DEMOCRATIC CHAIRWOMAN REMOVED

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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993                   TAG: 9302140175
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short
DEMOCRATIC CHAIRWOMAN REMOVED
The state Democratic Party's central committee on Saturday voted to oust a party official who ran for the state Senate as an independent.
"If you want to be the second-ranked party official in the state, you can't oppose our nominee," party Chairman Paul Goldman said.
Gov. Douglas Wilder had urged the party in December last year to abandon its attempt to dismiss Jessie Rattley as its first vice chairwoman.
But Goldman said Rattley violated party rules when she dropped out of the Democratic primary race to run as an independent against the party nominee, Del. Henry Maxwell.
Maxwell won the four-way race in the Dec. 15 special election to fill state Sen. Bobby Scott's seat. Scott was elected Nov. 3 to the House of Representatives.
"Ms. Rattley really has no one to blame but herself," Goldman said. "I contacted her before she ran against a party nominee . . . explaining that if she persisted, that the party had the authority to remove her."
He said party officials had tried to contact her, but she did not respond. "She has refused every offer to come before the Democratic Party and explain her actions," Goldman said.
Rattley, a former mayor of Newport News, has said she had no choice but to file as an independent because she was not given enough notice of the Democratic nomination contest.
She did not immediately return a telephone call Saturday.
The party's steering committee recommended her ouster on Dec. 19, 1992.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB