Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 5th District race took what may prove to be an irreversible turn into negative campaigning Thursday as George Landrith released his first television ad and L.F. Payne said it was full of lies and inaccuracies.
Landrith's 30-second ad weaves images of Hispanic and black prisoners with the message that L.F. Payne voted for early release of violent criminals. It accuses Payne of voting for racial quotas that would have all but outlawed the death penalty.
Mixed with footage of Sen. Ted Kennedy, the ad claims that Payne votes closer to the Clinton agenda than the Massachusetts Democrat. Then moving to grainy, slow footage of Hillary Clinton, in which she looks like Eva Peron waving to crowds, the ad says Payne gave the deciding vote for "Hillary's health care scheme."
"I'm really upset. I have called for my opponent to take this commercial off the air," Payne said Thursday. "It's full of distortions and some outright lies. It just shouldn't be on the air, and I want it taken off. I've never seen anything like it.
"I resent this cheap adverstising trying to denigrate my record."
Landrith refused to stop airing the ad, saying, "L.F. Payne sees the mask of deception being stripped away, and his career in politics at an end, and he is getting desparate."
Virginia Tech political analyst Bob Denton said neither side probably is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
"The ad is probably correct, but it's also probably not telling the whole story. Technically, it's going to be hard for Payne to say it's all lies. But does the fact that he voted once for [issues such as racial quotas for the death penalty] mean that he believes that these should be stand-alone policies? Probably not. It's all a matter of degrees."
What are the facts behind Landrith's accusations and Payne's counterattacks? Here's the story that couldn't be told in 30 seconds of sound bites:
Payne voted against an amendment to the original Clinton crime bill that called for state and federal prisoners to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.
But the bill also was tied to $10.5 billion in prison improvements. It would have required states to meet the truth-in-sentencing quota before they could receive any more federal money to build prisons. Payne was concerned that Virginia would not have qualified and would have to delay much-needed prison construction.
Payne voted against putting the 1992 crime bill back into committee without provisions that would have allowed death-row prisoners to claim racial inequities as a defense against capital punishment.
He said the motion was a Republican manuever to kill the crime bill. Two days earlier, the House had voted to keep the racial-justice clause in the bill, and Payne had voted to strip the crime bill of the clause, against Democratic Party leadership. He said he still opposes the racial-justice clause.
Payne has voted for the death penalty 16 times, and he voted to expend the death penalty to include crimes such as carjacking and violent sexual abuse of children.
Payne provided the swing vote that got the Clinton health care bill out of committee and onto the House floor.
But he did so as part of a bargain to lower a proposed cigarette tax increase, down from $1.25 to 45 cents, phased in incrementally. Payne did not support the health care bill on the floor because of the cigarette tax and because it would have mandated small-business owners to provide health care coverage for employees. The bill later died.
Payne voting for Clinton more than Ted Kennedy? It happened. Payne voted for 86 percent of Clinton's legislative agenda. But only during one quarter of Congress.
The rest of the time, he's been pretty conservative. The National Journal has consistently ranked him as voting conservative more than 50 percent of the time on issues such as economics, welfare and foreign policy.
Payne supports gun control and voted against the Clinton crime bill because he didn't approve of its ban on assault weapons. He has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association and several key business and tobacco groups.
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: ***CORRECTION***