Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993 TAG: 9301100022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
TURBULENT SESSION EXPECTED
Legislators converging in Richmond this week for the 1993 General Assembly are flinching at the spectacle of the ongoing war between Gov. Douglas Wilder and Attorney General Mary Sue Terry and looking for cover from the fallout it could shower on their 46-day session."When two brothers are fighting, you don't get between them," said House Speaker Tom Moss, D-Norfolk.
"You're going to see the dark side of human nature and politics," said Del. Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke. "I'd recommend people bring helmets and trenching tools in order to build themselves foxholes."
The Wilder/Terry disagreement over operations at the Virginia Retirement System has spilled into courtrooms and become a test of wills and political power. Wilder now says he has no plans to support fellow Democrat Terry in her bid this fall to succeed him.
Moss and other Democratic House leaders predict Terry, a former delegate, will get kinder treatment than Wilder from the legislature.
"All governors lose a certain amount of influence in the latter part of their term as lame ducks," Moss said.
Wilder, who has had a stormy history with the legislature, has hurt himself most recently by alienating members of the black caucus, Moss said. Ten days ago, the governor charged that the black lawmakers have inadequately represented the special concerns of their minority constituents.
House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, said he expects "an extremely acrimonious" six weeks in Richmond.
The gubernatorial election will bring political wrangling from both Democrats and Republicans, he said. And with the 100-member House up for re-election this fall, the daily calendar will be filled with bills aimed at individual re-election campaigns.
Cranwell said the Wilder-Terry feud, partisanship and House elections will make for "a lot of grumpy people." He predicted the session will leave unaddressed such pressing, long-range issues as disparities in aid to schools and the state's oversized prison population.
Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, argued that Wilder and Terry will tone down their feud in the coming months - "They're both too smart for that," he said - but he expects the legislature will be under pressure from both to pass their favored measures.
Virginia Commonwealth University political scientist Robert Holsworth agreed. Terry has held her own in the battle with Wilder, he said, but it would be a mistake for her to expand the fight.
"The danger for Mary Sue is if she continues the rivalry in such a way that it shifts public perception to thinking that she was simply involved in another mud-wrestling match like the Democrats have gotten themselves involved in for the last few years," Holsworth said.
Wilder "can't back down very easily," Holsworth added. "He and his advisers have apparently made the decision that it is really in his best interests to damage Mary Sue Terry to maintain his position within the Democratic Party. The danger is in trying and failing and so far, Mary Sue has emerged relatively unscathed."
Wilder's combativeness, coupled with his high-stakes failures - a run for president, a proposed tax on hospitals and doctors, and plans to build a stadium for the Washington Redskins in Alexandria - has masked his successful management of the $2.2 billion budget shortfall that confronted him at the outset of his term, Holsworth said.
Although the drop in revenues has stopped, a still-sluggish economy will limit adjustments legislators can make in the middle of the two-year budget cycle. The biggest money issue is likely to revolve around whether teachers can persuade the legislature to extend to them the 2 percent raise Wilder wants to give state workers.
Terry, a zealous advocate for her annual legislative package, can be expected to increase her traditionally intense pressure on the General Assembly, where both houses are ruled by Democrats. Most of her initiatives have yet to be announced, but on the issue that has divided her and Wilder - operations of the Virginia Retirement System - Terry has vowed to push for some modest reforms.
She wants, for example, to include the system and its real estate subsidiary under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and apply some conflict-of-interest standards to board members. A host of deeper reforms of VRS operations Terry has criticized are likely to wind up in a legislative study, assembly leaders say.
Besides Wilder, Terry will face challenges from the General Assembly's Republicans and possibly from Secretary of Education James Dyke, a close ally of Wilder. Dyke has criticized Terry for failing to address issues and says he is still considering a challenge to her for the nomination.
A Dyke candidacy remains a long shot, however. Dyke is widely viewed as a battering ram for Wilder, although both men deny it. And a majority of black legislators have indicated their support for Terry tremains unshaken.
Some Democrats and Republicans speculate that Terry might resign as attorney general before the session ends to permit her allies in the legislature, rather than Wilder, to name her interim successor.
The issue that appears likely to dominate the session - gun control - offers some Terry and Wilder common ground.
The governor has begun a full-throttle lobbying campaign for gun restrictions, particularly a one-per-month limit on handgun purchases. He was largely silent on a similar proposal last year.
\ Monday: will be no budget shortfall to fuss over in 1993, but tight finances still are expected to be focal points during the assembly session that begins Wednesday.