Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 14, 1995 TAG: 9502140099
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Midmorning Thursday, I spied Del. Tommy Baker, R-Pulaski County, in the busy first-floor hallway of the General Assembly Building, across from the Capitol. I started toward him. But boom! Like a big forward setting pick in basketball, a veritable herd of boisterous students on a field trip interceded. Baker disappeared into an elevator. In two days in Richmond, I never got that close to him again.
I had better luck with Dels. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg. I also visited two of the New River Valley's state senators, Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, and Madison Marye, D-Shawsville. But I'll focus on the delegates because they receive far less press.
Griffith, like Shuler, is a freshman. Shuler is a moderate Democrat who is well regarded by the House leadership. Griffith is a moderate Republican, one of the young, aggressive members of the GOP minority who covet control of the chamber.
Friday morning, Democrats kidded Griffith for a quote in that day's newspapers about a shrewd parliamentary move on Thursday that forced House Republicans to either go on record opposing Republican Gov. George Allen's now-dead budget cuts, or refuse to vote. Griffith, who with Baker was one of the 63 delegates (and only 10 of 47 Republicans) to oppose the cuts, had said House Democrats were "teaching their future masters well."
Despite such rhetoric, Griffith is still playing by the current rules. A lawyer, he enjoys the legalese and dreadfully dull details of legislating. In the Senate Subcommittee on Civil Law, for instance, Griffith patiently waited his turn to explain House Bill 2313, which would allow students to become lawyers after only three years of "reading the law" in a law office, instead of the current four.
Just ahead of Griffith, another delegate talked about his bill. Trumbo, a subcommittee member, cut him off. "Don't talk your bill to death."
Then it was Griffith's turn. He answered questions, avoided long-windedness and the subcommittee passed, or reported his bill.
"If you've got a little bill that's not going to change the world one way or another and if you're pushy, it's likely to get killed," he said.
In a hallway later, a senator introduced himself to Griffith. "I don't believe we've ever really met," the senator said. Griffith's eyes then followed the departing lawmaker. They'd been passing each other in hallways for a year. Ever the realist, Griffith mused: "He must have a bill before one of my committees."
Friday morning, Shuler invited me to the House floor. Shuler sits in the front row of the House, on the right side (from the visitors gallery) of the chamber in front of the "Coffin Corner" of rowdy Democrats. He scanned the 100-seat floor. "It's really awesome to see the process at work."
At the opening of each day's sessions in the Senate and House, a preacher leads the chambers in prayer. On Friday, a minister from Republican Grove in Southside stood for the invocation to cheers from Coffin Corner's political opposite, the "Amen Corner" of the Republican side.
After the prayer, members stand to recognize visitors from back home. Shuler did so for Giles County Supervisor Larry Jay Williams, Giles Administrator Janet Tuckwiller and Ira Long, longtime member of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. Long, in particular, got a sustained round of applause from House Democrats.
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County picked up the rowdy spirit after the prayer and paced the floor at the back of the House singing, "A-men, A-men, A-men ..."
The tension between the two parties is nearly tangible: the sense from the GOP of "Just wait 'till we're running the show," and from the Democrats, "Take that, you young whippersnappers."
Shuler, a soft-spoken veterinarian, wasn't nearly so partisan. Once, I ran into him talking with Larry Linkous, the Montgomery County supervisor who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge him this fall.
In fact, Shuler's profession provided a bit of bipartisan comic relief in a Senate committee meeting Thursday. When Shuler stood to answer questions on House Bill 2128, the Warm Hearth Village bill, Sen. John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, asked Shuler if it was true he was the only veterinarian in the state who "spays canaries." Someone else asked if he handled timber rattlers, the would-have-been state reptile. Then Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews asked, "How about dangerous creatures, like Democrats?"
Not missing a beat, Shuler shot back, "Oh yes, we do a lot of deworming." The room erupted.
Shuler said later he gets the good-natured ribbing because his background is unlike that of the lawyers who fill the assembly.
"They have a lot of fun with it because it gives them something different to talk about."
Brian Kelley is a reporter in the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB