Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991 TAG: 9102070438
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tensions seem to be growing between the GOP organization's governing central committee and the joint caucus of Republican state legislators.
For several years, they have coexisted, though not altogether peacefully, and even shared facilities at the GOP headquarters in Richmond. But Republican legislators - the people with experience in winning elections - have become increasingly impatient with leaders of the party apparatus. The latter often seem more intent on internal strife and fanciful ideology than on making election strides.
When Pat McSweeney, head of the party's policy committee, says things like: "I'd rather have 20 principled Republicans than 140 legislators who say they are Republican," is it any wonder the lawmakers blanch? Any wonder that Andy Guest, minority leader in the House of Delegates, says: "The party is at the point that it's an embarrassment"?
Early this year, the caucus moved out of the party's headquarters into offices of its own. The reason given was that it needed to be closer to the Capitol, but the move underscores widening splits.
Differences between legislators and the party organization seem almost to have eclipsed the bitter struggles between moderates and fundamentalists that in past years divided the party. But the latest split also reflects public-policy disputes. Examples:
The caucus supports campaign-reform legislation to force political parties to report contributions that in the past have been passed under the table to candidates without the public being the wiser. The party establishment opposes this reform.
GOP lawmakers have pushed for term limitations for state and federal legislators, believing this would help break the Democrats' hold on the General Assembly and the Congress. The central committee, meeting in Richmond last weekend, opposed the idea.
Seven of 10 Republican senators signed on as co-sponsors of a proposed $465 million general-obligation bond issue to build long-delayed capital projects at Virginia colleges and universities. The central committee opposed it, saying such projects should be financed by state lottery proceeds.
(Ding, ding. Wake-up time, folks. The lottery proceeds have been confiscated by the governor to balance the state budget, and there's little expectation they'll become available for anything but state operating expenses in the near future.)
Reasonable people can reasonably disagree, and no one is suggesting that Republicans march lock-step on every issue. But the lopsidedness of Virginia's two-party system isn't likely to be cured as long as the GOP has such an easier time with division than with multiplication.
by CNB