THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9407280471
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: INSIDE VIRGINIA
SOURCE: DAVID POOLE
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
GOV. GEORGE F. Allen is beginning to resemble a juggler trying to keep more and more balls in the air at once. The audience shrieks with delight, wondering how far he can go before balls go skittering across the stage.
The next six months will tell whether Allen can keep up with the ambitious agenda he has set for his administration.
Allen has launched four major initiatives: abolishing parole, overhauling welfare, reforming public schools and streamlining state government.
Any one of those topics could keep a governor's hands full. That Allen, who won a landslide victory last fall to become the state's first Republican chief executive in 12 years, would reach for all four shows the seriousness with which he takes the mandate of ``change.'' He knows he must strike quickly, because a Virginia governor - locked into a single term - has only three short years to make a mark before becoming a lame duck.
There are signs, however, that Allen may have grabbed too much too soon.
The governor has set torturous deadlines. A parole commission must have a plan ready for a special General Assembly session in September. Three other panels have been given until the end of the year, in time for the regular legislative session that begins in January.
One panel - the Governor's Commission on Champion Schools - has fallen so far behind schedule that Allen will not be able to make good on his promise to present an education reform package to the 1995 General Assembly. The commission, deeply divided between those who want radical change and those who want incremental reforms, may need another year to complete its work.
The Governor's Commission on Government Reform is charged with rooting out waste and recommending ways to improve efficiency in state government. But the commission's July 15 interim report was skimpy on specifics, suggesting that the part-time panel may come up with something far short of a comprehensive retooling of state government.
Republicans applaud Allen's ambitious agenda, which has been announced in a series of campaignlike rallies. But the new governor runs the risk of diluting his political power by fighting battles on several fronts.
Most governors are remembered for one or two central themes. Mills Godwin established the state's community college system during his first term in the 1960s. Charles S. Robb raised teachers' salaries to near the national average. Gerald L. Baliles changed the way the state pays for highway construction. L. Douglas Wilder held the line on taxes during the 1990 recession.
Allen wants it all.
He'll be the tough-on-crime governor.
The less-government governor.
The jobs governor.
The welfare reform governor.
The education governor.
The reality, however, is that Allen will have to pick his fights in order to have any success in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.
Allen will present his ideas to a legislature locked in partisan warfare over the approach of the 1995 elections, in which all 100 seats in the House of Delegates and all 40 in the state Senate will be on the ballot.
Democrats, who are in real jeopardy of losing their majority in both houses, will be in no mood to let Allen hog the stage for his party.
Allen has a choice. He can make things easier on himself by juggling a couple of initiatives. Or he can toss up half-a-dozen ideas - and blame the Democrats if the whole thing comes crashing down. by CNB