Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506200018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Virginia is poised for General Assembly elections of historic proportions this fall, with more contested races than at any time since 1971 and the Democrats' control of the legislature in the balance for the first time since Reconstruction.
Republicans already have scored one advantage, fielding more candidates than the Democrats for the first time in modern Virginia history.
Most races in Western Virginia were set weeks or months ago. Elsewhere in the state, last week's deadline for getting on the November ballot passed with a flurry of candidates rushing to file their papers.
During the 1980s, sometimes as few as 36 percent of the General Assembly races across the state were contested, according to University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato, who spent last week combing the records. "Can you believe in 1987, two-thirds of the seats were unopposed?" Sabato says. "Why bother to hold an election?"
This year, voters will be offered a choice of candidates in 64 percent of the legislative districts around the state.
The breakdown looks like this:
nIn the state Senate, five Democrats and 11 Republicans are running unopposed; 24 seats are contested.
nIn the House of Delegates, 12 Democrats, 19 Republicans and one independent are unchallenged, while there are contests in 68 districts.
One reason so many candidates are running is that partisan control of the legislature is up for grabs: Democrats hold only a three-seat edge in both houses, Republicans have been making steady gains over the past two decades, and both parties are prepared for full battle this year.
Republican Gov. George Allen's conservative agenda - and the Democratic legislature's rejection of it during this year's session - has only sharpened the focus.
"I think both sides will agree it's probably the most critical election at least in the last half of the century," says Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville, one of the few Democrats in this part of the state who is not being challenged. "The concern about the majority was going to be there regardless - but it has been accented by the agenda put forth by the Allen administration."
Interestingly, both sides claim the showdown between the Republican governor and the Democratic legislature - in which Allen proposed to cut taxes and spending and Democrats countered he was endangering the state's educational system and other programs - has played into their hands.
"I think people in Virginia feel more confident about our system of checks and balances than at any time since 1776," state Democratic Party spokeswoman Gail Nardi says. "I think Virginia wants people up there who will question the administration's motives."
Already, Democratic candidates have started targeting Allen, saying his proposals would have hurt their localities. For instance, John Edwards, who is challenging state Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, has tried to draw attention to Allen's effort to cut funding for a training center at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center that hotel backers have termed vital to the center's success.
Meanwhile, Republican candidates are almost uniformly running on the key planks of Allen's agenda - cutting taxes and spending and returning lottery profits to localities.
"They seem to want to make it a statewide referendum," Republican strategist Scott Leake says of the Democrats. "So do we."
"Obviously," Jackson says, "someone's badly mistaken as to how the voters will feel."
Virginia Commonwealth University political analyst Robert Holsworth agrees that Allen's governorship in on the line. "If Democrats retain control, Allen will be Virginia's first half-term governor," he says. If Republicans take over the legislature, it could signal a fundamental realignment in Virginia politics. "So the stakes are extraordinarily high," he says.
However, Holsworth doubts if either side, but especially the Republicans, will be able to turn 140 separate elections into a single statewide referendum the way last year's congressional elections were. "It's more difficult to put together a statewide tidal wave than a national tidal wave," he says.
Polls suggest voters distrust the federal government much more than they do state government, he says. Republicans also lack a key technological weapon at the state level - talk radio. "Even if you wanted to make it into a statewide referendum, it's not easy to do, because you don't have the means to inform people about it every day," Holsworth says.
Nevertheless, the initial advantage - at least in terms of candidate recruitment - lies with the Republicans.
For the first time, Republicans are fielding more candidates than Democrats. "From a historical point of view, it looks like we're going to take it," says Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who's running unopposed for a second term.
The GOP has 87 candidates for 100 House seats; the Democrats have 80. For the Senate, the Republicans are running 35 candidates for 40 seats; the Democrats have 29.
This marks the smallest number of Democrats running for the state Senate in this century, Sabato says.
In the House, Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County and Minority Leader Vance Wilkins of Amherst County have waged vigorous drives to recruit candidates for their chamber. But Republicans and independent political analysts are baffled at why the Democrats have fielded so few candidates for the Senate.
"The Democrats have known for four years they'd be in a battle for control of the Senate," Sabato says, "yet they only came up with 29 candidates."
Most of those are incumbents. Moreover, while most Democratic incumbents face Republican challengers, most Republican incumbents in the Senate are running unopposed this fall - even GOP freshmen who won relatively close races last time, such as Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo of Fincastle, William Wampler Jr. of Bristol and Ken Stolle of Virginia Beach.
Republicans were quick to fault Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, who presides over the Senate, for a lack of leadership. But Democrats insist that they preferred to focus their resources on retaining their own incumbents and targeting only a few Republicans whom they perceived as vulnerable, instead of taking a scatter-shot approach.
Indeed, the Democrats say some of their best chances to pick up Republican seats anywhere in Virginia this year are in the Senate, most notably in Alexandria and Charlottesville against GOP incumbents Robert Calhoun and Edgar Robb.
Two "celebrity races" headline the Virginia contests. In Northern Virginia, Sandy Liddy Bourne, the daughter of Watergate conspirator-turned-talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, is challenging Democratic Del. Linda "Toddy" Puller, a race that's already drawing the attention of People magazine.
In Charlottesville, writer Emily Couric, the sister of "Today" show personality Katie Couric, hopes to unseat Robb.
A handful of former Democratic legislators are attempting comebacks - Vivian Watts in Fairfax County, Lew Parker in Mecklenburg County and Johnny Joannou in Portsmouth. So is a former Republican legislator, Emmett Hanger of Augusta County, who's challenging state Sen. Frank Nolen.
A former Republican congressman also is on the ballot again, as Stan Parris takes on Democratic state Sen. Joseph Gartlan Jr. in Fairfax County in another high-profile race.
The 1995 elections have already claimed their first victim - House Appropriations Chairman Bob Ball of Richmond, who was upset in last Tuesday's Democratic primary. "The Ball defeat raises questions about all of the powerful Democratic chairmen and whether they can hold on," Holsworth says.
But it also illustrates the power of local issues, he says. Ball tripped up, Holsworth says, when he couldn't explain why, for all of his influence on the state budget, he couldn't stop community grocery stores from closing in one section of his district.
Staff writer Robert Little contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB