Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992 TAG: 9203070247
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Oh, no, he's BACK.
To legislators who had publicly and privately criticized the governor's preoccupation with the national campaign, Wilder's decision was a mixed blessing. They got what they asked for, but did they really want it?
The session that ends today has seen the return of the old Wilder - unpredictable, obstinate, picking fights with allies, striking convenient alliances with enemies and always playing the renegade.
Outside Capitol Square, Wilder has returned to Virginia headlines - pressing his agenda through the media. But in the General Assembly, he has endured a bruising year and nearly all his high-profile initiatives have been summarily dismissed.
"In terms of his own time and priorities, the session has to be a failure," said Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University. "He was rescued from political irrelevance by the inability of the House and Senate to agree on bonds."
Wilder's late pressure on House and Senate leaders to pass a measure for long-term debt slightly rehabilitated an otherwise disastrous year.
After weeks of public stumping and private arm-twisting, he couldn't even get a House floor vote for his $68 million tax on medical providers. The assembly delayed his plan to consolidate environmental agencies.
Faced with the likelihood that the legislature would do it anyway, Wilder retreated from repeal of the sales tax on non-prescription drugs, instead spending that money on education in poor areas. Repeal of the tax two years ago was one of the crowning achievements of Wilder's term.
Many of Wilder's fellow Democrats complained that he spent the session giving confusing and conflicting signs of his priorities and intent.
"It's well accepted that to be a good parent you have to send consistent signals to your child," said Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville. "We've gotten very mixed signals from the governor."
Del. William Robinson, D-Norfolk, one of Wilder's staunchest allies in the legislature, admits that "it's probably a fair complaint" to say Wilder's agenda has been difficult to read.
"Doug's never revealed much. He doesn't tell you things he doesn't think you have to know. That's his style," Robinson said.
Republicans, who sometimes benefited from the bewilderment of the Democratic majority this session, are only slightly kinder to Wilder.
"If you ask anybody around here what was the governor's agenda, I don't think they could tell you," said Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake. "What was his big push? He tried to make up a hole in the budget with a tax on hospitals. That's very anemic when you think about strategic priorities like education, transportation, welfare reform, health care."
Wilder's style of keeping even his legislative allies in the dark has alienated Democrats who already were wary of a governor who had been a liability in their re-election campaigns.
House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Vinton - who has been a steadfast lieutenant of Democratic chief executives for the past decade - felt the sting when he and Wilder disagreed over whether money for road building and to help poor schools should be included in a borrow-and-tax plan for construction at colleges, parks and mental health facilities.
After giving Cranwell private assurances he did not oppose the plan, Wilder announced he would veto it. The bill died in the Senate, leading to a deadlock on other bond measures.
Then, in a testy meeting with legislative leaders, Cranwell gave Wilder a letter spelling out his support for Wilder's past initiatives and suggesting that if Wilder wanted to insist he help pass another bond bill, Cranwell would resign as majority leader.
"I don't know what the plan is from day to day," Cranwell said last week.
As Wilder pressed the fight by issuing a news release claiming he would win passage of the bonds with the backing of Republicans and black legislators, House Speaker Thomas Moss exploded in frustration, suggesting that Wilder's hurt pride over the medical tax was prompting a heavy-handed approach.
"Why does he do things like this?" Moss complained. "Why does he come out with a [health] provider tax and not tell anybody he's going to do it and then call you a traitor if you vote against it? He operates differently from the other governors I've worked under."
Robinson said that despite the turmoil, the governor ultimately salvaged his bond program. And Wilder eventually softened his stand against transportation borrowing and extra money for poor schools, as the legislature passed measures for both in the final days of the session.
But even his friends can't find a silver lining in the defeat of Wilder's biggest initiative of the year - his plan to tax hospitals, doctors and nursing homes.
Although Wilder and his top aides repeatedly predicted they could beat the powerful hospital and medical lobbies and win the tax, he said this week he never believed it.
"I never expected it to pass," he said. "But it has helped to fasten a degree of attention" on rising medical costs. "People now everywhere are saying, `Somebody do something.' "
Legislators have a far different view of Wilder's hospital offensive.
"He tried an end run around the legislature on the provider tax, taking his case to the media," said Sen. Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County.
"But I think now, if you look at the major initiatives of the session, they either started with or the major effort to bring them to fruition came from the legislature."
Wilder's office released a summary late this week of legislative accomplishments, listing dozens of minor measures that Wilder claims as part of his agenda. In a brief interview, the governor characterized his year as a success:
"What you'll find is that no one questions whether he's here and in charge. The answer is yes, he's at home and he's in charge."
by CNB