ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512050098
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER EDITORIAL WRITER
NO MEMBER of the General Assembly is indispensable. But if one has very nearly achieved indispensable status, it's Sen. Hunter Andrews of Hampton.
The state legislature will, of course, survive Andrews' dismissal by voters last month. But my bet is that, without him, it will just clunk along for some time to come. He's been the master of that universe. Probably more than any other lawmaker, he fully understood the hows, whys, ifs and buts of the rules - he wrote many of them - and knew how to keep the legislative process tuned up and running smoothly.
The same can be said of state government in general. Andrews, more than any governor with whom he's served during his 32-year legislative career, has been its supernumero uno. Many governors have privately, if reluctantly, acknowledged this, and - even if they resented his inflated sense of self-importance - have recognized that he could make or break their hopes for accomplishment in a short four-year term. To get along, they had to get along with Huntah!
And it wasn't simply because he's been the Senate's most dominant member, Senate Democrats' majority leader and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. with unparalleled power to call the shots on state taxes and state spending. (In the House of Delegates, these money matters fall under separate chairmen's bailiwicks.) No, it's because Andrews is smarter than your average governor.
Some say he is the most brilliant individual ever to serve in the General Assembly. Some say he's also the most insufferable.
Possibly he's both, along with every other adjective applied to him over the years: dictatorial, imperious, elitist, arrogant, pushy, mercurial, acerbic, combative, tart-tongued, short-fused, rude and insulting. And that's just what his friends say.
Andrews, now 74, would have loved to have been governor, and might have been the most effective the state has ever had. He very likely would have been governor, except that the Democrats' old Byrd Establishment became feeble while he was waiting in line for its backing.
Andrews was never, per se, a conservative Byrd Democrat. To the contrary, he began his public life in the '50s as chairman of the Hampton School Board: In the era of the massive resistance to school desegregation promoted by Harry F. Byrd's political machinery, Andrews adroitly led his city, with its large black constituency, through voluntary compliance with school-integration orders.
When he arrived in the Senate, though, he played by the Byrd machine's rules, and he personified many of its cherished values: history, honor, tradition, integrity, know-how - and a noblesse oblige dedication to public service, instilled by his prominent old-line Hampton family, which still gives him an energy twice that of lawmakers half his age.
``Had the Byrd organization lasted another dozen years after his first election [in 1963], he would have been governor,'' says Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.
But it didn't. And while Andrews toyed with the idea of running for governor well into the '80s (and with running for the U.S. Senate, too), he basically contented himself with ruling the roost from the state Capitol's second floor.
Whence, he has often been a thorn in the side of the inhabitants on the third floor.
When U.S. Sen. Charles Robb was governor, Andrews privately referred to him as ``Chuckie Bird,'' or sometimes, with biting sarcasm, as ``Chuckles.''
If my memory is correct, it was also Andrews who first dubbed Roanoke County's Explore Park ``Dickie World.'' That, naturally, to goad Vinton Del. Richard Cranwell, one of the few House leaders Andrews considers his politically manipulative equal.
But then, Andrew has been known to heap scorn and disdain on nearly everyone - Senate colleagues, state-government officials, members of the press, private citizens attempting to testify before committees. You gotta love a guy like that.
``Hmphh!'' you say? ``Good riddance to that pompous old poot,'' you're thinking? Indeed, should anybody in this part of the state care that Tidewater voters gave him the boot?
Probably not. Except maybe administrators at area colleges and universities who know the depth of his support for higher education. And perhaps those CEOs and other regional leaders who know how many times Andrews went to bat for Southwest Virginia when it came time to divvy up budget goodies. And a few who recognize that the progress-minded Andrews has done more good for Virginia than, say, 90 percent of those elected in lo these past three decades.
And some, like me, who think all state legislators should be endowed with such leadership ability and intelligence.
Hunter Andrews: a legend in his own mind, and mine; a legislative institution, the makings of which won't likely be seen again in what he calls (disdainfully, of course) ``the Holy City.'' Richmond won't be the same. I will sure miss him being there, lording it over everybody.
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