Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9003112760
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THOMAS BOYER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
But an analysis of more than $2.6 million in donations to successful House of Delegates candidates in 1989 suggests that many of the special-interest lobbying victories this year were undergirded by big-dollar contributions to key committees and legislative leaders last year.
The bottling industry and real estate developers won passage of favorable legislation they helped write. Automakers, insurance companies and manufacturers stopped bills they said would have hurt them. Other groups, from banks to beer distributors, did both.
Those victories came at the expense of such groups as car buyers, small-loan-company borrowers, couples with fertility problems, injured workers and local governments, none of whom have political action committees.
When industry groups brought their briefcases to key committees, more often than not they also brought unspoken IOUs: The delegates whose votes they needed were the same politicians whose campaigns they helped underwrite.
"The vested interests . . . certainly don't have a lock on things," said Del. George Grayson, D-Williamsburg.
But Grayson and other legislators acknowledge that money, particularly from developers, has led to success for the assembly's pro-development lobby. "It's a wild, wild west situation," Grayson said. "Virginia has the most unrestrained campaign finance laws in the western world."
Here are the stories of some of this year's lobbying battles, some little-noted, some well-chronicled, and the campaign contributions that almost invariably went along with them.
The bankers
Del. Edward Harris, D-Lynchburg, had done his homework. The soft-spoken former banker wanted to ban a controversial lending practice called the "Rule of 78."
Harris had long been troubled by the rule, which allows banks and small-loan companies to charge a hidden penalty, sometimes hundreds of dollars, to customers who pay their debts early.
So he submitted a bill, alerted consumer groups to support him, and persuaded many of the most powerful House Democrats to sign on as co-patrons.
By the time Harris brought the measure to the Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee, 12 of the 20 committee members were among its co-sponsors. That would have been enough votes to send the bill to the House floor without changes.
But at the public hearing, just when it looked like smooth sailing, committee Chairman Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, warned Harris: "I understand you've got co-patrons - committee members - on this bill, but I'm hearing noises back here."
The noises were from banking lobbyists. Walter C. Ayers, executive vice president of the Virginia Bankers Association, said his group had "some concerns" about the bill. Then an executive of First Virginia Bank, which still uses the Rule of 78, stood to argue for keeping the rule, saying it could sometimes save borrowers money.
It was Ayers and the bank executive versus Harris, the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council and the Virginia Poverty Law Center. Both sides claimed to be on the consumer's side.
But one big difference was unmentioned. Banks, bank executives and banking political action committees contributed more than $59,000 to 18 of the 20 committee members last year. Moss himself received more than $12,000 in banking industry donations.
More than a week later, the bill emerged from Moss' committee with a major loophole the banking lobbyists wanted. Loans of five years or less - meaning most personal and automobile loans - escaped the ban on the Rule of 78.
The bill made it the rest of the way to Gov. Douglas Wilder's desk without serious opposition. Harris got his bill, but says he'll be back next year to try to close the loophole.
The insurers
Del. Jerrauld Jones, D-Norfolk, knew he was in trouble when he walked into the House Labor and Commerce Committee and the crowd of lobbyists fell silent, like in an E.F. Hutton commercial.
"The highest-paid lobbyists on Capitol Hill, all huddled together with thick notebooks, were waiting in line to shoot the torpedoes at my bill," Jones recalled. "It was quite an experience."
The second-term Democrat was sponsoring a proposal to expand workers' compensation to cover a new category of job-related injuries. If sudden injuries like falls and accidents are covered under worker compensation, Jones reasoned, why not long-term conditions, like back problems from heavy lifting?
It wasn't a revolutionary idea, although it may have been an expensive one. The federal government uses the standard for its employees, but the lobbyists complained that the standard applied on a state level could send their insurance premiums skyrocketing.
Not only were the lobbyists among the best in Richmond, representing the insurance industry, agribusiness and manufacturers, but their industries had donated nearly $30,000 to committee members' campaigns last fall. All but two committee members had received money from either insurance or manufacturer organizations.
By a voice vote, Jones' bill was deferred until 1991, when it is likely to face the same opposition.
The automakers
The automobile lobby had no trouble getting its message to the House Roads committee.
Sen. Charles Waddell, D-Loudoun County, a Northern Virginia Democrat with a liberal, although generally pro-business record, had ushered through the Senate a bill designed to alert consumers to potential safety hazards in light trucks and minivans.
Because vans and trucks do not have to meet federal passenger-car safety standards, Waddell proposed that the state require a warning sticker on all new vans and trucks sold in Virginia. The federal passenger-car requirements include rollover protection, fortified doors and whiplash-preventing headrests.
But in the House Roads Committee, the resistance was fierce. General Motors Corp., after the Senate had approved the bill, hired two high-profile lobbyists who argued that the stickers would "confuse" consumers and hurt sales.
But even the lobbyists' arguments appeared mild compared to those of Del. S. Wallace Stieffen, D-Hampton, chairman of a subcommittee that studied the measure. Stieffen, who received $2,100 in contributions from automobile dealers and manufacturers, called the bill an enforcement nightmare and suggested it would send Virginians to North Carolina to buy their trucks.
Of the other 19 committee members, all but two had received contributions from auto dealers and/or manufacturers, totaling more than $20,000.
Waddell, realizing his bill had no chance of getting through the committee, acquiesced as it was tabled for the year.
The liquor licensees
While automakers and insurance companies were busy battling legislation they didn't want, the liquor lobby was promoting bills to relax state regulations on alcohol.
One such measure, sponsored by Del. William Robinson, D-Norfolk, was designed to dilute state regulations against selling alcohol to minors.
Robinson's bill would have created a point system governing when licensees could be shut down for selling to minors, to replace the current system of license suspensions and revocations at the discretion of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
Opponents complained that the bill would make it easier to avoid punishment for serving minors, and such arguments eventually killed the measure on the Senate floor.
But the bill had no difficulty winning endorsement, 15-4, from the House General Laws Committee, which is responsible for virtually all legislation dealing with alcohol.
General Laws Committee members garnered more than $30,000 in contributions from beverage distributors, wine dealers and liquor industry groups, along with more than $27,000 from the tourist and restaurant industry.
The builders
As they did in 1987, builders, developers and other real estate interests outspent every other business group in legislative campaigns, providing more than $325,000 to winning candidates for the House of Delegates.
In the current session, however, the builders had only mixed success with their legislative platform. One bill aimed at protecting property owners against changes in zoning was killed by its sponsor in a legislative horse trade.
The builders' other top-priority measure, which would also have restricted local zoning power, was caught in a dispute between the House and Senate. Senators voted to tack an amendment unacceptable to the developers onto the bill. It would have given Chesapeake, Suffolk and Chesterfield County the power to impose impact fees on new development. Furious lobbying by industry lobbyists, however, helped get the amendment removed in a conference committee.
If the Senate has sometimes been hostile to them, the builders have had one friendly refuge this year - the House Counties, Cities and Towns committee. The panel endorsed both of the builder-backed zoning bills and killed all proposed impact-fee legislation that came its way.
The 20 members of the Counties, Cities and Towns Committee received more than $50,000 in contributions from developers and real-estate interests. Del. Franklin Hall, D-Richmond, who has often been a spokesman for developers, alone received $21,000.
The parties
The General Assembly's biggest source of campaign contributions last year was largely untraceable. Political parties and politicians gave more to winning House candidates last year even than developers. But under state law, the parties do not have to disclose where their money comes from.
That makes possible what lawmakers call political "money laundering," in which big contributors who want to remain anonymous donate money through party organizations.
This looked like the year when that loophole would be closed. Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, sponsored legislation to require party disclosure, and the measure passed the Senate without much controversy.
The Republican Party's state central committee announced its opposition, Democrats took no stand, and Republican and Democratic legislators both said they supported it.
When the bill reached the House floor, however, something interesting happened. Republican legislators attached amendments further tightening the bill. And Democratic delegates, who had not actively fought the amendments, used them as a pretext for killing the measure.
Two delegates close to the state Democratic Party organization, Ford Quillen of Gate City and Glenn Croshaw of Virginia Beach, asked that the bill be re-referred to a committee that will not meet until after adjournment.
Quillen, head of the House committee that regulates elections and parties, and Croshaw, former city party chairman in Virginia Beach, said the matter needed more study.
Steve Haner, staff director of the Republican caucus, charged later that Quillen "caved in to his party, who didn't want to pass this bill."
Whatever the reasons that the bill died, the delegates had a strong incentive to toe the party's line on this issue. Last year, the parties contributed more than $410,000 to 59 winning House of Delegates candidates, or an average of $6,949 per seat.
by CNB