Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992 TAG: 9203190421
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The will to power of the Virginia Democratic Party was founded upon the state's revolt against defeat in the Civil War and the Reconstruction regime imposed in its aftermath. These were associated with Abe Lincoln and the Republican Party, and the attitude of most white Virginians could be summed up in the phrase "damn Yankees."
When Carter Glass and his cohorts rammed through the revised Virginia Constitution in 1902 they virtually eliminated the black vote upon which Republicans had depended, and those of many poor whites as well. The stage was set for a one-party hegemony of the property-owning class that endured for almost 70 years. No black sat as a member of the General Assembly until 1968, and there were periods when Republicans held fewer than 10 seats out of 140 in the legislature.
While there were a few western counties in which Republicans regularly elected local officials, the monolith of Democratic power was imposing. Even when Republicans held the governorship, from 1969 to 1982, Democrats controlled just about everything else.
Before 1968, Democrats dealt with what few Republicans voters had the temerity to elect by appointing them to committees that never met and by giving their bills the customary shad treatment. Even when that began to change, GOP members were made to understand that their committee assignments (and bills) depended upon good behavior and the benevolence of Democratic power.
Well, that's ancient history now. While there are still a few conservative Democrats in the legislature - and a handful of liberal Republicans - the two parties in Richmond now approximate their national reputations. And with the old confusion of party identity cleared up, the GOP has prospered. There are now 41 Republicans in the 100-member House and 18 in the 40-member Senate. From "gimme a break," the Republican rallying cry has now become "when they divide, we decide."
While Democratic confidence in the unbroken continuity of their power has been shaken, Republicans were unable to draw sharp distinctions on major elements of state policy beyond elected school boards and parental notification of abortions for minors.
A claque of liberal Democrats led by Del. David Brickley had fought for years to allow the popular election of school boards, but it was the Republican adoption of this issue that finally put it across in the state Senate. Here was truly a case of politics making strange bedfellows. The liberals saw elected boards as a way of empowering educators while conservatives saw it as a way for the people to take back the schools from professional educators.
Parental notification is one of those great symbolic issues that Americans love to debate because it isn't likely to have much impact in the real world. But passage of the bill, such as it is, must stand as the most important issue on which the virtual unanimity of GOP support made the difference. On the key vote in the state Senate, only one Republican defected. Seventeen GOP senators were joined by only six Democrats to carry the day for requiring parents to be notified of an impending abortion. That's notification, mind you, not consent, and a girl can petition a judge to allow even that to be waived.
While Republicans have made a lot of noise about the rapid growth in state spending under Democratic governors these past 10 years, they put forth no coherent alternative on the large issues of new taxes and borrowings at the 1992 session. And when such issues were being considered, the GOP was of two minds.
When House Majority Leader Dick Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, cobbled together a $1.2 billion debt package to be financed by an increase in the state sales tax, he found the support of almost a third of House Republicans. And a strong majority of Republican legislators supported the governor's $613 million bond issue from start to finish.
Even on the increase in the state income tax that narrowly passed the Senate, the margin of victory was found in the affirmative votes of three Republican senators. And most GOP legislators supported the non-controversial questions of imposing the sales tax on purchases at state ABC stores and rescinding repeal of the sales tax on non-prescription drugs which was to take effect July 1.
Republicans came close to achieving one of their great issues of the '91 campaign when state Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Franklin County, offered an amendment to a House bill reducing the automatic deduction from income-tax liability for those over 65 from $12,000 to $6,000, but excluding Social Security benefits in making the calculation. The effect of this would have been a tax break worth as much as $650 to a couple drawing maximum, separate Social Security benefits. Ironically, it could also have meant a tax increase for some seniors. In a half-cocked fashion, this would have addressed the frequent Republican claim that Democrats had voted to tax Social Security benefits and they cackled with glee when the Senate adopted overwhelmingly Goode's amendment.
It was reported in error in this space last week that the measure had passed. But when the bill came back to the House for concurrence, Del. Cranwell, its chief patron, moved successfully that it be rereferred (killed) to committee rather than face the certainty of passage that would have reduced state revenues by many millions. It's a complex issue that won't go away.
The Republicans blew out of Richmond a bit less impressed with themselves than when they blew in. When united, they surely held the balance of power. But they also proved anew the old saw that all politics is local. On the stump they had inveighed against big government and high taxes. But when forced to choose between spending and cutting, they had many ideas on the first and very few on the second.
When projects and programs were put on the table, they understood only too well the political price that would have to be paid at home for purity. And the 59 GOP legislators have yet to throw up a leader who can duke it out on even terms with the likes of Cranwell and Sen. Hunter Andrews while still commanding the respect of partisans and neutrals alike. In sum, those 59 Republican delegates and senators have shown their mettle, but aren't yet a match for the will to power that those on the other side still count as a birthright.
Ray L. Garland is a columnist for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB