ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230038
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-17 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: RAY L. GARLAND
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
EVERY GOVERNOR has a signature by which he's known to history. A single four-year term doesn't allow for much more.
Among those mentioned here last week, Mills Godwin represented the last of the old order and the first of the new. As a Southside legislator and lieutenant governor from 1962 to 1966, he was the embodiment of old Virginia: courtly, orthodox, frugal. In his four years as lieutenant governor, the state spent little more than $1 billion - what it spends now in less than four weeks!
But Godwin sensed the winds of change and rode them as governor to pass a sales tax to finance a statewide system of community colleges, and much else besides.
Linwood Holton - the first Republican governor this century - was determined to prove Virginia could be a "two-party democracy" that would turn a kind face to her black citizens. He was also determined to sweep the cobwebs from state agencies. But no sooner had his administration found its legs than the state was hit - in the summer of 1970 - with federal court orders to bus white students to mainly black schools, and vice versa.
In his inaugural address, Holton said, " ... let us now endeavor to make today's Virginia a model in race relations." When the busing crisis hit, he refused to do what past governors would have done as a matter of routine: denounce the judges and direct the attorney general to join futile appeals to overturn the orders. Instead, he set a personal example of cheerful compliance by enrolling his own children in predominantly black schools.
Though it would be hard to imagine a policy more disastrous than forced busing - accelerating as it did the decline of our older cities - Holton did what no recent governor has done: sacrifice his political future on the altar of his principles.
It was always my opinion, possibly wrong, that Charles Robb cared about state government only to the extent it provided a springboard to national office. But Robb was significant for putting a modern face on the Virginia Democratic Party. By perfecting the feat of always talking like a conservative while acting like a liberal, he prepared the way for Democratic sweeps in the elections of 1985 and 1989.
Whatever you think of him, Robb's political performance has been impressive, though it took the stupidity of those Republicans who insisted upon nominating Oliver North to bring him back from a near-death experience. The scandals that rocked Robb's first term in the Senate would have destroyed any politician less anchored in the rock of his party's affections.
It may be a stretch to call Gerald Baliles (1986-90) Virginia's most unlikely governor. But it's hard to reconcile the quiet, cautious member of the House of Delegates he was in the '70s with the same man who won two hard battles for the Democratic nomination for statewide office.
In the gubernatorial campaign of 1985 that followed the Reagan landslide, Baliles seemed the very model of a conservative Democrat. But once in office he championed a broad increase in taxes to improve Virginia highways, and easily carried the legislature with him. It was the natural outcome of careful planning and execution.
It has been observed here that the government of Virginia is too big - and the term of a governor too brief - for any chief executive to flatter himself he is actually running the show. But Baliles probably came closer to the ideal of a true chief executive than any recent governor. He was and is a man of great methodology and diligence.
Doug Wilder was the most unaccountable of governors. Having achieved the office in 1989, he had only to take the easy road of dignified affability to win the applause of most Virginians. But he had an impish disdain for the path most easily traveled. There can be no question that cost his party many seats in the legislature and broke the mold of success in statewide elections the sainted Robb had cast with his own hands.
Wilder came close to composing his own epitaph. "Because so few of them are truly free," he said before leaving office, "they couldn't understand that I am a free man - and a free man is hard to confront." It would be hard to say it better.
But Wilder's place in history is secure. He proved twice that Virginia would elect an African-American to high office. He also proved a modern Democrat could be a true fiscal conservative.
While all these governors performed chores purely political, they did so in a manner distinctly subdued. But Gov. George Allen broke that tradition. His partisan attacks have caused relations with the assembly's Democratic majority to be far worse than experienced by Holton and the two Republican governors who followed him.
In his first year, Allen put Democrats on the defensive with legislation to abolish "liberal, lenient" parole. Emboldened, he came back in 1995 with proposals to reduce state spending in mid-budget to fund tax cuts and to shift lottery profits from the state treasury to local budgets. It was too much, too soon: He lost across the board.
In a move unprecedented in Virginia politics, Allen took these issues to the people and asked for Republican majorities to enact his program. Again, he lost, albeit narrowly. But the amazing thing was as soon as the returns came in, he shifted gears, dropped most of his proposals and pronounced himself in favor of bipartisan cooperation.
Though the governor has continued to skirmish with Democrats over such minor issues as Goals 2000, he now seems absorbed with economic development. In political terms, there are only pluses here, and he seems to be gathering more than his fair share lately.
Allen's popularity, while threatened at times, has held up remarkably well. This could permit him to join Robb as the only recent governor successfully pursuing a political career after leaving office. Some see an Allen-Robb contest for U.S. Senate in 2000. That would be quite a test of strength and methods.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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