THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240302
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE AND ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
The General Assembly accomplished little Monday while lawmakers spent most of the day trolling for signatures as the clock ticked down to a 5 p.m. deadline for introducing legislation.
Del. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia Beach tried to hustle a few Democratic co-sponsors for welfare reforms sought by Republican Gov. George F. Allen.
Del. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County button-holed suburban colleagues and told them how his ``Sheep Industry Board'' would help farmers fight a nasty coyote problem.
By the end of the day, the clerks' desks in the Senate and House of Delegates were stacked high with last-minute submissions, bringing the total to more than 2,000 bills and resolutions that will be considered by Feb. 25.
``For the next 33 days, if they met for 24 hours a day,'' observed deputy House clerk Jeff Finch, ``they could cover 2.6 bills an hour.''
Last year the legislature acted on a record 2,700 pieces of legislation, but that was a 60-day session. This year's total is about average for an off-year ``short session;'' it's even down sharply from 1993, when lawmakers crammed almost 2,500 pieces into 46 days.
But legislators say 1995 is more hectic than ever because Allen has proposed sweeping tax and spending cuts and has thrown in several major initiatives, including welfare reform.
``Usually the short sessions are active,'' said House Majority Leader C. Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County, ``but the governor's agenda has made it radioactive.''
The House staff began cataloging new legislation about noon and figured to be there until 11 p.m. or later. Cheers went up when someone mentioned that Del. Harvey B. Morgan, R-Gloucester, had introduced a bill - HB 2027 - to limit lawmakers to 15 pieces of legislation each per session.
``That doesn't do anything,'' Finch interrupted, noting that delegates this year introduced an average of only 14 pieces each. ``And as soon as you set a limit,'' he added, ``they're all going to try to reach it.''
The avalanche of bills was not the only thing that slowed down business Monday. Partisan floor speeches again turned a light docket in the House into a tedious session that dragged on nearly an hour after the Senate finished its business. The daily posturing has gotten so out of hand that Del. Jay W. DeBoer, D-Petersburg, jokingly suggested holding a ``public information hour'' before the floor session begins each day.
``One full hour,'' DeBoer said, ``in which the members can speak directly to the cameras.''
The inspiration for the daily round of partisan speeches, of course, has been Allen's sweeping tax and budget cuts.
Monday, Republican delegates came armed with 6-foot-tall placards filled with graphs designed to counter recent public opinion polls, which showed overwhelming disapproval for Allen's proposed spending cuts for police, health care for poor teens and mental health services.
Chesapeake Del. J. Randy Forbes used the props to make the case that state government needs to go on a crash diet after going on a ``non-stop spending binge'' under three Democratic governors. One graph showed that state spending has increased at nearly twice the rate of federal spending during the last decade.
The props drew an immediate - and fiery - response from Cranwell.
Cranwell said that Republicans have been ``hooked up to the morphine needle for too long'' if they think the General Assembly should be compared to the U.S. Congress.
``That is simply a hallucination,'' he said, adding that Allen's five-year, $2.1 billion tax cuts amounted to a ``shift and shaft plan'' that would force local governments to increase property tax rates.
Cranwell said that Allen's plan to cut taxes and go into debt for prisons makes sense only as a vehicle to launch Allen to national political office in 1996.
``Politics can be damned,'' Cranwell said. ``If that's your choice, have at it. That's not my choice or the choice of my constituents.'' MEMO: Staff writer Greg Schneider contributed to this story.
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995 by CNB