virginia corporations and was branded unacceptable to Senate Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Democrats, meanwhile, have turned thumbs down to a former Republican delegate, Steven Agee of Salem.
And legislators on both sides of the aisle say that none of the 10 remaining candidates - most of them circuit or appellate judges - seem to have caught on.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB