Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401090008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
\ Face it, Republicans were always the nerds in Virginia's General Assembly. They just couldn't match those big-man-on-campus Democrats, who ran the House, the Senate, all legislative committees and usually the Governor's Office.
But there will be a trail of abandoned pocket protectors leading to the Capitol on Wednesday because, when the 1994 assembly opens, the Republicans are going to be making like the baddest dudes in town.
They've got their man upstairs - Gov.-elect George Allen - and they pulled to within four seats of a majority in the House of Delegates. They figure Virginians like them so much that Democrats will have to play along or get uninvited to the prom.
"I think if [Democrats] fight us on a lot of these key initiatives, they're doing it at their own political risk," Allen said. "If the Republicans in the General Assembly work together with the administration, we can be the governing party in Virginia."
Revenge, at last. It brings a certain amount of cockiness. Take, for example, Del. Robert McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach. He was part of a crop of earnest new Republicans elected in Hampton Roads one term ago. McDonnell came in looking clean-cut and righteous, but to a mighty old Democrat like House Speaker Thomas Moss, he had the political clout of pocket lint.
Nowadays, McDonnell is talking like this: "The speaker has been approached about having more equity and parity in the assignment of people to the key committees. . . . I think that would certainly set the tone for a much more businesslike approach this session, more statesmanlike. . . . But if not, I think you're certainly going to see some pretty serious scratching. Bring your Band-Aids when you come over, just in case."
Moss, of course, has no intention of giving Republicans any more power on committees. "If they get upset about that and want to go to war, that's up to them," the Democrat from Norfolk said.
But McDonnell's bluster is not empty. "It's a new day in Virginia politics," said political analyst Thomas Morris, president of Emory & Henry College. "The dynamics, I think, are going to be very different."
Democrats have dominated the Virginia legislature ever since it was the House of Burgesses. After the Civil War, Republicans were hated as the party of the North and of Reconstruction. As recently as 1978, when the last Republican governor took office, there were only five Republicans in the 40-member Senate; today there are 18.
Just 21 seats in the 100-member House belonged to Republicans in 1978; now, the party has 47.
Morris theorizes that the new numbers will add up to less gridlock in the legislature, at least for this year. He figures Allen will start cautiously by pushing issues with a good chance of success - such as requiring parental notification before an unmarried teen-ager can receive an abortion, which failed two years ago only because Gov. Douglas Wilder vetoed it - and the Democrats will want to appear cooperative in the wake of last fall's election flameout.
"Another context to keep in mind is that the outgoing governor did not work very well with the Democratic majority, so we might actually get an improvement in relations between the governor's office and the legislative leadership," Morris said.
"I don't see how we could have one being worse," House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, agreed.
But Morris' scenario is fragile. "That's the nice, rosy picture," said Del. Steve Newman of Lynchburg, another young, one-term Republican looking for new stature this session. "But given the 140 members and given the egos that I have seen down there, I think chaos will raise its ugly head and partisanship will become the rule."
Each side is waiting for the other to throw the first punch. Allen has met with the Democratic leadership "to find things we can agree upon," he said, but "if they're going to fight, we'll fight."
"If it is going to be a more fractious session by virtue of [having] the Republican governor," Moss counters, "it is going to have to come from his side and not from our side."
Moss is putting on his Sunday suit for now, emphasizing the positive. He said Democrats might be willing to find middle-ground on Allen's campaign promise to abolish parole: say, abolish parole only for certain violent crimes. Also, Moss said the Democrats are eager to work with Allen to tighten laws against drunken driving.
But cooperation is likely to have a catch.
"I don't think the Democrats are going to let any of these programs be initiated with smoke-and-mirrors-type funding. They will attempt to make the Republicans bite the bullet, either in terms of proposing very specific cuts or in terms of showing where other revenue can be generated," said political scientist Bob Holsworth of Virginia Commonwealth University.
"I think the Democrats are going to try to make them pay some kind of price for governing," he said.
Holsworth also foresees this session being a boon for various interest groups in the House. Black Democrats already have increased their clout; their threat to align with Republicans pushed Moss to put more minorities on House committees. Similar pressure from the Black Caucus or from conservative Democrats could lead to concessions throughout the session.
But those are subplots. To Holsworth, the story this year is the tension between the mandate Republicans claim from Allen's overwhelming victory and the pride and experience of Democrats like Moss and Cranwell. New cool vs. old cool.
Someone as powerful and entrenched as Cranwell, of course, sees it differently.
"There is not a Republican mandate out there," he said. "I think there is a mandate out there for some change and a more responsive government. . . . We're doing a pretty good job in Virginia. We're just probably not getting the credit for a lot of what we do."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB