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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210438
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EMICK PROPOSAL/ MURDERERS, LAWMAKERS, AND SO FORTH

NO FOOLING, says Fincastle's maverick senator, "Buzz" Emick: If the General Assembly is going to revoke driving privileges to punish drug offenders it might as well use that whip against other culprits, including the legislature's own rapscallions.

"Don't laugh this amendment off the floor," Emick urged his Senate colleagues Tuesday as he proposed adding to the hit list of the Division of Motor Vehicles:

Murderers, if they commit the crime in Richmond, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the country.

Those who write bad checks, if they commit the offense in a county store operated as a sole proprietorship.

The member of either the House of Delegates or Senate who has the highest travel expenses for any given year (a ranking that last year, coincidentally, went to Emick).

At issue was the Wilder administration's "use-and-lose" measure that requires drug offenders to be stripped of their driver's licenses for six months. Emick has long opposed such bills. He argues they are just gestures by politicians and an attempt to assure the public that something is being done about problems such as as illegal drugs when not near enough is being done.

If the assembly wants to do that for drug offenses, Emick says it should take on other societal sins as well. He apparently gives little credit to the argument that drug offenders probably make worse and more dangerous drivers than, say, forgers. In any case, leave it to Emick to drive home a point cleverly and humorously.

The Senate didn't laugh Emick's amendment off the floor; it passed it on a voice vote and then approved the bill, 22-12. The House, we predict, won't laugh either. It will see the Emick amendment for what it is - an attempt, heh heh, to kill the bill.

by CNB