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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 23, 1994                   TAG: 9404250135
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: C. RICHARD CRANWELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

FOR ASSEMBLY ACHIEVEMENTS, GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE

Let's talk about the Disney project. Garland wants to give Gov. George Allen credit for the project.

Disney officials contacted me two weeks before the Nov. 4, 1993, election and asked me to meet with them to discuss their proposal, which I did on Nov. 5. They said they'd need no more than $50 million to $80 million. I suggested they keep their request for funding within the Special Highway Transportation Fund. I felt the project was doable, and indicated that.

Then Allen entered into the equation. Right away, the cost went to $163 million, and Disney's funding request moved from the special highway fund to the state's general fund. In the general fund, the request would compete with funding for education, economic development and other programs that are critical for Southwest Virginia's growth.

House Speaker Tom Moss appointed me as one of three House conferees on the Disney legislation. The conferees took the responsibility for funding out of the general fund and put it back with Disney ($10 million worth of signage and $4 million worth of moving expenses).

We agreed to accelerate construction of $82 million in highway improvements, in exchange for Disney's commitment to pay for the other $50 million in highway expenses unique to its project. We also moved funding of the $82 million back to the special transportation fund. We could have driven a much better bargain with Disney, but for the willingness of the Allen administration - whom Garland says ``got a plum'' - to give away the store.

I take great pride in the fact that Virginia has ranked as the best fiscally managed state in the country for the past two years. Virginia also has one of the lowest overall tax rates in the country. This tradition is certainly not reflected in the Allen administration's dealings with Disney. However, it was reflected in the work of the House conferees that protected the general fund. And it was Disney that ``got the plum,'' not Allen. The House conferees made it a plum that Virginia could afford to give away.

Garland also says ``Democrats on the committees on Courts of Justice have turned down various get-tough measures dealing with chronic felons and drunken drivers while Republicans happily thumped the refrain, 'Hit 'em again, harder, harder.''' Not true. Only 14 states have a lower violent-crime rate than Virginia, due to get-tough measures on crime that became law in the '80s. During that time, we increased the penalty for almost every single drug offense; we increased mandatory penalties for the use of firearms in the commission of felonies; and we expanded greatly penalties for which one could be convicted of a capital murder and receive the death penalty.

Also, Virginia has a higher incarceration rate than any state around it. And, in fact, it was not Allen but former Del. Steve Agee, R-Salem, who prevailed upon me to introduce the three-strikes-and-you're-out legislation. Agee had worked in recent years to pare down the cost to where the bill made a lot of sense, and he deserves a lion's share of the credit for its passage.

With respect to drunken driving, neither Republicans' gains in the legislature nor Allen's election had anything to do with efforts in that area. The bill I sponsored was the result of a study commission that I chaired - an effort principally spurred by two tragic 1993 events that took the lives of young people in Roanoke.

The legislation gives Virginia the toughest drunken-driving law in the country. It includes administrative revocation of a driver's license, a piece of legislation that was passed by the House of Delegates in two previous years - not bottled up and defeated in committee as Garland suggested. It also includes: zero tolerance of alcohol for drivers under age 21 and a .08 intoxication level for others.

Importantly, the drunken-driving legislation also provides that if a person is caught driving under the influence at a time when his license has been suspended due to a DUI conviction, the vehicle in which he's driving will be impounded for 30 days - mandatory! This gets at the second tier of the DUI problem: alcoholics who are going to drive when drinking, no matter what penalties have been imposed on them.

It pains me to see a column that is basically nothing more than political hype for Republicans by a former Republican lawmaker - one hiding behind a mask of respectability as a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist. However, Garland shouldn't take my remarks as criticism. When he was in the General Assembly, I recognized him as a legislator with a keen mind and a compassionate heart, one who worked hard for the best interests of Virginia. I just think he's having serious difficulty giving up his Republican leanings in his column.

The efforts that he wants to ascribe to Republicans' gains in the legislature are really the product of a lot of hard-working legislators. Now, as Paul Harvey says, you know the rest of the story.

C. Richard Cranwell, a Vinton Democrat, is majority leader of the Virginia House of Delegates.