Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060248
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Urban legislators have proposed waiting-period bills before, but their defeat had never been in doubt. Pro-gun legislators dominated the right committees and, if necessary, could control floor votes to preserve Virginia's reputation as a pro-gun state.
Suddenly, that assumption was turned on its head. The House Democratic Caucus issued a statement of support for Cunningham's bill. Among the 31 Democratic co-sponsors were House Majority Leader Tom Moss of Norfolk and Del. Richard Cranwell of Vinton. The waiting period seemed to have a good chance of passing the House of Delegates.
Lobbyists from the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups could not get to Richmond fast enough. Virginia, a state the NRA considered among its closest allies, was on the verge of adopting the single most distasteful measure to pro-gun lobbies.
"We couldn't even get anybody to tell us what was going on," said Tom Evans, a lobbyist for Virginia's gun dealers who tried hard to get information from NRA allies in the Democratic caucus.
The House killed the measure 42-55 Monday, in a vote that saw every rural Democrat in the House abandon the caucus and the bill. Of 59 House Democrats, 21 voted against the bill. Among the opponents was Del. Al Smith of Winchester, the caucus chairman.
The story behind what happened to Cunningham's measure is a textbook illustration of the power of full-throttle lobbying in the legislature. It shows how strong Virginia's myths and traditions are, and also how pressure is building in an increasingly urban state to discard those myths.
"The NRA won the battle, but they lost the war," Cranwell said.
Two years ago, Cranwell was the NRA's man of the month for his design of Virginia's system of instantly checking the criminal records of would-be handgun purchasers. Last week, one NRA lobbyist called him "probably the worst enemy we could have in 12 states."
"I will no longer stand with the NRA against [restrictions on] Teflon-coated, armor-piercing bullets," Cranwell said. "I won't stand with them again against [requiring] permits for anti-tank guns. The genie is out of the bottle."
The story starts long before Cunningham introduced her bill the afternoon of the last day for submitting legislation this year. Cunningham, a Richmond Democrat, has carried gun bills before. Talk of gun control began last August at a House Democratic Caucus fund-raiser at The Homestead resort in Bath County.
Democrats were looking for issues to help them win elections in the state's increasingly dominant urban and suburban areas. With redistricting coming later this year and the shift of five or six seats from rural to urban Virginia, Democrats need positions that their candidates can use in the Republican-leaning suburbs.
Gun control - an issue that relates to the rise of urban crime and drugs - was one of the options that appealed most to Glenn Croshaw of Virginia Beach, Clifton Woodrum of Roanoke and Warren Stambaugh of Arlington, a powerful figure in the House who died of a heart attack in December. The three became the main architects for building support within the caucus for the measure.
"I still believe that a vote for a referendum would not have cost anyone their seats," Croshaw said Tuesday. "People don't vote on one issue. But I am just as sure it would have helped us in the new urban districts" that will be drawn during redistricting this year.
In the session's first days, Democrats debated the issue in private caucus. Del. Victor Thomas of Roanoke argued that the gun control issue would cause as much damage to rural members as it helped the new urban coalition. Although he is not a member of the NRA, Thomas is as close to the organization as any Virginia legislator. Wayne LaPierre, his former legislative aide, is executive director of the group, which is based in Washington, D.C. Another former aide is the NRA's coordinator for the Southeast United States.
Thomas warned Democrats of the NRA's money and its ability to sway the votes of gun owners. Thomas said rural members risked losing their seats if they voted for the bill.
But the caucus voted to back the bill, with 48 of 59 members in support.
Just hours after the vote, the NRA began an all-out effort to defeat Cunningham's bill.
Most business, professional and civic groups that lobby for defeat or compromise on legislation do so over drinks or at fancy receptions. But the NRA's approach is not to cajole or compromise.
Overnight letters arrived at the homes of NRA members across Virginia charging that the Democrats had "secretly" hatched the plan to "harass" gun owners. The NRA's Virginia lobbyist, Chuck Cunningham, publicly accused Cranwell of breaking a promise to oppose waiting periods.
The group ran full-page ads in major newspapers and aired radio commercials painting the gun control bill as "a Northern Virginia bill" and asking "true Virginians" to work for its defeat.
The gun lobby also generated calls against the measure to legislators - calls that in nearly every case far outweighed any calls of support.
"The NRA ran a good campaign based on hate and fear," Cranwell said.
During debate on the measure, Del. Leslie Byrne, D-Fairfax, called the radio commercial "the most cynical effort to divide and conquer I've ever seen. It wants to shackle us with the past. It's once again trying to reinvent the War Between the States."
Sen. Sonny Stallings, D-Virginia Beach, said the group "uses bully tactics, and it works around here." Stallings, a Vietnam combat veteran, has made sparring with the NRA his main agenda since arriving in the Senate four years ago.
Last weekend, the NRA sent targeted mail to pressure certain rural legislators.
Some of the mail backfired. Letters to Danville-area residents said Del. Whittington Clement had "privately committed to the Democratic Caucus leadership" to support the bill. Clement had never indicated he would vote for the bill.
Clement, an NRA member, received a copy of the mailing, complete with his telephone number and instructions to gun owners to tell Clement this is "the most important vote ever cast on gun control in Virginia."
If the gun measure reached the ballot, the letter said, "the anti-gun media will run a multimillion-dollar campaign supporting the bill. Gun owners will never have the money to counter with the truth. Tell him that if he votes to let your rights be decided by the media, he has violated your trust forever."
A similar letter went to NRA members in Blacksburg and Montgomery County about Del. Joan Munford - another Democrat who said from the start she would vote against the waiting period.
But for delegates who were worried from the beginning about provoking gun owners, the NRA's threatening phone calls and letters scared them away from the bill.
"There were some [caucus] members who would have voted with us if we had been close enough to win," Croshaw said. "But this was never a blood oath. We didn't force anybody to vote for it and certainly never asked any Democrat to risk re-election to support it."
At the same time the NRA was running its grass-roots campaign, it engineered a legislative coup with help from House Republicans. Legislation was introduced to extend the instant background check from handguns and semiautomatic rifles to all guns except antiques.
The background check, which generally takes about 45 seconds, provided an out for legislators who were queasy about the waiting period. "That law covering all guns makes the waiting period even more unnecessary," said Del. George Allen, R-Charlottesville.
Steve Haner, the executive director of the Republican caucus, said he believes his members - nearly all of whom voted against the waiting period - can easily explain the vote by pointing to the expansion of the record check.
Stallings and Cranwell are now on the NRA's most-wanted list. So it is ironic that they were the architects of the measure the NRA touts as its answer to gun control legislation - Virginia's first-in-the-nation instant record-check.
The NRA initially opposed the record-check bill in 1988 but eventually backed it. Now, the NRA uses the Virginia example in drawing legislation in other states to avert more-stringent gun control laws. Georgia's legislature is considering an instant record-check now.
The NRA's lobbying effort in Virginia was made more urgent because the NRA is close to striking a deal with congressional leaders for a national instant record-check law.
Since the Virginia vote, NRA lobbyists have backed off on some of their threats. Cranwell said three different pro-gun lobbyists tried to see him Tuesday morning to repair the break.
The NRA has offered to send letters and - in cases such as Clement's - to follow up with phone calls to ease the rift with rural Democrats. Several NRA sources say Chuck Cunningham, the Virginia lobbyist, may be reassigned because of his contentious relationships with Cranwell and other powerful Richmond legislators.
Stallings, meanwhile, is hinting that the House may get another opportunity to vote on a waiting period before the session is out. Sitting in the Senate are a dozen gun control bills, many of which could be amended to include a waiting period.
House leaders say the effort is over for this year. But supporters believe that their reading of the public acceptance of gun control is correct, and they expect a waiting period to pass in the next few years.
"The NRA is getting weaker," Jean Cunningham said.
"Anyone who says the NRA would have embraced extending the instant record-check to cover all guns without this bill doesn't understand the NRA," Cranwell said. "I'm not going to let this go. The voters understand that firearms, particularly handguns, are instruments of violence and concealment."
"We'll be back, and you might see this bill pass in 1992," Byrne said.
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by CNB