Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 23, 1995 TAG: 9503230061
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
NO DIRECT DEMOCRACY. The assembly wisely preserved our republican form of government by refusing to introduce the initiative and referendum to Virginia. That isn't to say allowing the general public to make an end run around entrenched political interests hasn't served a useful purpose. But one California is more than enough for any country. Let us absorb what lessons we can without emulating its perpetual, big-bucks struggle over the airwaves to drive voters this way and that on highly charged issues that generally end up in the courts.
NO TAX SUPER-MAJORITY. It was equally wise in rejecting a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds vote in both the House of Delegates and Senate to raise the state tax on income and sales. If Washington's newfound enthusiasm for sending programs back to the states is to have meaning, it may be necessary at some point to increase state taxes. After all, it's a strange system in which we pay the bulk of our taxes to the federal government and then fight like crazy to get some of the money back.
NO SECOND ACT. It was always unrealistic to expect legislators to send a constitutional amendment to the people allowing the next governor to stand once for re-election, ending Virginia's historic preference for putting its chief executive out to pasture after only four years in office. The one-term limitation assures more turnover in the state's top elected posts, which translates to more opportunities for promotion among aspiring legislators. Also, a governor who can succeed himself may be a tougher nut to crack.
You can make a good argument either way. A governor who must depart may feel greater freedom to pursue the course he believes right, irrespective of its political price. Among recent governors, only Linwood Holton and Douglas Wilder took controversial positions likely to have endangered re-election prospects. While the book is far from closed, Allen may be aspiring to join that short list of profiles in courage. Most modern governors have followed the easier paths of policy.
But a one-term governor has precious little time to attract competent helpers to his side and implement his vision for Virginia. His first months in office will be attended by the confusion of organizing an administration and the last by winding it down. In the present highly competitive environment, governors of large states are being viewed less as politicians and more as managers of vast enterprises that will benefit from a longer continuity.
NO LIMITS FOR LEGISLATORS. The term-limits hysteria sweeping the nation has been conspicuous by its absence in Virginia. Lawmakers hostile to introducing this nostrum here had little difficulty deflecting a constitutional amendment for the fourth year in a row.
If term limits are desirable as a means of infusing new blood and causing legislators to look more to the next generation than the next election, they should be set very short. But we already have considerable turnover in Richmond. Death, defeat, retirement and House members moving to the Senate have changed three-fifths of the seats in only 10 years.
MOVE OVER, BABY BELLS. The breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph caused us to be bombarded by more appeals from competing long-distance carriers than most people wanted or could absorb. But few would deny the result has been strong downward pressure on prices. You have only to compare the rate you pay for calls to distant places with those nearby, where the local phone company still enjoys a monopoly.
The assembly authorized the State Corporation Commission beginning Jan. 1 to allow competing carriers for local telephone service. The results will be revolutionary. And judging by the effects of deregulation on long-distance rates, consumers should benefit.
MOVE OVER, VIRGINIA. Some would argue the state had no choice but to conform its voter registration to the federal "motor-voter" mandate passed in the first flush of Clintonian joy. This requires the states to permit registration by mail and to establish methods of registering voters in offices where government benefits are dispensed and through the Division of Motor Vehicles. It also prohibits the automatic purge (after due notice) of those who have not voted in four years.
The state has just completed what may be its last purge of inactive voters. In January, the Board of Elections sent notices to 52,994 people who had not voted between 1990 and 1994, a span including two elections for both the General Assembly and U.S. Congress, as well as elections for president and governor. Fewer than 10 percent of those notified of their impending removal from the rolls sent back the form directing they be kept on.
If the new federal law stands, we may expect tens of thousands of departed or terminally uninterested citizens to be retained on the rolls indefinitely. With liberalized rules for absentee voting, this opens a door of opportunity for the kind of election fraud we have recently heard about in California, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
As if to symbolize the growing unity between the national and state party, Democrats in Richmond united in support of imposing motor-voter rules in Virginia. In fairness, the people's recent ratification of a state constitutional amendment authorizing conformity with federal election rules legitimizes the action. The bill does contain a provision delaying its effective date if the governor decides to challenge it in the federal courts.
Motor-voter goes to the heart of the strategy of the Democratic Party to survive by building constituencies of those most dependent upon government. That it's likely to stand points up the dilemma of the modern state legislator. He or she serves mainly to give constitutional validity to what has to be done, either because the federal government says so or prior state commitments require it. In that context, term limits for state legislators seem almost irrelevant.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
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