ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610120008
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON AND DAN CASEY/STAFF WRITERS
" ... government closer to the people, free enterprise, strong national defense, strong support for the family - and allowing families to make their own decisions rather than being dependent on a government bureaucracy ... "
REP. Bob Goodlatte stepped up on a park bench on Roanoke's City Market in November 1994 to introduce his party's U.S. Senate nominee, Oliver North. The Roanoke congressman pumped up the lunchtime crowd with praise for the controversial Iran-Contra figure.
Two years later, Goodlatte is uncomfortable when his fellow Republican is brought up in a newspaper interview.
"Why, uh, you've got some old stuff with Ollie North," Goodlatte says as the interview ends. "I thought that was an old ... I think that issue was over and settled and we're moving on."
Goodlatte doesn't like to dwell on his alliances with vocal, hard-right conservatives such as North, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, or Calif. Rep. Sonny Bono, who caused a stir last month by coming to Roanoke for a Goodlatte rally and calling President Clinton "a criminal" who has CIA "hit squads" in Haiti.
Goodlatte says the focus shouldn't be on who his allies are. Nor should it be on "the more sensational issues" - such as his opposition to abortion and assault-weapon bans - that he says make up "1 percent" of his work in Congress.
Instead, he wants voters to look at his four years of meat-and-potatoes work for the people of Virginia's 6th District: His constituent service, his work to route Interstate 73 through the Roanoke Valley, his efforts to cut government red tape and balance the federal budget, his influence in helping persuade new employers to open plants here.
Goodlatte, a 44-year-old Massachussetts native, believes labels can be misleading. But he considers himself a "mainstream conservative."
That means he favors "government closer to the people, free enterprise, strong national defense, strong support for the family - and allowing families to make their own decisions rather than being dependent on a government bureaucracy that erodes their ability to function in society."
He has brought a bulging war chest - more than $450,000 in the bank as of July 1 - into this fall's campaign against two woefully underfunded opponents.
But Goodlatte says the thing that gives him the advantage against Democrat Jeff Grey and Libertarian Jay Rutledge is the fact that he's in tune with the citizens of the 6th District - and he has a track record in Congress to prove it.
Critics paint a different picture. Grey has tried to link Goodlatte in the public's mind to North and Gingrich - figures who are popular among conservative loyalists but spark divisive reactions among the general public. Grey complains that Goodlatte tries to come off as a moderate, but is in fact "an extremist" who been at the forefront of Republican efforts to throw tax breaks and other perks at corporations and rich campaign contributors - at the expense of working families and the elderly. Goodlatte brushes off Grey's claims as the whinings of a "desperate, negative campaign."
One thing is not in dispute: Goodlatte has been a key player in the Republican transformation of the federal government the past two years.
According to Congressional Quarterly, Goodlatte voted with Gingrich and the Republican majority 94 percent of the time in 1995, the first year of GOP control.
Politics Now, an Internet newsletter that tracks national politics, named Goodlatte and Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Richmond, as the two most conservative lawmakers in the Virginia delegation in Congress.
Goodlatte's surpassing conservatism is borne out by ratings from many interest groups, which rate Congress members' votes based on how often lawmakers favor the groups' agendas.
He gets his highest marks from conservative, religious right and corporate groups. These include a 95 percent rating from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee in 1995 and perfect 100s from the National Rifle Association in 1994 and the Christian Coalition and the Business-Industry Political Action Committee in 1995.
By contrast, he gets almost uniformly low marks from liberal groups and consumer, environmental and labor organizations. The National Council of Senior Citizens gave him a 10 out of 100 in 1995; The Consumer Federation of America said he voted with consumers just 6 percent of the time.
The League of Conservation Voters, a national alliance of environmental groups, labels Goodlatte as among the most anti-environmental members of Congress.
It gave him a zero for his votes during the first 100 days of the new Republican Congress - a time when the GOP was pushing for major changes in environmental laws. The conservation group also panned Goodlatte for his July 1995 votes to cut the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by one-third and reduce its enforcement powers.
Goodlatte says he and the GOP get an unfair rap from environmental groups.
He believes the federal government has a role in stopping pollution, but that states should have more flexibility to help employers find innovative ways to meet environmental standards - so that jobs aren't lost by ensnaring companies in red tape.
For him, his stands on the environment and many other issues stem from his bedrock belief - that "limited and decentralized government is better than a huge bureaucracy in Washington, D.C."
f HVY f-b f-i s 12
Bob Goodlatte and politics go way back. Goodlatte majored in government and was president of the College Republicans at Bates College in Maine.
He headed south in 1974 for law school at Washington and Lee University. As he was finishing up, he began looking for work as a congressional staffer, landing a job in Roanoke as Republican Rep. Caldwell Butler's district director.
After almost two years with Butler, Goodlatte opened a private law practice in Roanoke. At Butler's request, he became Roanoke GOP chairman in 1980. Then he moved up to 6th District party leader in 1983.
In 1986, he thought about running against Rep. Jim Olin, a Democrat elected after Butler had retired four years before.
Ever cautious, Goodlatte decided against it. But in late 1991 he had a hunch that Olin might be retiring. By the time Olin announced he was not running again, Goodlatte had lined up most of the district's top GOP leaders.
The going was tougher in the 1992 campaign, however. He was little known outside the GOP. His opponent, Roanoke County businessman Steve Musselwhite, brought a personal fortune to the campaign.
By mid-October, polls showed Musselwhite leading. Then Goodlatte went on the attack. He unleashed TV commercials charging his opponent "didn't pay taxes, failed to repay loans, helped his criminal pals."
Goodlatte swept to victory with 60 percent of the vote.
By the time the 1994 elections rolled around, the Democrats could find no one to take on Goodlatte, partly because Goodlatte had become a money magnet - raking in nearly $370,000 in campaign donations.
Goodlatte spent time helping other Republicans. That included ex-Marine Oliver North, whose convictions for lying to Congress had been overturned because of the immunity he was promised for testifying in the Iran-Contra hearings.
Goodlatte says now that North "did some things that I wouldn't have done." But, he adds, North's opponent in the Senate race, Charles Robb, had had his own brush with the law - his aides had been caught distributing a transcript of a phone call by then-Gov. Douglas Wilder.
North went down in defeat after the state's other senator, Republican John Warner, campaigned against him.
Gingrich and the
Girl Scouts
Bob Goodlatte was a little-known rookie congressman his first two years in Washington.
But that changed with the 1994 elections, which put Congress under Republican control for the first time since 1952.
In early 1995, the mild-mannered lawmaker from Virginia became a key player in Newt Gingrich's "Republican revolution."
Goodlatte took up the job of pushing through a key part of the Republican's "Contract with America." His task: Pass legislation aimed at reducing consumers' lawsuits against businesses and other defendants.
Goodlatte's opinions popped up in The New York Times and other big media. "A star is born," a fellow Republican declared.
The only speed bump Goodlatte hit in moving the bill through the House of Representatives was an objection from national Girl Scout leaders. They said Goodlatte was misleading the public when he claimed the Girl Scouts were snowed under by lawsuit-swollen insurance premiums.
Goodlatte said his comments on the Girl Scouts were accurate. He trumpeted the bill as a reasonable check on frivolous lawsuits and out-of-control jury awards. Critics said it would act as a shield for companies that make unsafe products; President Clinton later vetoed the bulk of the Republicans' "legal reform" package.
In a newspaper essay in February 1995, Goodlatte touted the Contract with America provisions his party had passed, including cuts in congressional committees and staff, a line-item budget veto "to cut pork-barrel spending," and "crime bills that actually focus on making criminals afraid to go outside at night."
A senator someday?
Since the heady early days of the GOP takeover, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress' public support has dropped while President Clinton's popularity has risen.
Some GOP lawmakers have tried to position themselves as far as possible from Gingrich. Goodlatte hasn't done that; he brought Gingrich to Roanoke this spring for a fund-raiser that his aides said bought in a record-setting $85,000.
Goodlatte says he believes Gingrich is taking the country in the right direction - although he quickly emphasizes that he disagrees with Gingrich from time to time.
Goodlatte, who is married and has two children, promises to serve in the House no more than 12 years - the length of stay he supports for term limits for members of Congress.
Republican insiders have mentioned him as a possible U.S. Senate candidate some day. But for now, Goodlatte wants to focus on his work in the House. He says he's championed "common-sense solutions" to protecting the environment, such as the creation of the Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area in Amherst County.
His list of accomplishments also includes votes for balancing the federal budget, reducing welfare, cutting taxes, cuts in congressional pensions.
At a recent Roanoke fund-raiser headlined by his friend, former TV star Sonny Bono, Goodlatte showed a five-minute national GOP video scolding President Clinton for taking credit for the party's accomplishments.
Later Goodlatte would distance himself from Bono's claims that Clinton was "a criminal" who has hired killers in the Third World.
But on this night, in front of a GOP crowd that had shelled out an estimated $40,000 or more, Goodlatte introduced Bono as a "true conservative" who has been a key player in "a very, very successful Congress."
After the elections, Goodlatte told the cheering crowd, he and Bono and their fellow Republicans will return to Washington and "finish the job that we started."
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