ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010092
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
RICHMOND is a city that would seem to have everything: capital of a growing state, a strategic location and home to numerous Fortune 500 companies. There is, of course, the Jonah of racial division and a local political scene that, until recently, has been a cross between the Keystone Kops and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Now comes a man with a plan, the Rev. Leonidas Young, chosen as mayor by City Council 20 months ago. He would now like to become Richmond's first popularly elected mayor since 1948. But that requires a change in the city charter, which must be approved by the General Assembly.
Normally, this would be routine. But for this change to take effect in time for the May 7 election, it must pass the legislature with an emergency clause attached, which requires a four-fifths vote in both chambers. As this is written, what would be granted any similar charter change as a matter of courtesy is still in doubt. And numerous city charters provide for the at-large election of the mayor.
Ordinarily, a purely local question wouldn't be the subject of this column. But as the capital city, Richmond's fate is of interest to all true Virginians. And the real issue percolating beneath the surface here is of more than local interest.
As was appropriate, Young and the seven other council members supporting the change (one dissented) asked for the consent of voters. In a referendum held last November, 67 percent of those going to the polls endorsed the idea of a popularly elected mayor. To avoid running afoul of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Department of Justice, the nine wards now electing a member of council would remain as they are with the at-large mayor increasing the governing body to 10 members. But the mayor would have a vote only in the case of a tie.
In the proposal originally advanced by the city's Charter Commission, the mayor would be a full-time official with a commensurate salary. He also would have been able to veto actions of council, subject to being overridden by a two-thirds' vote. But these somewhat radical notions were dropped, and citizens were asked to approve an at-large mayor whose only special power would be the ability to have any matter previously decided by council brought back for reconsideration at its next meeting.
Richmond's highly respected former registrar, Alice Lynch, prepared an analysis of the referendum for the press. "In my roughly 23 years as city registrar," she said, "I can think of few issues that reached such overwhelming support from voters; crossing racial, economic and geographic lines."
That might be seen in a precinct with 99.6 percent white voters, where the at-large mayor was favored by a vote of 301 to 139; and in one with 98.8 percent black voters, where it won by 227 to 106. While the issue failed in only four of 73 precincts, and these with a black majority, it did command slightly stronger support among the city's white voters. But, as Lynch said, it won remarkably broad support.
One explanation of why support was a bit stronger among whites lies in the positive image created by Mayor Young as a proverbial bridge over troubled waters. For blacks, his career as preacher and politician seems to satisfy their ideal of one who can not only talk the talk, but has walked the walk.
In his present incarnation, the onetime firebrand is a pacificator, delivering a message of stop the rot or we'll all sink together. The results thus far are decidedly mixed. But there is a sense of the city turning a corner.
So, who's against honoring the will of the people as expressed in the referendum and giving Young a good shot at being able to speak for the whole city? Why, it's none other than such long-established brokers of the black vote as the Crusade for Voters and former mayor, now state Sen. Henry Marsh. Also behind the opposition, some say, is former Gov. Douglas Wilder.
Various reasons, or excuses, for opposing the change will be advanced. But perhaps the real reason is that an at-large mayor with biracial appeal won't be so dependent upon the power-brokers. Thus free, he might even enter the mainstream of Virginia politics, just as Wilder did.
Black political influence in this state and nation, while still very important by reason of its more-or-less unified voice, is being limited by three factors. First, recent interpretations of the Voting Rights Act have largely segregated the black vote, creating very safe seats for a relatively small number of federal and state legislators. Second, from being a vote that both parties competed for, it now is seen as belonging almost exclusively to the Democratic Party. Third, those blacks who dissent from the prevailing moan-and-groan orthodoxy expose themselves to attack - not merely as being wrong, but as traitors to class and race.
If the question of the Richmond mayorship was purely an issue of whites wanting one thing and blacks another, there would be every reason to believe a sufficient number of assembly Democrats could be enlisted to block it, regardless of merit. But that manifestly isn't the case.
In a move likely orchestrated by Joel Harris, the mayor's agile executive assistant, a group of about two dozen prominent black ministers took aim at Marsh and Benjamin Lambert, the city's other black state senator. Lambert is on record as saying voters didn't really understand the issue. The ministers recently met with the two senators, who reportedly told them the at-large mayor would undermine black political influence in Richmond.
But that line didn't wash with the Rev. John Johnson. "More and more," he said, "people feel the Democratic Party, whom they have been told to trust, takes them for granted."
If the charter's emergency clause is denied - and it's hard to think that will ultimately happen, given virtually unanimous Republican backing for it - it will certainly expose the cynical dealings of certain black politicians and the Democratic Party.
"For the first time," said former Democratic State Chairman Paul Goldman, who was hired by the ministers' group to lobby for the charter, "Democrats are allowing Republicans to get the credit for giving the people the right to vote. It makes no sense."
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Long : 108 linesby CNB