ROANOKE TIMES

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

DATE: THURSDAY, March 4, 1993                   TAG: 9303040412
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


WHY DO THESE PEOPLE SERVE?

THE TWO things I liked best about serving in the General Assembly were the opening and closing days. The first because everybody was fresh and full of hope; the last because the customary confusion of tidying up required unremitting vigilance that made you feel you had done an honest day's work.

After a separation of 10 years, I went back for the first time to see this year's session close out. Maybe it was just me, believing so strongly that you should never revisit the self or passions of former days, but things seemed remarkably sedate. But hasn't every "old boy" said the same thing?

And the changes weren't only atmospheric. Out of 40 state senators, only 14 remained from 10 years ago. In the House of Delegates, there had been less turnover, with 43 members surviving from that 1983 session. And one member there when I first arrived, Del. Joe Johnson, D-Abington, had done that rare thing of serving in one era (1966-70) and returning to serve another. Interrupted service was relatively common in the Virginia assemblies of past centuries, but infrequent in the modern era of political careerism.

But the state legislature remains the base on which most Virginia political careers are built. Still, many are called but few are chosen. The odds against rising from the assembly to higher office are daunting: roughly 10-to-1 against. Familiar names like Godwin, Dalton, Coleman, Baliles, Wilder and Terry have risen from the legislature to statewide office, but Holton, Warner, Robb and Beyer came from the outside and went straight to the head of the class.

Among the 11 members of the U.S. House from Virginia, six are former members of the General Assembly. Only Frank Wolf in the 10th and L.F. Payne in the 5th could be said to have entered Congress without a protracted political apprenticeship.

Twelve of those now serving in the assembly have been turned back in bids for higher office. With the possible exception of Sen. Joe Benedetti, R-Richmond, who ran a hopeless race for attorney general in 1989 and would be well placed to win a seat in Congress should 7th District Rep. Tom Bliley decide to quit, the others seem reconciled to completing their public service where they are and seem happy to be still in the arena.

The state Senate, now divided between 22 Democrats and 18 Republicans, won't be on the ballot in 1993. All 100 seats in the House of Delegates will be filled by voters this November, but at this point there's little reason to expect any great change in House membership.

Two reasons for the lack of activity in House contests might be the adoption of single-member districts in 1982 and the 1991 reapportionment that gave blacks a number of "reserved" seats. With incumbent Democrats in most cases able to design their own districts, large chunks of the state have been placed off limits for effective two-party competition.

Republicans would have to hold all 41 of their present seats and gain 10 to capture a majority in the House. That appears next to impossible in 1993.

Thus far, only two members of the House have declared for retirement. A third, Del. Steve Agee, R-Salem, isn't seeking re-election to pursue the Republican nomination for attorney general. One of the assembly's most senior and effective Republicans, Del. Clinton Miller of Shenandoah, will apparently go the other way, holding on to his House seat while mounting a long-shot bid for the GOP nomination for governor.

Considering the rough buffetings of politics, sensitive souls ask why people subject themselves to it. A number of newer members kindly introduced themselves and I always asked how they liked it. Though few had made much of a mark thus far, the response, without exception, was an enthusiastic "great." They were hooked.

Overawed by federal power and functioning mainly as a conduit to fund constantly expanding fixed costs, the scope for acts of true political distinction in Richmond are rare now. Even the "great" issues with which they grapple, such as the handgun-of-the-month bill, are largely in the realm of shadow-boxing. There's still the scent of power in that place, but the maintenance of that power consists of watering things down and taking exceedingly small bites of the apple.

Still, the trappings are right. The Capitol itself is a wonderful building, still perfect after 200 years. And Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and Lee walked the same corridors and stood on the same portico looking down at the James. So, forget for a moment that Virginia hasn't produced a world-class political figure in well over a century; we're still the Old Dominion.

Even the new House speaker, Tom Moss of Norfolk, has gained in stature since ascending to the purple. In the long years of his prior service, Moss was conspicuous for low cunning, bullyragging and blind partisanship. But even Republicans now praise his conduct of the chair, telling me he represents an improvement. And Lt. Gov. Don Beyer seemed thoroughly at home presiding over the Senate with both grace and firmness.

Most will tell you they entered politics "to make a difference." But I believe that most came this way to test themselves in a hard school: to get on while adding a bit of spice. Most who spend any time there come to know the humbling truth in Eliot's line, "Footfalls echo in the memory . . . Towards the door we never opened." If there's little that could be called greatness in that place, there is also very little that is squalid and hurtful. In the main, Virginia legislators are sober realists. When you assess conditions elsewhere, that's hardly a mortal sin.

Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.



by Archana Subramaniam by CNB