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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104121024
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

WILDER ENCOURAGES TSONGAS TO MAKE BID FOR PRESIDENCY

"I'm not a candidate. I like my job," Wilder told the Society of Professional Journalists Thursday night.

Wilder said he recently talked to Tsongas, who is one of the first Democrats to indicate he will run for president next year.

"I've encouraged him to run," Wilder said during a question-and-answer session. "He encouraged me to do something similar to that."

Wilder said he allowed supporters to form a presidential exploratory committee for him last month because they were having trouble raising money for his campaign to encourage presidential candidates to be fiscally responsible.

"They found great difficulty, they said, not to identify who one of those people could be," Wilder said.

Wilder said he did not send Virginia Democratic Chairman Paul Goldman and other political advisers to Iowa this week.

"I had no idea until I read in yesterday's paper that they were there," Wilder said. But the governor said he had already received their report on voter sentiment in Iowa, which holds the first presidential caucus.

"They find no great strength of support for anybody, including Doug Wilder," he said.

In his speech, Wilder criticized state legislators who recently rebuked him on the budget and redistricting.

Wilder directed most of his wrath at the state Senate, which rejected his budget amendments last week and this week passed a Senate redistricting plan that creates two fewer black-majority districts than Wilder wants.

"Some in the assembly - particularly the Senate - would do well to ask themselves if their actions reflect the representation to which the people are entitled," Wilder said.

The 140 General Assembly members, who are all up for re-election in November, "will have to answer for their votes against proposals to further cut wasteful spending in state government," Wilder said.

He said the Senate's rejection of the budget amendments means that public schools will not get an additional $15 million in state funding that Wilder proposed.

The assembly's refusal to pass a Senate redistricting plan that will survive scrutiny under the Voting Rights Act means that taxpayers will have to pay for another costly special session of the General Assembly, he said.

Keywords:
POLITICS