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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993                   TAG: 9308250339
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A CITY OFFICE WITHOUT A VIEW

The answers, in order of the questions, may be: (a) nothing; (b) Fielder isn't Anderson; and (c) all three are current or former candidates for Roanoke revenue commissioner, a post that the city electorate will fill in November.

The complicated story, full of political intrigue, offers one more argument against having the post - and perhaps the other "constitutional offices": treasurer, commonwealth's attorney, sheriff, court clerk - filled by the voters.

Four years ago, Anderson, an assistant in the city treasurer's office, ran for revenue commissioner. He lost to the popular incumbent (and only Republican among the city's constitutional officers), Jerome Howard. Howard, though, is retiring this year. Anderson had impressed people; he was the choice of Democratic Party leaders for the nomination, with no GOP opponent in sight.

But at the Democrats' mass meeting, Fielder - an employee of the Roanoke County revenue commissioner's office, though a resident of the city - narrowly won the nomination, thanks in part to solid support from unionists.

What, you might well ask, does the commissioner of revenue's race have to do with labor issues? Nothing, except that the unions - nervous about their declining economic clout, anxious about local hiring on the Hotel Roanoke project, and irritated by City Council's refusal to put Mayor David Bowers on the committee overseeing the project - evidently wanted to send a message.

Last week, after Republicans failed to come up with a candidate for the commissioner of revenue's race, City Council veteran Musser announced he would forsake his Democratic Party ties and run against Fielder as an independent.

There should, Musser said, be competition for the job. As a principle, that's fine. As an explanation, it's incomplete: Had Anderson rather than Fielder won the nomination, Musser wouldn't be bolting the party.

Of course, some Democrats believe Musser already bolted the party when he refused to endorse David Bowers' mayoral candidacy after Bowers beat him for the nomination.

In any case, the maneuvering underscores a lack of partisan meaning. Can anyone reasonably argue that there is such a thing as a Democratic - or Republican or independent - perspective on the issues surrounding, and the policies pursued by, a commissioner of revenue?

Should local constitutional offices, which essentially are for the carrying out of policy rather than the making of it, be appointive rather than elective?

One argument for it is that such positions require technical expertise that cannot be judged well by political campaigns. Another argument is that, when such offices are elective, the pool of qualified applicants is further and unnecessarily restricted by residency requirements.

In Roanoke, the twists and turns in the contest for commissioner of revenue suggest a third reason for making the offices appointive: When they're elective, the choice is apt to get enmeshed in considerations highly relevant to power and politics but utterly irrelevant to the job.

Keywords:
POLITICS