Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9510020014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Two years of punishment. That's what one Republican legislator says would be in store for some Democrats if the GOP takes over the General Assembly. And no one, predicts Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, would be punished more than the current House majority leader - Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County.
"In the House," Griffith says, "perceived or real wrongs will be paid for." Cranwell, he says, will be a "lightning rod" for Republicans seeking to right those legislative "wrongs" - so much so that Griffith is afraid some of his GOP colleagues might hurt the Roanoke Valley in the process.
Griffith isn't alone in claiming that Republicans will exact revenge on Cranwell and other Democratic leaders if the GOP gains a majority in the General Assembly in next month's elections. Cranwell's Republican opponent, Trixie Averill, also has warned that Cranwell's power would be "kaput."
There could be, of course, a certain amount of campaign hyperbole involved in such claims. After all, Griffith acknowledges a clear partisan interest in urging the election of Averill and other Republicans. Moreover, Griffith is a freshman who isn't counted as part of his party's inner circle of leadership, yet in a recent interview, he graphically outlined how he believes his colleagues would treat Cranwell and other Democrats if the GOP comes to power.
At one least prominent Democrat, however, is inclined to believe him.
"Under normal conditions, I would not accept at face value the mutterings of backbenchers," says Del. Jay DeBoer, D-Petersburg, "except that if the tide turns, the backbench Republican Allen clones will be the controlling bloc [on the GOP side] ... I think it is human nature to seek revenge and would anticipate some actions like that from a victorious Republican Party."
He just doesn't think Republicans would be able to freeze out Cranwell and other Democratic leaders entirely. "For all of his recent partisan fervor, no one doubts Dickie's talents as a legislator," DeBoer says. "Merely stripping him of a few committees would not be enough to silence him, or to remove his influence in the legislative process."
Cranwell, for his part, reacts strongly to Griffith's remarks. "That is the most distasteful, disheartening thing I have ever heard. To suggest that I am going to be punished by Republicans, that my committee assignments would be stripped away, and that Republicans actually harbor ill will and anger and hatred for me speaking out for my constituents - I am appalled. That is not the Virginia way."
However, it has been the Virginia way for the majority party in the General Assembly - for more than a century, the Democrats - to restrict the minority party's role in controlling the state's finances.
Griffith points out that the speaker of the House makes all committee assignments - and that Republicans long have been angry that they're not appointed in sufficient numbers to the panels that deal with the budget.
Even though party balance in the House is now almost even, only five of the 22 legislators on the House Appropriations Committee are Republicans. "Vance [Wilkins, the House GOP leader] informed the Democratic leadership that if we didn't get proportional representation last year, for the first two years we were in power, we'd reverse the numbers," Griffith says.
If Republicans gain a majority, Griffith says, he's convinced Republicans would keep their word and retaliate. "The struggle is between those who think for two years we treat them as they did us, but ultimately we put in place the infrastructure for fair play [by passing a constitutional amendment requiring proportional representation] and those who feel that's just the way politics is played. 'They've gouged us and we'll gouge them.' Clearly, there's a split in the caucus."
Regardless of which side prevails, Griffith says he's sure Republicans would attempt to freeze Democrats out of important committees for at least the first two years. And not just keep them out of the decision-making process, either. "People who have played a role in partisan games will be removed from those committees," he says.
That, he says, means Cranwell not only wouldn't be chairman of the House Finance Committee, he probably wouldn't be reappointed to Finance at all. "I believe he'll be on Interstate Cooperation," a notoriously minor committee that's often a legislative laughingstock.
Griffith, who is unopposed for re-election, says there likely would be a fight among Republicans over whether Cranwell would be allowed to stay on another major committee, House Courts of Justice. "If he's re-elected, I'd be in the camp that would like to see him stay on Courts, to help the committee as a repository of past actions, but not be in a position to dictate."
Griffith - like Averill - warns that Cranwell's re-election would put the Roanoke Valley at a disadvantage in a GOP legislature.
"For years, people have said we can't afford to lose him because we need him in Richmond," Griffith says. "But if the GOP gains control, he's perceived as so aggressively anti-Republican that I feel there'd be a backlash and Cranwell's re-election could be just as damaging to the Roanoke Valley as in the past it appeared to be positive."
Averill has tried to make that point on the campaign trail, too, this fall. She notes that Republican legislators already view Virginia's Explore Park in eastern Roanoke County as "Dickie World" because of the role Cranwell played in winning funding for the living-history park.
If Cranwell is re-elected in a GOP legislature, Averill says, "this going to be Dickie Valley. We're not going to get diddly-squat. It sounds like a veiled threat, but it's true. He has burnt so many bridges, there is no going back and no way he can mend things. If he's there, he has lost everything. He'll be relegated to the backbenches, without a voice."
The legislator who most likely would become speaker of a GOP-led House, and thus would be in the position of making committee assignments, won't comment on Griffith's account of how Democrats would be punished.
"I think we'll leave 'em guessing," says House Minority Leader Vance Wilkins of Amherst County. "There's certainly some of them who can't be reappointed to committees [just because the numbers wouldn't work out]. But I haven't specified anybody in particular. I don't think I'll specify."
But another Republican interested in the speakership if the GOP gains a majority says such punishment would be a mistake. Says John Watkins of Midlothian: "We've still got a government to run."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB