ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310036
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
WHAT BUGS Gov. George Allen so much about the notion of a strong, nonpartisan State Council of Higher Education?
Something sure does.
Earlier in his administration, Allen unsuccessfully tried to make the council's executive director a gubernatorial appointee. He unsuccessfully proposed significant cuts in higher-education appropriations without consulting the council or its staff. He unsuccessfully attempted to neuter the council by gutting its budget.
Now, what failed in a frontal assault via the power of the purse apparently is being sought indirectly via the power of bureaucratic manipulation.
Creation last week of an insiders' executive committee to oversee the council's work would be nigh impossible to explain without taking into account Allen's history of trying to politicize traditionally apolitical state agencies.
Under the staggered-term system, the Allen appointees are at last, late in his term, a majority on the council, and it was clear last week that they enjoy a one-vote edge in the factional breakdown. How else to regard their executive-committee idea except as a power grab?
The governor defended the move by observing that the legislature long has operated under a committee system - as if that were a recommendation. In the avowedly partisan and relatively large (140-member) General Assembly, the committee system is a practical necessity. In the smaller (11-member) and presumably nonpartisan higher-education council, something's amiss.
Maybe what bugs Allen, and his newly majoritarian appointees, about the way the council heretofore has conducted business is that it has advocated adequate higher-education funding even while prodding Virginia's colleges and universities to become more cost-efficient.
Or maybe it's that the council traditionally has relied on a professional staff - led by long-time Director Gordon Davies - whose effectiveness has won plaudits from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
Or maybe the problem is simply that - because the council has staggered terms, the power to name its own director and statutory reporting responsibilities to the legislature as well as to the executive - the council isn't in any governor's pocket.
Which is precisely as it should be. Even without the fiscal hangover of the recession-induced budget cuts of the late '80s and early '90s, the state's colleges and universities would be confronted with the task of adjusting to swiftly changing demands on them. The last thing they and the state council need is to become the rope in a partisan tug-of-war.
According to the Code of Virginia, members of the council shall be selected "without regard to political affiliation ... and for their ability, and all appointments shall be of such nature as to aid the work of the Council and to inspire the highest degree of cooperation and confidence."
Whatever the source of Allen's itch to politicize the council, a political council isn't what was intended.
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