ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512250014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
ELLIOT SCHEWEL looks forward to seeing the world, now that he's leaving the state Senate. Just don't ask him about his successor.... This January, for the first time in 20 years, Elliot Schewel will not be packing his bags for the state Senate session in Richmond.
Instead, Schewel and his wife, Rosel, will be packing a steamer trunk for a cruise around the southern tip of South America. The journey will be the maiden voyage in his retirement from elected office.
"I'm 71," Schewel says, "and I don't know how many days and years I have left. There are so many things I want to do besides politics. I want to travel, spend time with my grandchildren. I want to learn to use a computer. I want to learn how to play bridge."
Schewel, whose district covers Bedford and Bedford County, established a reputation as the consummate gentleman, the ethical conscience of the Senate and a quietly effective lawmaker.
"This is the fairest man alive," says Norma Szakal, a lawyer for the Senate Education and Health Committee, which Schewel headed. "Even when people came before the committee whose bills he could not stand, he treated them fairly."
Schewel leaves with one small regret: His departure leaves Senate Democrats with a tenuous grip on power with the upper chamber in a 20-20 deadlock.
"I have real guilt feelings about the way the elections turned out," says Schewel, who would have provided the 21st vote for Democrats if he had sought a sixth term and won. "In essence, I put my own personal interests above the party's. I'm sorry, but that's what I had to do."
Schewel's interest in politics grew out of a sense of civic responsibility instilled by his family, which runs a chain of furniture stores based in Lynchburg.
His grandfather, Elias Schewel, was the first rabbi in Lynchburg when he arrived in the late 19th century. He found it difficult to make a living in a city known for the spires of its many Christian churches, so the elder Schewel turned to peddling pots, pans and other wares from a horse-drawn wagon.
In 1897, he opened a store on 12th Street in downtown Lynchburg. The Schewel franchise was born. His three sons, including Elliot's father, Abe, joined the business.
Folk in Lynchburg still talk of the family's generosity during the Depression, when the Schewels extended credit as other merchants were calling in loans.
Abe Schewel served on City Council and was a leader in many civic activities.
Elliot joined the furniture business and married Rosel, a bright, energetic woman from Baltimore.
"Politics was always discussed around the dinner table," says Steve Schewel, one of three children. "Dad was the family conservative, and Mom was the family liberal.
"We used to say the only reason that my Dad voted for the Equal Rights Amendment was because my mother would have left him. The story is a family joke, but it has a grain of truth in it."
Schewel served one term on City Council in the mid-1960s and was elected to the Senate in 1975.
He was conservative on fiscal matters and moderate to liberal on social matters. He is known as the author of the modern grievance procedure that provides state workers a fair opportunity to resolve disputes. He personally raised the seed money for a semipublic authority that makes loans to promising companies that don't qualify for conventional financing. He eventually won a seat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
When asked how he would like to be remembered, Schewel says: "He worked hard. He was a plodder."
Schewel's most difficult period came in the late 1980s, when the Senate was grappling with how to discipline then-Sen. Peter Babalas of Norfolk, who was charged with selling his vote on a second-mortgage lending bill.
Some lawmakers wanted to duck the issue and let the courts determine Babalas' fate. Schewel was among the leaders who persuaded the Senate to censure Babalas.
His efforts put Schewel under the ethical microscope, too. Some lawmakers noted that Schewel sat on the Sovran Bank board and voted on matters that benefited banks.
Schewel replied that a Senate panel had ruled there was nothing improper about his relationship with Sovran, but the criticism stung.
"This was an extremely difficult time," he recalls.
Schewel also recalls the lighter moments, such as when then-Sen. William Fears of Accomack County rose to draw attention to one of his constituents, visiting in the Senate gallery. Fears spoke in glowing terms about the man and his accomplishments. He talked and talked, until it became obvious that Fears could not recall the man's name.
"I'm at the age now that I could sympathize with that," Schewel says.
In 20 years, Schewel never faced serious opposition back home. He was popular enough to take stands - such as support for the ERA and opposition to parental notification for abortion - that would have proven fatal to lesser politicians in a conservative community that is home to the ministries of the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
"He would research an issue and stand on his principle," says Leighton Dodd, a former Lynchburg mayor. "He wasn't a politician, but a statesman."
Schewel cultivated this image of the non-politician, a naive guy who didn't quite understand the back-room dealing.
Others saw a bit of political calculation in Schewel's professed ignorance of the game.
"He'd look at me with a straight face and say he didn't know anything about politics. That's about the biggest lie that's ever been uttered," says former state Sen. Dudley "Buzz" Emick of Fincastle, who holds Schewel in the highest regard.
"That kind of humble pie may work in retail, but I didn't buy it. He was a very shrewd politician. I know 'em when I see 'em."
If Schewel has any more regrets about leaving, they are revealed in his badly concealed contempt for his successor, Republican Steve Newman.
Schewel announced his retirement last spring knowing there was no Democrat waiting in the wings. He knew that Newman - a young, aggressive conservative - likely would move up from the House of Delegates.
What pains Schewel the most is not that Newman is an ideological conservative who has Falwell's blessing and who will vote in a much different manner.
It's more a question of style. While Schewel came to politics after a long career in business and civic affairs, Newman, 31, who runs a direct-mail business, is an ambitious politician who has been running for one office or another since he was old enough to vote.
In an interview in his Richmond office overlooking the Capitol, Schewel says he would rather not talk about Newman. But he reaches for his wallet and pulls out a worn piece of paper. On it is scribbled Lynchburg News & Advance columnist Darrell Laurant's observation about Newman:
"He's never held a real job, at least in the sense that other people can identify with."
Schewel folds the paper and sticks it back in his billfold.
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Sen. Elliot Schewel/`The fairest man alive'. color.by CNB