Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511210023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PETER BAKER THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
On the Friday before the bill came up for final passage in the state Senate, Lt. Gov. Don Beyer said in a television interview he would support it in the event of a tie. The next week, though, he voted the other way, defeating the legislation.
Nearly two years later, that episode could presage the future for both Beyer and Virginia after this month's elections created a 20-20 partisan stalemate in the Senate. With his constitutional power to break tie votes, Beyer has become overnight the most powerful lieutenant governor in state history, yet some of the decisions ahead could prove especially troublesome for a politician known for his deliberative manner.
``It's a challenge for Beyer, because if you go back over his career in politics, he's spent a lot of time trying to hover near the middle and trying to be all things for all people,'' said Dick Leggitt, a Republican political consultant, ``and that's going to be much more difficult now.''
In Beyer's six years in office, the 45-year-old car dealer has made his mark as a conciliator, someone more comfortable forging bipartisan coalitions than engaging in partisan thrust-and-parry. He likes to mull things over before taking positions and genuinely listens to all sides.
But that same thoughtful, flexible style has led to occasional flip-flops that left him branded as ``Donny-come-lately.'' And suddenly he finds himself in a role in which he often will be called upon to take sides, without hesitation, on some of the toughest issues around, such as abortion and sex education.
For Beyer and his strategists, the newfound power presents an opportunity to define a political figure whose image remains fuzzy in the public mind as he embarks on a long-planned campaign for governor in 1997. For Republicans, it presents opportunities to trip him up, to put him on record on questions that could provide electoral ammunition for that race.
``There's going to be quite a bit of concern about Don's position, because there's going to be considerable maneuvering to put him on the spot at 20-20 every time,'' said retiring Sen. Edward Holland, D-Arlington. ``He's got some vulnerability, as he knows.''
True to his unwaveringly optimistic nature, Beyer professes to see only the upside.
``I really don't mind going on the record,'' he said. ``I like saying, `I made a difference today. Look, Mom, I'm important.' It was hard last year, with all this ferocious debate going on, not to be able to get up and debate and not to be able to vote.''
In Virginia, as in many other states, the lieutenant governor's office has been a steppingstone to the Executive Mansion, but otherwise it has little authority or visibility of its own. Beyer, in fact, is the second lieutenant governor in modern times to serve two terms. The first was A.E.S. Stephens, who was elected to full terms in 1953 and 1957 after serving two years of an unexpired term. Much like Vice President Al Gore, who called Beyer the day after the election to congratulate him, the lieutenant governor presides over the Senate and casts votes only in the cases of ties and even then not on bills dealing with budgets, taxes, debts or the appointment of judges.
The Democrats insist that he can vote on organizational matters, making them the party constituting the majority and therefore in control of the all-important committee assignments and legislative calendars. Republicans dispute that and plan to challenge the interpretation.
The key figure in rendering an opinion will be none other than Republican Attorney General Jim Gilmore, the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination to take on Beyer in 1997.
Analysts give Gilmore an edge over Beyer in the advance jockeying because Gilmore has established a tough-on-crime persona. The latest independent poll of voters showed that, of respondents willing to judge, 60 percent rated Gilmore's performance highly, compared with 53 percent for Beyer.
Some Democrats are urging Beyer to position himself as the rival power center to Republican Gov. George Allen to the point of introducing his own far-ranging legislative agenda the way a governor does.
``I think this is the greatest opportunity for Beyer,'' said Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party and an occasional adviser to him. ``What Beyer has is an opportunity to tell the state, `Hey, this is who I am.' ... Beyer has the chance which no lieutenant governor in history has had.''
Beyer also has the chance now to step out of the shadow of longtime Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, who ran the upper chamber with an iron fist but lost re-election this month.
Beyer has cast from two to 16 votes a session, often on the thorniest issues to come before the Senate. He voted, for example, to block a measure requiring parental notification before teen-age abortions, even though he supports the idea in principle, because he objected to a legislative maneuver used to bring up the proposal. He voted to kill Allen's plan to repeal mandatory sex education.
Although maverick senators from both parties sometimes switch sides on divisive issues, ties inevitably are going to arise more often with a dead-even Senate.
``He's in a much worse position because he's going to be making a lot of decisions that are going to be prompted just by partisan divisions, and they're going to make him look bad,'' said Senate Minority Leader Joseph Benedetti, R-Richmond, noting Beyer's style. ``He has feet of clay, I'm afraid.''
Beyer disagrees with that characterization and painstakingly explains his sometimes-shifting decisions as the evolution of thought and policy. He changed his mind on the execution bill, he said, after hearing opponents' passionate speeches. He reversed his original support for Allen's tax cuts this year, he said, after he realized how certain programs would suffer.
He still defends his actions when he was caught between Andrews and House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, on a key education bill in 1993. On the same day, he cast the tie-breaking vote to kill it, then broke another tie to revive it, then issued a procedural ruling that effectively killed it again. By doing so, Beyer says, he ultimately forced a compromise that resulted in a stronger package to reduce funding disparities between rich and poor schools.
``The rule for me is not going to be to vote the way the majority of Democrats do, but to vote my conscience,'' he said. ``I expect that the majority of times I will agree with them. But I intend to be independent.''
by CNB