ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 13, 1997 TAG: 9701130064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS, the Salem Republican has done something to attract attention to his cause.
When the House of Delegates went through the motions of adopting its rules on the opening day of the General Assembly session last week, only one legislator raised a peep of protest.
Morgan Griffith, the Republican from Salem.
It was, he declared, a matter of "conscience" to cast the only dissenting vote against what otherwise was a parliamentary formality.
And he insisted he wasn't worried in the least about drawing dubious glances from his colleagues, who generally operate by the principle of go-along-to-get-along. "I'm sure the patriots didn't ingratiate themselves with King George," he says by way of comparison.
What was it that so offended Griffith? The fact that General Assembly committee assignments don't reflect the partisan makeup of the legislature. In plain language, that means while Democrats hold a narrow majority in the House - 52-46, with one independent and one seat still vacant - they're over-represented on the major committees.
On the all-important House Appropriations Committee, which deals with money, there are 17 Democrats to only four Republicans and the lone independent.
Griffith says that's not right, and plenty of fellow Republicans agree with him. But he's the one who has made the push for proportional representation a personal crusade. For the past two years, he's done something to attract attention to his cause.
To hear Griffith tell it, he's a reformer who's on the side of, if not the angels, then at least Thomas Jefferson.
"We have a system that I don't believe was intended by our Founding Fathers," he says "It's somewhat of an embarrassment we don't have proportional representation."
To hear Democrats tell it, though, Griffith is either a naive idealist, a dangerous partisan trying to inject politics into the legislature, or worse - a sore loser.
"He wants to go home and whine `they won't change the rules to let me win,''' says Del. Jay DeBoer, D-Petersburg, who has a reputation as one of the legislature's most candid - or blunt - members.
Griffith first got involved in this issue in the fall of '95, when House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Vinton was facing a re-election challenge by Trixie Averill and Republicans were optimistic of winning a majority. Griffith tried to help Averill by making the case that once the GOP was in control, Cranwell's power would be "kaput" because "some" Republicans were determined to punish him by kicking him off important committees.
Griffith's warning stirred up a campaign tempest which, he says, "got my juices flowing" over the basic issue.
Last year, he introduced two constitutional amendments - one to require proportional representation on committees, the other to let each party appoint its own members, rather than let the majority party decide which members of the minority party to assign to which committees.
The amendments died - in a committee where Democrats hold a disproportionate advantage, Griffith points out - so this year he's reintroducing them.
Griffith says it's a matter of bringing democracy to Richmond. "If the people have said they want a House of Delegates that's roughly 46 percent Republican and 52 percent Democrat, the committees ought to reflect that."
He says Democrats ought to support his measure - in case they someday find themselves in the minority and need "protection" from Republicans bent on revenge. "It's hubris," says Scott Leake, a staffer for the Republican caucus. "If not for the Democrats' overweening pride, they'd go along with this."
Not so fast, Democrats say. Cranwell says proportional representation by party would make it difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy a more important requirement in making committee assignments - geographical diversity. And besides, Cranwell says, "if you do it by party, you'd be politicizing the process."
DeBoer offers another reason to oppose a proportional distribution of committee assignments: To the victors belong the spoils.
"Is [Griffith] wrong philosophically? Probably not. But from a realpolitik point of view, yeah, he's wrong. He's trying to win with a rules change what he couldn't win at the ballot box, a majority or something like it. To the winners belong the majority of seats on the committees, including a super-majority on the big committees, such as those that deal with money."
Griffith says he expects his proposed constitutional amendments to die a quiet death this time, just as they did last year. Leake says if they're destined to die, Republicans at least would like to turn up the volume, so their demise can be used as a campaign issue this fall. "If we have our way," Leake says, "they'll die noisily."
Staff writer David M. Poole contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Griffith. color. KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB