Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992 TAG: 9201080179
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY ROB EURE AND GREG SCHNEIDER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
POLITICAL SPARKS WILL FLY
The General Assembly has a new look - not just new faces, but some old faces with powerful new roles.When the legislature convenes at noon today, Senate Republicans will be closer to parity with Democrats than they have been before in modern times.
The House of Delegates will have new leadership in both parties for the first time in a decade, and Hampton Roads will claim the most powerful positions in both chambers.
"It's going to be a fun session," said Sen. Joseph Benedetti, R-Richmond.
And the fun starts today: Benedetti, the new leader of 18 Republican senators - up from 10 last year - plans an assault on the way Democrats play party politics with committee assignments.
The skirmish will be a warm-up for Gov. Douglas Wilder's State of the Commonwealth speech to be delivered at 7 and broadcast statewide (ABC, Channel 13, WSET; CBS, Channel 7, WDBJ; NBC, Channel 10, WSLS; and PBS, Channel 15).
"If [the Democrats] want to work together, we're going to work together," said Del. Vance Wilkins of Amherst, the new Republican leader in the House. "If they want to go to war, then we'll fight."
As Norfolk Del. Thomas Moss begins his first term as Speaker of the House, he realizes a long-held personal ambition and consolidates the clout of southeastern Virginia. Moss and Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton will control the flow of legislation in both chambers and exert considerable influence over the fate of many measures.
Moss replaces A.L. Philpott of Bassett, who died in September. He has promised to be fair to rural interests as speaker, but his advance marks the end of a time when senior rural legislators virtually controlled the statehouse.
A 25-year veteran of the House, Moss has a reputation as a tough partisan and keen wit - but he says he intends to run the House with fairness and more decorum. The most influential decisions he will make this year will come in the next several days, when he doles out committee assignments for all 100 members.
"Wilkins and Moss will be interesting to watch," said Steve Haner, executive director of the Republican Caucus. "There's some chemistry there" from past battles between the two.
At the same time, rural areas have not lost all their power in Richmond. Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, Moss's rival for the speaker's chair, becomes House majority leader. In the Senate, Sen. Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount is the new Democratic Caucus chairman and Frank Nolen of Augusta becomes assistant majority leader.
The biggest change in leadership comes at the committee level, where at least 13 of the 31 standing House and Senate committees will have new chairmen. Those positions, held by senior Democrats in both chambers, can influence bills by keeping unpopular or sensitive measures bottled up in committee.
Among the more powerful committees with new chairmen will be panels that consider education issues in both the House and Senate; the House Courts of Justice Committee, the busiest in the legislature and repository of all crime bills; and the Senate panel that hears bills on liquor laws, prisons and welfare.
The bottom line is that getting things done in the assembly always comes down to numbers, and the numbers are piling up in new ways this year.
Suddenly the Senate is on the verge of partisan parity; because of last November's elections, 18 of the 40 senators are Republicans.
That means Republicans have only to sway three Democrats to win votes on the floor of the Senate. "We think the Senate is going to be considerably more conservative than it has been in the past," said Benedetti.
He predicts a busy session for Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer who votes only to break a Senate tie.
The one way Republicans still figure to come up short is on committee assignments. Democrats still control who goes on what committee, and the committees control what legislation gets heard.
That's why Benedetti promises a fight today, the first day of the session.
The Republicans are going to wage a procedural battle to get more of their number on committees; Senate rules require proportional representation.
But it's not just the number of Republicans that promises fireworks in this session; it's their personalities as well.
GOP leaders are talking up Ken Stolle of Virginia Beach and Thomas Norment in the Senate, and Robert Nelms of Suffolk in the House.
Riding high on what they see as an unprecedented voter mandate for new government, voices like those are likely to dodge Assembly traditions of freshman restraint and go straight for the headlines.
Said Wilkins, the House minority leader: "These guys . . . are not going to be content to sit on the back row."