Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240123
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE AND ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Del. Robert McDonnell of Virginia Beach tried to hustle a few Democratic co-sponsors for welfare reforms sought by Republican Gov. George Allen.
Del. Creigh Deeds of Bath County buttonholed suburban colleagues and told them how his "Sheep Industry Board" would help farmers fight a nasty coyote problem.
By the end of the day, the clerks' desks in the Senate and House of Delegates were stacked high with last-minute submissions, bringing the total to more than 2,000 bills and resolutions that will be considered by Feb. 25.
"For the next 33 days, if they met for 24 hours a day, they could cover 2.6 bills an hour," observed deputy House clerk Jeff Finch.
Last year the legislature acted on a record 2,700 pieces of legislation, but that was a 60-day session. This year's total is about average for an off-year "short session;" it's even down sharply from 1993, when lawmakers crammed almost 2,500 pieces into 46 days.
But legislators say 1995 is more hectic than ever because Allen has proposed sweeping tax and spending cuts and has thrown in several major initiatives, including welfare reform.
"Usually the short sessions are active," said House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, "but the governor's agenda has made it radioactive."
The House staff began cataloguing new legislation around noon and figured to be there until 11 p.m. or later. Cheers went up when someone mentioned that Del. Harvey Morgan, R-Gloucester, had introduced a bill - HB 2027 - to limit lawmakers to 15 pieces of legislation each per session.
"That doesn't do anything," Finch interrupted, noting that delegates this year introduced an average of only 14 pieces each. "And as soon as you set a limit," he added, "they're all going to try to reach it."
The avalanche of bills was not the only thing that slowed down business Monday. Partisan floor speeches again turned a light docket in the House into a tedious session that dragged on nearly an hour after the Senate finished its business.
Del. Jay DeBoer, D-Petersburg, jokingly suggested holding a "public information hour" before the floor session begins each day. "One full hour," DeBoer said, "in which the members can speak directly to the cameras."
The inspiration for the daily round of partisan speeches has been Allen's sweeping tax and budget cuts.
Monday, Republican delegates came armed with 6-foot placards filled with graphs designed to counter recent opinion polls. The polls have shown overwhelming disapproval for Allen's proposed spending cuts for police, health care for poor teens and mental health services.
Chesapeake Del. Randy Forbes used the props to argue that state government needs to go on a crash diet after going on a "nonstop spending binge" under three Democratic governors. One graph showed that state spending has increased at nearly twice the rate of federal spending during the past decade.
The props drew an immediate - and fiery - response from Cranwell.
Cranwell said Republicans have been "hooked up to the morphine needle for too long" if they think the General Assembly should be compared to the U.S. Congress.
"That is simply a hallucination," he said, adding that Allen's five-year, $2.1 billion tax cuts amounted to a "shift and shaft plan" that would force local governments to increase property tax rates.
Cranwell said Allen's plan to cut taxes and go into debt for prisons makes sense only as a vehicle to launch Allen to national political office in 1996.
"Politics can be damned," Cranwell said. "If that's your choice, have at it. That's not my choice or the choice of my constituents."
In other news:
Roanoke Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum got a break Monday when his House-approved abortion clinic access bill was steered toward a friendly Senate committee.
The legislation - HB 1359 - was referred to the Senate Education and Health Committee instead of the potentially hostile Courts of Justice Committee. The Education panel has been the bane of abortion opponents, who are seeking to kill Woodrum's legislation.
The bill would enhance penalties for people convicted of blocking access to clinics at least twice.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB