ETHICS BILL GETS SCALED BACK SPENDING CAP LIKELY TO PASS IN VOTE TODAY

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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993                   TAG: 9302070206
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
ETHICS BILL GETS SCALED BACK SPENDING CAP LIKELY TO PASS IN VOTE TODAY
The House of Delegates on Saturday positioned itself to break new ground in government ethics reform, but with trowels instead of shovels.
Members scaled down a measure capping campaign contributions and blocked an effort to make a modest lobbying reform bill into a major policy rewrite. Still, both measures received preliminary approval, paving the way for a virtually assured yes vote today.
The campaign spending cap as proposed by Del. Glenn Croshaw, D-Virginia Beach, would have meant that individuals and corporations could give no more than $1,000 to a candidate per election cycle. Political action committees would be held to $2,500 per election cycle.
A primary or nominating caucus would qualify as one cycle, the general election as another.
The caps would apply only to General Assembly races. Republican delegates tried on Saturday to impose $3,000 individual caps and $5,000 PAC caps on statewide races - governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general - but House Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, blocked the attempt. Moss made a technical ruling that the change was impermissible because it went beyond the scope of the original bill.
Three other changes mauled Croshaw's proposal:
Del. Ford Quillen, D-Scott, won approval for putting corporations in the same category as PACs, raising their allowed contributions to $2,500.
Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, then added limited partnerships, partnership associations and limited liability companies to the upper spending limit.
Finally, Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Carroll, won approval to delay the effective date of the bill to July 1, 1994. The change also would require the General Assembly to reenact the measure next year.
Croshaw didn't fight the changes, reasoning that they would increase the bill's odds of getting through the Senate.
The Senate is commissioning a study of ethics issues, and so far this session has put off acting on most ethics bills by moving them into the study.
Del. George Grayson, D-James City, worked Saturday to avoid that fate by keeping his lobby reform bill simple.
Grayson's bill would require lobbyists to report money they spend to influence lawmakers year-round. Currently, they must disclose expenses only for the period between Nov. 15 and 60 days after the General Assembly session concludes.
Reform-minded Democrats and Republicans alike tried to amend Grayson's bill to make it go even farther: to include public employees among those who must register as lobbyists, to make lobbyists file reports every 60 days, to regulate the lobbying of agencies and officers appointed by the governor and to increase the penalties for violations.
But Grayson cautioned that such broad reform surely would be sidetracked by the Senate into the study commission.
"It is better for us to err on the side of simplicity," Grayson said. His proposal "may not be the battleship proposed by [other delegates], neither is it a rowboat; rather it is a sleek, clean cruiser that I believe can successfully navigate the shoals of both legislative bodies," he said.
Both his and Croshaw's bills easily cleared a preliminary voice vote, making the final vote scheduled today almost a formality. The Senate will take up the measures this week. A Republican package of ethics reform measures was being considered Saturday night in the House Privileges and Elections committee, but few were expected to survive.
Also on Saturday, the House Courts of Justice Committee heard testimony on two abortion bills. One would require parents to be notified when an unmarried minor seeks an abortion. The other outlines what a doctor must do to obtain "informed consent" and imposes a 24-hour waiting period between consent and the abortion.
The parental-notification bill by Del. Robert Marshall, R-Manassas, would require that the parents of both the pregnant girl and the boy identified as the father to be notified.
Eileen Roberts, director of Mothers Against Minors' Abortions, said she and her husband had to pay $27,000 in medical bills after their teen-age daughter had an abortion that they were not told about beforehand.
But Judy Castleman of the National Abortion Rights Action League said only 2 percent of pregnant minors do not tell an adult before they seek an abortion.
Candace Banks, representing Women Exploited by Abortion, spoke in favor of Del. Stephen Martin's informed-consent bill. "Free and informed consent is fundamental to human dignity," she said.
Sara Genthner of Richmond argued that women with unwanted pregnancies begin pondering their options from the day they learn they are pregnant, so a 24-hour waiting period is unnecessary. She said the bill by Martin, R-Chesterfield, is "an insult to the intelligence of women who can make a fully informed decision."
Meanwhile, the House Committee on the Chesapeake and Its Tributaries voted 12-1 to kill a bill that would have repealed a law requiring a license for recreational saltwater fishing.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB