ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
Leslie Byrne, a former congresswoman and state delegate from Falls Church, said Thursday that she plans to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate next year.
Byrne, 49, has started raising money for the effort and said she will announce her candidacy in about three weeks.
Byrne will compete with Mark Warner, a former state Democratic party chairman and wealthy Northern Virginia cellular phone entrepreneur, for the party's nomination.
"I think it's time we had some more people in the Senate who are focused on the average American family, and I don't see that happening right now," Byrne said.
In a fund-raising letter mailed this week, she said she supports a higher minimum wage, collective bargaining for public employees and protecting workers from being fired during a strike. She criticized the Republican majority in Congress for favoring "corporate welfare over the general welfare of our families."
A tough, sometimes caustic campaigner, Byrne was elected to four terms in the House of Delegates beginning in 1984. In 1992, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the newly created 11th District in Northern Virginia. She was defeated last year by Republican Tom Davis.
Since her defeat, she has been writing a book about women in politics and teaching government courses at Mount Vernon College.
The Democrats' state central committee will decide Dec. 16 whether to select their 1996 nominee through a primary or a convention.
The Senate seat is held by Republican John Warner, who is seeking re-election and will hold a series of high-profile fund-raisers across the state next week - including one in Roanoke on Monday that will feature Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island.
Warner is being challenged for the GOP nomination by Jim Miller, a federal budget chief in the Reagan administration.
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB