Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993 TAG: 9311160171
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Citing the need to keep his first months focused, Allen said he would favor, but not introduce, some of the other conservative social reforms he talked about in his campaign.
Allen talked Monday to staff writer Rob Eure about the transition of power to Republicans for the first time in 12 years and how he views his personal leadership style as Virginia's next governor. Here are excerpts:
Q: There are some entrenched Democrats in control of the state. Have you run into any obstacles in transition.?
A: No. Gov. Wilder has been . . . so cooperative and very helpful. If there's any information that I need on anything, he makes sure, that whether it's under a secretariat or director of some agency, that we get it.
Q: How big an agenda do you want to propose?
A: There a lot of things you want to do but you've got to focus . . . on what's most important. I think our economic development ideas, our jobs ideas - this is preliminarily - I think we need to get those done as quickly as possible. That'll help promote Virginia for existing businesses to expand as well as attract new businesses into Virginia.
The issue of the parole system and having violent criminals serving longer sentences and the sentencing restructuring - it's unfortunate, but during campaigns people say, `Gosh you're going to do it instantly.' We have to also get the sentences restructured. It's something to be phased in over 12 years.
Those will be the two most important.
Q: You have some broad appointment powers. How deep do you plan to go in replacing people in state government?
A: I think there are going to be significant changes. I'm going to need to have folks in the Cabinet but also in boards and commissions and agency heads who agree with me . . . .
Q: What is going to be your leadership style?
A: I'm not going to be delegating policy to anybody else. I'm going to make a decision about what we are going to do. The way we came up with a lot of our positions was we got folks in as advisers. It's almost like a judge, and my own philosophy and principles are the law, so to speak. I don't want to delegate that, because not everyone thinks the same way that I do.
Q. How do you plan to build the party.
A. Here's how you build the Republican Party - do the job you said you were going to do - fight for the things you said needed to be changed in Virginia. Obviously we're going to get folks in who share my philosophy and those are Republicans, but there may be some independents who actually share my philosophy.
Q: How will you lobby the legislature on some of your tougher battles?
A: I'll personally lobby when necessary. I plan to have people representing me. I don't expect to find myself on the floor of the House. But say we're having a tough time on the Courts of Justice Committee . . . then I'm going to use the office as a bully pulpit. Get the people backing me up on it.
Q. There will be a different agenda for social issues in your administration. Is your package going to include things like informed consent for abortion or parental notification for young women seeking abortion or a voucher system as a local option for schools?
A. I'm for parental notification for an unemancipated unwed minor daughter with a judicial bypass for parents who are clearly abusive. I'll sign it. That - with or without me - that is going to be an agenda item.
Q. But you are not going to write these bills?
A. No. Well if the bill is getting too far off track - say it doesn't have the judicial bypass in it - I'd say, `Get this bill from 1988 or the Pennsylvania case.' I'm for it and I think that change should be made in those laws.
Q: Informed consent, requiring a 24-hour waiting period?
A: I don't know if that will come up this year. If it does, I'll certainly support it, and it will have to be constitutional. If they are getting off on, say it is being proposed in such a way that it is contrary to the Constitution, I'll say, `Get it to comply.'
Q: Vouchers?
A: We've got to figure out how that'll work. That is not the key thing in my education program. The No. 1 thing was focus on more rigorous academic subjects, accountability with biennial testing and thirdly - and I suppose this is where vouchers would fit in - is more local and community and parental involvement in the school system.
Q: What are you prepared to offer Disney to help them locate in Prince William County?
A: Whatever it is, it's got to make economic sense, there has got to be a payoff. As I foresee it at this point, they are going to be requesting completely usual and reasonable things, such as a road, such as access. For example, we have railroad access - if there's a factory that's going to locate relatively near a railroad, we'll pay for a railroad siding. I look at this very much the same way.
Q: Are there any personal adjustments?
A: It's going to be hard to live in the city, to live in the Governor's Mansion, but that won't be that big a deal. You adjust to that. During the campaign, every waking moment is scheduled anyway, so it's not that much of a difference.
Q: You hope to have an overall philosophical effect on government to make it as cheap as you are in your own life?
A. Frugal. Yep. I want people who work for state government to look at spending state taxpayers' money as if it were their own.
I guess I want them to look at it as critically as I do. The greatest sin of all is waste. I just hate waste - waste of food, waste of resources, waste of time, waste of energy. I really just hate waste more than anything else. Anybody who knows me knows I hate waste.
by CNB