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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210439
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ANTI-CONSUMERS/ LEGISLATORS PAY BACK THE BUILDERS

STATE LEGISLATORS, it's sometimes said, have never met a special-interest group they don't like, at least not any that have cash ready to hand around. This week, they went to pains to demonstrate their fondness for Virginia's building industry.

By whopping majorities - 82-17 in the House of Delegates and 36-2 in the Senate - lawmakers passed a bill that wipes aside a regulation builders found burdensome.

The rule was approved just last month by the Board of Contractors. It requires contractors, in advance of beginning a job, to give customers a sheet of simple information about consumers' rights. The regulation was issued in response to a record 1,143 complaints about contractors received by the board last year.

Del. Chip Woodrum, D-Roanoke, who handled the bill in the House for the building industry, claimed that such a rule was just too complex for small contractors who work "out of a tool kit, out of the back of the truck."

Come on, Chip. Since when is handing out one piece of paper that complex? And what of the complications for homeowners, especially the elderly, who in some cases have been ripped off by disreputable contractors in part because the homeowners were unaware of laws meant to protect them?

Could it be, as Williamsburg Del. George Grayson suggested in arguing against the bill, that some contractors might not want consumers to know their rights? (They have, for example, the right to change their minds and cancel a home-improvement contract within three days after signing it.)

House members who voted for the bill to abolish this modest requirement on home-contractors reportedly received $276,000 in contributions from building and development interests during their 1989 campaigns.

In contrast, the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council - the only organization that fought against the bill's passage - does not give campaign contributions.

The bill is blatant pandering to a special-interest group that has given generously to legislators. Playing Mr. Fixit for the building industry, the General Assembly has turned its back on consumers' interests. Virginians ought to raise the roof.

by CNB