Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411090042
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When he returns to Washington for a second term, the 6th District Republican may find comfort in the presumed acclamation he enjoys back home, and in the increased company he'll likely find among GOP representatives in the House.
If they do make significant gains, as expected, that should translate into increased opportunity - but also responsibility - to help shape the country's legislative agenda.
Constituents should hope that, in the mold of his moderate-to-conserv-
ative predecessors - former 6th District Reps. Jim Olin, Democrat, and Caldwell Butler, Republican - Goodlatte will provide a level-headed influence to temper ideological and partisan excesses.
Goodlatte's signing of House Republican leader Newt Gingrich's ``Contract with America'' was, in this respect, disappointing. The document is little more than a hot-button election ploy promising tax cuts with great specificity and spending cuts with no specificity - not a road map for fiscal conservatives. Just as unseemly was Goodlatte's staged signing last week, with Oliver North, of a pledge not to cut Social Security.
Unlike many of his colleagues, though, Goodlatte has at least shown the courage of his convictions on spending restraint. He voted for a bill that would make ``painful cuts'' others just talk about. He was one of 75 House members to support a measure that would balance the budget in five years, he says, without tax increases and without touching Social Security benefits. It would, according to its sponsors, reduce federal spending by some $700 billion by such methods as means-testing Medicare, and consolidating or privatizing some federal functions while eliminating others.
Also to his credit, Goodlatte has been, along with other freshmen in the 103rd Congress, an advocate for congressional reform. Procedural changes - such as increasing opportunities to amend spending bills and abolishing proxy voting in committees - would help cut senior members' stranglehold over the legislative process. The backbenchers, says Goodlatte, will keep pushing on doors.
In the past session, he also supported health-care legislation that would gain a number of good things - tort reform, guarantees for people with pre-existing conditions, administrative reform - if not everything the Clinton administration wanted. There are problems with the plan Goodlatte supports, but as a thoughtful and principled conservative, he has been consistent in preferring government-refereed over government-managed strategies.
Meantime, Goodlatte has been no slouch in looking after 6th District interests, especially economic development. He's been most notably active on transportation improvements, including a proposed interstate connector between Roanoke and North Carolina and a beneficial routing for I-73. He sponsored a measure affording environmental and scenic protection to an area of national forest in Amherst County. He also helped court Hanover Direct Inc. to bring jobs to the Roanoke region.
Goodlatte, it should be noted, complains more about the plight of businesses than of poor people in his district. He says he sees no necessary conflict between fiscal and social conservatives in his party. He says Pat Robertson has played a positive role in the GOP.
But he is quite obviously representing his district well. The failure of Democrats to find a willing opponent is telling in itself, and isn't the only reason Goodlatte commands a lonely position on Tuesday's ballot.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB