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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 24, 1994                   TAG: 9402240220
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

SUPPORTERS SAY POLITICS THREATEN PROPOSED FAMILY COURT SYSTEM

With just over two weeks left in the 1994 General Assembly, however, funding for the much-studied and widely heralded idea dangles by a thread.

Supporters think there's a one-word explanation: politics.

The proposal would create 32 judgeships. It also would put matters involving families and children under a single judicial umbrella and beef up the social services now provided by juvenile courts. The idea is backed by much of the state's judicial, religious and legal establishment, as well as by citizen advocacy groups.

Under the assembly's winner-take-all system of filling judgeships, the Democratic majority would name all 32.

But Republicans expect to take control of one or both chambers after the 1995 elections. Court advocates say hope of sharing in the spoils may be fueling Gov. George Allen's threat last week to veto any bill funding the family court this session.

Politics also figured, they argue, in the about-face of some House Democrats who last week joined in a 66-32 vote against funding the new court. The money would come largely from a $3 increase in other court fees, and Allen campaigned on the notion that fee increases are tax increases.

"What's got them hung up is understandable but not substantive worries: Will the fee be perceived as a tax increase? And are the judgeships all going to be appointed by one party or another?" said Charles "Breck" Arrington Jr., executive vice president of the Virginia Bar Association.

"It all boils down to who has the power and say over selection of judges. . . . It's a pathetic situation," added Cathy Burch, a Mechanicsville nurse and president of Parents Action for Child Support Enforcement.

Nor are those the only possible motives, Burch and other activists suggest. They note, for instance, that the Family Court is expected to reduce substantially the fees of lawyers - including some legislators - who handle divorce cases.

And the proposal would eliminate altogether commissioners in chancery, court-appointed attorneys who hear arguments and recommend actions in divorce cases in some jurisdictions.

House Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, who last year backed the concept of a family court but last week voted against funding it, earns several thousand dollars annually as a commissioner in chancery.

Determining how many other lawmakers hold such posts is difficult because there's no central list and legislators' conflict-of-interest forms do not require them to report the position.

"No lawyer or commissioner in chancery wants to give up a lucrative income," said Burch.

A spokesman for Allen dismissed the allegations about judgeships as misguided speculation, and Moss said his personal interest in his commissioner in a chancery's job is too slight to matter.

"I make very little money, and I could care less" about the job, said Moss, an attorney. With a fee of $150 in contested divorces and $90 in uncontested ones, he is "reasonably sure" his annual income as a commissioner is less than $5,000, he said.

The speaker's nay vote stemmed from Allen's veto pledge, concern that the state has greater priorities that aren't being funded and fear that a yes vote might be hung around the necks of some Democrats at election time, Moss and individuals close to him said.

As for Allen, "the governor's not opposed to family courts per se," said his spokesman Kenneth Stroupe. "But to have something of this magnitude and importance dropped in your lap with no time for study . . . he's not going to support it this year."

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994