Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 28, 1993 TAG: 9402180006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This is written before the election and will not be published by some newspapers until after the results are in. This period of limbo seems appropriate for a pre-mortem on the sound and fury that will serve equally as a post-mortem.
A Democrat supporting Mary Sue Terry made an observation that hadn't occurred to me. Terry, he said, has presented the most liberal image ever offered by a Virginia Democrat running for governor. That seems on target.
Terry began this campaign by reversing a position taken as recently as January, and came out for a five-day waiting period to purchase a handgun. But in the campaign's closing days, that was downgraded in favor of attacking Republicans on abortion and vouchers good for instruction in private secondary schools. We have had state vouchers for Virginia residents attending private colleges since the '70s.
As a member of the House of Delegates, Terry favored parental notification in the case of young girls seeking abortions and other minor restrictions on abortions. She now has become the first statewide candidate to endorse legislation that would eliminate virtually all restrictions on abortions.
Now for a reality check. There's virtually no chance the General Assembly would enact Terry's five-day waiting period for guns. Take the state Senate, which isn't on the ballot this year. Now divided between 22 Democrats and 18 Republicans, a Gov. Terry would have to get almost all Democrats aboard on this issue, and that won't happen.
Opinion polls consistently show a majority of people favoring a parent being notified when their unemancipated child seeks an abortion. Even Gov. Douglas Wilder endorsed this when he was a candidate, then acted as if he hadn't. It has long been a convenient issue for more moderate Democrats wishing to avoid an extreme, abortion-on-demand stance. A Gov. Terry would veto even this insubstantial restriction, while a Gov. Allen would sign it. But its benefit or harm resides almost entirely in the realm of political symbolism.
Voters in two states, Colorado and Oregon, have rejected referendums mandating state vouchers good for instruction in private schools. Californians are likely to follow suit Nov. 2, albeit by a relatively narrow margin. But the Virginia Constitution wisely forbids legislation by voter-initiated referendums. Vouchers are an idea whose time is near in a few places, but not in Virginia. Even Republican legislators see opposition as an easy bone to throw the Virginia Education Association, which goes ballistic on any issue undermining the state's virtual monopoly of secondary education.
After several years of runaway tuition and fee increases at state colleges, Allen has talked a lot about requiring the schools to make a pact with students to hold these to no more than the rate of inflation. After an early defense of Wilder's austerity program that cut state appropriations for higher education, Terry has said much the same thing. But outside the community college system, the schools pretty much run their own show, with generally subservient boards appointed by the governor looking on, unwilling or unable to second-guess administrators and faculty.
There would be no problem in making good on this promise if the next governor can find the money to satisfy the schools. But it's unlikely that either Allen or Terry would be willing to fight for increased state control. Nor would attacking the schools' traditional prerogatives of independence find great favor in the General Assembly. Virtually all legislators have a state college influential in his district. Avoiding any offense to that constituency will carry more weight than all the appeals for more efficient use of existing resources.
Allen's greatest issue has been abolishing what he calls Virginia's system of "lenient, liberal" parole. The problem is the state's criminal code and judicial customs have been built up over many years based on a fairly lenient system of parole. If you're going to abolish parole without costs going through the roof, sentencing will have to reflect this fact. But how willing will legislators be to go on record reducing sentences for serious crimes?
A Gov. Allen would be well-advised to avoid introducing a half-baked bill at the 1994 assembly to be picked to pieces by shrewd and knowledgeable Democrats. What he should do instead is name a blue-ribbon panel of legislators and specialists, charged with producing a comprehensive proposal combining the abolition of parole with realistic sentencing and other reforms, to be introduced in 1995 or 1996. In fact, that would be a great issue on which to lead Republicans in the '95 mid-term election.
No one who knows politics should ever blame candidates for trying to set up straw men and dodge bullets, but the issues they have raised in this campaign are largely peripheral to the hard choices they will have to make between competing claims, both for their personal time and the state's limited pocketbook. The one hopeful note on which to leave this is Allen's persistent promise to bring in a team of outside experts to assess all operations of state government. Properly conducted and carried through, that would be all the legacy he needs. And about all that one person can say grace over in only four years.
\ Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB