Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 22, 1993 TAG: 9305220035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAY TAYLOR CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
\ "I've always been very fond of him," says Alice Hartis, far and away the most controversial politician in Rockbridge County. "But right now I'd like to slap him."
The butt of her huff is Tommy Spencer, an iconoclastic Lexington lawyer and Democratic activist who has some gripes of his own. He wrote of Hartis, his longtime friend, in a May 5 letter to the chairman of the county Democratic Party: "Good liars do not make good leaders or good Democrats."
These two Democrats have worked together for years, and six months ago, they were as close as ever. But Rockbridge politics has strained their rapport, and brought into questions Hartis' credibility as a member of the Board of Supervisors.
The problems go back to December, before Hartis was on the board. Supervisor Kenneth Moore died that month, leaving a split between two older, more conservative members representing the county's status quo and two younger, more progressive members eager for change.
Voters would eventually select Moore's successor, but in the meantime the board needed to appoint an interim supervisor. There were fears that a political fight would ensue, throwing the appointment to a judge.
It was an "awkward" situation, according to Supervisor Ben Nicely. The appointee would have the incumbent's advantage in an election - the special election has been set for November - and neither side wanted to promote the other's political interests. This posed a problem.
Until Alice Hartis stepped in. The longtime Democrat said she would help out by filling the vacancy but would not run for the seat.
Hartis told each member she would stay out, and she even had several surrogates lobby the board on her behalf, offering their assurances that Hartis's word was good. One was Tommy Spencer.
"People were lobbying heavily for her," Nicely recalled recently. Hartis herself visited. "She was very sincere," said Nicely, who warned Hartis she might change her mind about seeking election to the supervisor seat. Hartis insisted.
There was but one question for Hartis when she made her formal, public appeal to the board. Nicely, a Democrat, asked it. Would she step down before the election? Yes, said Hartis.
She got the seat.
Now Hartis has taken it all back. She will run for the seat in September.
"I've changed my mind. I've changed my mind on lots of issues," she says. "I have never sworn" not to run. "I had never done any of those things . . . At the time I really had no intent on running this fall. My conscience is clear," she said.
Hartis says she'll run for selfless reasons.
"I felt sorry for [the board members] because they were going to have to break in somebody new in the fall," she said. "I realized it would be helpful to have some continuity on the board."
She conceded that no board member had asked her to provide "continuity." Asked whether any of the board supported her decision, she said, "I'm not going to answer that."
"I think the other supervisors are disappointed," Nicely said. "It always looks bad anyway - this makes us look even worse. The public perception of politics is that you're a crook anyway. In this area, people take you at your word, and when you say you're not going to do something, they assume that you're not going to do it."
"It has been a relatively small number of people who have objected," Hartis claims.
Women, Hartis says, have encouraged her most: "They are very quiet about it. It's the way women work. Mary Sue Terry is an inspiration.".
But Linda Maini, the Republican nominee for the seat, said she has heard plenty of negative comments from men and women.
"Most of the reaction I've heard," Maini said, "is that this is something we expect to see in Washington, somebody going back on their word. We don't expect to see it here."
"I'm sure that people will try to make something of it, and I suspect it will have some impact," said Ned Henneman, the local party chairman.
Hartis isn't yet assured of her party's nomination. Democrats will nominate their candidate for Moore's supervisor seat - representing the Buffalo district south and east of Lexington - on June 19.
"If [Spencer's] views are representative of the majority of the people who come to the caucus . . . Ms. Hartis probably won't get the nomination,' said Henneman. "That's the purpose of having the caucus."
Hartis, a former local-party chairman, ran for the House of Delegates in 1975 and finished third in a five-way race for two seats.
"I'm not a neophyte," she says.
In a blistering three-page letter. Spencer, who is leading the charge against Hartis among Democrats, said he extracted promises from Hartis not to run, and that he relayed these vows to the board.
"The candidate agreed to swear under oath that the candidate would not seek re-election in the special election," wrote Spencer. "The Democratic Party should not condone the unilateral decision of the candidate to breach this commitment because of a change of heart or mind."
Others are considering running for the Democratic nomination, and several independents are interested.
Before the nominating process, Hartis will be required to sign a pledge to support no candidate but the party's for the seat. If she loses in the caucus, Nicely asks: "Does she decide, `Hey, I want this job, should I run as an independent?' She already said she wouldn't run."
Says Hartis: "I'm going to be a Democrat forever."
If Hartis wins the Democratic nomination, Republicans will be ready to exploit the intraparty spat. Roger Dean, the Lexington-Rockbridge GOP chairman, said candidate Maini won't raise the issue, but others will.
"I expect the issue to be raised whenever Alice Hartis makes a commitment, and the comment will be, `You made a commitment last year and you broke it.' That may come from others in the community," said Dean. "Like me."
by CNB