ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
THE MOST POWERFUL, sometimes only, voice for consumers is largely silent in the halls of the General Assembly this session.
Lobbyists plying the halls of the General Assembly business committees thought they had rid themselves of Jean Ann Fox.
So there were some furrowed brows this week when the silver-haired consumer advocate was spotted at the House Corporations, Banking and Insurance Committee.
"What's she doing here?" one gray-suited lobbyist was overheard muttering in the back of the room.
Several members of the House committee gave her a gracious reception. But one lobbyist let his true feelings show.
"I wish I was as glad to see Ms. Fox as you are," quipped Mike Toalson, lobbyist for the Virginia Banking Association.
For a decade, Fox needled the powerful interests - banks, utilities, car dealers - long accustomed to getting their way in the legislature. She won a few battles, lost many more. But her presence meant that business interests could not ignore consumers.
Fox has left her position as volunteer lobbyist for the Virginia Citizens Consumers Council, choosing to take a paying position with a Washington-based group.
The new president of the Consumer Council, Irene Leech, is an extension specialist at Virginia Tech. She knows the state's consumers are often poorly represented in relation to business interests, and that Fox's departure will leave a gap in the group's lobbying efforts.
Soon after taking office last fall, Leech said she would like to see the Consumer Council rely less on the political efforts of any one person and more on the participation of its entire membership.
That will, she said, take time. For now, a part-time lobbyist and a volunteer from the Consumer Council have taken Fox's place in Richmond, but it could take years for anyone to gain her institutional knowledge and her stature.
"Jean Ann was kind of a conscience, to remind people that things are not always as they appear," said Del. Creigh Deeds, a Warm Springs Democrat who sits on the House corporations panel.
The General Assembly press gives scant attention to consumer matters, partly because the issues involve arcane laws that are difficult to explain. Few reporters dare darken the door of the Assembly money committees.
Behind these doors takes place the real business of the General Assembly. Phone companies carve up long-distance markets. Banks and loan companies skirmish over control of installment loans. Doctors and insurance companies spar over managed care.
Each decision affects consumers: their phone rates, their bank service charges, their access to medical specialists.
Lawmakers encourage the competing business interests to work out their differences. Lobbyists decamp to the back of the room, where they cut deals and strike compromises.
This year, with Fox gone, business lobbyists often have the room to themselves.
Earlier this month, the House Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee got bogged down on a bill that would allow banks to raise fees charged for installment loans.
"Where is Jean Ann Fox?" inquired chairman George Heilig, a Norfolk Democrat.
In 1985, Fox drove up to Richmond from her home in Yorktown to speak on behalf of a bill requiring contracts to be written in "plain English."
She never got a chance to speak. The Courts of Justice Committee was behind locked doors discussing judicial appointments.
"I stood in the hall the whole day and then went home," she recalled.
Her first trip to the General Assembly only made her more determined to break through to the state legislators. Her journeys to Richmond - all as an unpaid volunteer - became more frequent. By the 1990s, her falsetto became the state's most recognized consumer voice.
"I'm tall, I have white hair, I'm loud and I'm opinionated," she said.
Some of her admirers say Fox's tenacity could be a liability, that she sometimes did not know when to let go of a losing issue.
"A lot of time she offered tremendous insight into legislation," Deeds said. "Other times, she would have blinders on."
Under Fox, the Consumer Council won reforms in credit insurance sold to people who finance cars and appliances, rescued the state Office of Consumer Affairs from budget cuts and strengthened penalties in the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.
But most of the time the Consumer Council got squashed. The volunteer group, with a $25,000 annual budget, has been no match for business lobbyists who are backed by tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
"The problem is that legislators don't hear from individual consumers," she said. "People don't think to call their legislator when they get overcharged, ripped off or tricked.
"They [legislators] hear from the lobbyists from the industries who want to keep favorable treatment or less regulation."
Heilig said his committee has been careful not to let business groups take advantage of the situation while the Consumer Council is in transition.
"Those of us on the committee, we've been there a long time," he said. "We have a pretty good idea when they're trying to grab more than they should."
Fox rolled her eyes when told about Heilig's remark.
She paused, as if to choose her words carefully.
"From my point of view, they lean over backward for certain special interests," she said.
Moments earlier, Fox had gone before the House committee seeking to ban an archaic formula that allows banks to overcharge customers who pay off installment loans early.
Seven years ago, the Consumer Council managed to end the practice for mortgages and most other loans. Fox asked the lawmakers to complete the task.
But the bill died after no one on the committee would second a motion for approval.
"Amazing," she said, sounding genuinely amazed. "I was feeling nostalgic about being back here. But now I'm not quite as nostalgic as I was."
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Fox. color. KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB