ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 29, 1997 TAG: 9703310031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
In legal issues involving the tobacco industry, Virginia's attorney general cannot both represent the public interest with integrity and take campaign funds from Philip Morris.
JIM GILMORE, the all-but-certain Republican nominee for governor, should quit as Virginia's attorney general. His fund-raising strategy as a campaigner has put him in a position that conflicts with his public duties as lawyer for the commonwealth.
That became clear when the story broke this week that Gilmore had traveled recently to the New York headquarters of Philip Morris to collect a $50,000 campaign contribution from the tobacco giant, a leading player in an industry under investigation by federal officials and up to its nostrils in legal challenges filed by other state attorneys general.
In taking the contribution, Gilmore did nothing illegal. But it should not be dismissed, as a Philip Morris spokesman suggested, as ``fairly standard operating procedure for Virginia candidates.'' Nor should it be brushed aside as a ``distraction,'' Gov. George Allen's word for it.
Not when Gilmore, as the state's top legal official, has already taken the side of major tobacco companies in their lawsuit challenging federal restrictions on tobacco sales and marketing of cigarettes to youth. Not when the industry is embroiled in legal battles that could well involve the Virginia attorney general's office.
So long as Gilmore remains in his post, the question is inevitable: Are the decisions of the attorney general's office regarding prospective tobacco-related litigation based on due consideration of what's best for Virginia, or on the fact that the attorney general has pocketed $50,000 of Philip Morris campaign money?
To be sure, Philip Morris over the years has oiled the campaigns of many a Virginia pol, Democrats as well as Republicans. It gave more than $71,000 to legislative candidates in 1995, and $10,000 last year to Gilmore's Democratic rival for governor, Lt. Gov. Don Beyer.
To be sure, too, opposition calls for Virginia attorneys general to resign the minute they launch a campaign for governor have become over the years a standard political tactic, seldom to be taken too seriously.
What sets Gilmore's situation apart from those of prevous attorneys general - and apart from other willing recipients of tobacco money who aren't also attorney general - is that his acceptance of the money occurs at a time when he is the principal author of Virginia's stance on the mushrooming legal troubles of the cigarette industry.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB