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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 9, 1990                   TAG: 9005100481
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WILDER'S INAUGURAL SLUSH FUND

YOU could hardly say Douglas Wilder has been a secretive governor. In the four months since taking office, he has allowed an estimated 70 interviews with journalists. Sometimes, reports staff writer Margie Fisher, he squeezes three or four interviews into his 16- to 18-hour workdays. When national news reporters ask speculative questions about higher office, Gov. Wilder is usually accessible.

So why is he tight-lipped about the money he raised for his inaugural festivities last January? The governor accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from businesses and lobbyists. These people like a good party, but they're also in the business of trying to influence state government.

Yet Wilder won't disclose the amount he raised. State law doesn't require him to, he explains.

Of course, state law doesn't require him to do a lot of things, including be a good governor. But what the law says is not, one hopes, his only guide. Gov. Gerald Baliles, for one, reported to the state Board of Elections the $45,000 profit from his 1986 inaugural festivities. The law didn't require him to do that.

Virginia's financial disclosure rules obviously need strengthening. As they stand, Wilder is free not to disclose which businesses and lobbyists paid up to $7,500 for tables at the Jan. 13 inaugural ball. He doesn't have to say how much money in total he raised, or what he plans to do with the surplus. Nor, for that matter, are there any limits on what he can do with the profit.

At the time of his inaugural, news reports said Wilder had sold about 80 of the $7,500 tables. That's about $600,000 worth. Thousands more people paid $50 each to attend the event. Three days' rent for the Richmond Coliseum, where the inaugural was held, was only $11,500 - discounted because of the "community-service" nature of the event, said the coliseum's general manager.

No doubt some of the lobbyists and others who paid $7,500 a table did so because it was a community event, or just for the fun of being at the inaugural. But many also did so for the same reasons they would contribute to a candidate or political party. Hence the need for disclosure.

Wilder needn't wait for the legislature to tighten the disclosure rules. He should come clean now with a financial statement. He can't proclaim himself a champion of open government while hiding what amounts to an inaugural slush fund.

It's not enough to let reporters ask questions. On the subject of these funds, he needs to answer questions, too.

by CNB