Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 10, 1995 TAG: 9503130025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He has been not only one of the hardest-working but also one of the most decent and principled members of the General Assembly. Years ago, Schewel's commitment to the honorable course earned him recognition as a conscience of the Senate. On numerous occasions his pleadings for lawmakers to set aside political expediency for the commonwealth's good have turned votes on important issues, and helped buttress the Virginia legislature's reputation for integrity.
Former president of the family-owned Schewel Furniture Co. chain, and one of the assembly's wealthiest members, Schewel is justly proud of his record as a fiscal conservative. (One of his first major legislative initiatives was a proposed constitutional amendment to limit state spending. Though it never passed, he worked on it for several years.) But equally admirable is his record as a social progressive and devotee of clean and fair government. He often took courageous stands.
The Democrat's district is a conservative one (which helps explain why the GOP is gleeful about his departure). But Schewel never winced casting votes in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment, the Martin Luther King holiday bill and Medicaid funding for abortions (in cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality) at a time when these were litmus-test issues for many conservatives - not least among them, Lynchburg's Jerry Falwell. In more recent years, Schewel has used his chairmanship of the Senate Education and Health Committee to defeat excessively restrictive parental-notification legislation and to fight bills mandating prayer in public schools.
As if it weren't enough to draw the rancor of the religious right, Schewel has had the audacity to cross even the state's powerful tobacco industry, pushing for cigarette-tax increases. Someday, Virginia won't have the lowest cigarette tax in the nation, and some lives may be saved. Meanwhile, Schewel's career did see the creation of a legislative ethics commission, the state's most significant rewrite of conflict-of-interest laws, establishment of grievance procedures for state employees and major economic-development initiatives.
``Vintage Elliot Schewel'' was the way one news report described how he once came to the aid of Falwell, though Falwell had tried repeatedly to unseat him. At stake was tax-exempt status for some Liberty University properties, with Falwell threatening to move his big-employment operations from Lynchburg if tax breaks weren't forthcoming.
But Schewel has not always put aside grievances. In 1986, the usually calm and soft-spoken politician lost his courtly cool when a Senate Democrat referred to a newspaper reporter as ``that little Jew boy.'' That remark being one of several off-the-cuff but decidedly anti-Semitic comments issuing from legislators that year, Schewel blistered the Senate walls, shaming colleagues for their insensitivity and ``vulgar'' treatment of many of their own constituents. It was one of his fine moments in a 20-year Senate career full of them.
by CNB