ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM B. HOPKINS
AFTER READING Sam Wallin's Feb. 19 letter to the editor (``Cranwell's outrages keep on coming"), I wonder if the false accusations against Del. Richard Cranwell will ever cease.
Wallin claimed that Cranwell was working for Trigon "while crafting insurance industry legislation." That's an absolute falsehood. Trigon acknowledged in a public statement that when Cranwell undertook legal work to convert it from a mutual insurance company to a stock company, there was no thought that any of the matters relating to its conversion would wind up in the legislative process. The General Assembly got into the act after the attorney general demanded that Trigon give Virginia $155 million, a position of dubious ethics since under state law the equity assets in a mutual insurance company belong to the insurance subscribers, not the state.
At no time did Cranwell have a hand in crafting the legislation required by the attorney general's action. When it became apparent that Trigon's conversion would be controversial, Cranwell stepped aside.
The Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous legislative body in North America. It began as a citizens' legislature and, thankfully, it still is. Elected farmers sit on the agricultural committees of both houses; bankers and insurance representatives are on the banking and insurance committees, educators on the education committees, and lawyers on the courts of justice committees. Each of these representatives votes on matters pertaining to their business or profession, and then earns a livelihood outside the legislature.
There are 39 lawyers in the House and 14 in the Senate, almost equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. Other than Cranwell, I've never heard of a legislator being criticized for practicing his profession in the state courts or before the State Corporation Commission and its three judges. I have heard objections to lawyer-legislators appearing before the ABC Commission, which Cranwell doesn't do.
Then what is the problem with Cranwell? He's a highly successful lawyer, as well as a fine and productive legislator. In fact, among those in the know, it's generally acknowledged that no one in the General Assembly serves his region or state any better. It's also interesting to know that Martindale Hubbell publishes a book on lawyers throughout the United States. Attorneys are rated by their fellow members and judges on a confidential basis. Cranwell has the highest rating a lawyer can get for integrity and competency.
Tell a fable often enough, and it puts on the clothes of truth. Republican politicians have said that Cranwell "wrote the present laws on annexation, then profited by them" so often that even news reporters have accepted these statements as true.
The record shows otherwise. Former Del. Tom Michie of Charlottesville, in conjunction with the Division of Legislative Services, wrote the legislation to curtail the proliferation of extremely costly annexation cases in Virginia. Cranwell and a large majority in the General Assembly, including myself, supported its passage. At the time this action was taken, Sen. Robert Fitzgerald of Fairfax County was the premier annexation attorney for Virginia counties. After Cranwell did an outstanding job of representing Spotsylvania County, other counties engaged his services in the few annexation cases that have been tried in the past 18 years.
This brings me to the $64 question: Why would an individual outside Cranwell's district write a letter to the editor making a patently false accusation against one who has served this valley and state so well?
William B. Hopkins of Roanoke is former majority leader of the Virginia Senate.
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