THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512170045
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Seated side by side at a candidates forum last October, state Sen. Jane Woods and Alexandria Mayor Patsy Ticer appeared cut from the same political cloth.
``What about Virginia's new law easing restrictions on carrying handguns?'' someone asked.
Bad idea, both women said.
``How about federal plans to slash Medicaid?''
Potentially dangerous, they echoed.
``Funding for higher education?''
Absolutely vital, they agreed.
Only a partisan political question caused the two to part ways. Woods, who was unopposed for re-election, is a Republican, and Ticer, who was seeking a Senate seat in a neighboring district, is a liberal Democrat.
In a year when a single renegade could tilt control of the Virginia Senate, Woods - a 49-year-old former schoolteacher who has confronted ovarian cancer, Democratic heavyweights and a sitting governor of her own party with equal resolve - is widely viewed as the Republican most likely to rebel.
Last week, she ended a month-long musing over her political future by announcing that she would remain a Republican. But she cautioned, ``The Republican Party is being pulled in what I believe to be wrong directions.''
The statement, and her refusal to commit to party support on procedural votes, left alive speculation that Woods could bolt at key moments if she believes that decorum and her ``values-of-the-mainstream'' philosophy are not being served.
``We are not organizing the Senate to further any particular party or ideology,'' she said at a Capitol news conference. ``We are organizing the Senate to serve the Commonwealth with efficiency and fairness.''
Asked later about the continuing speculation, Woods remained vague.
``This is an opus still in the stages of creation that does not have a definite shape or form, so to ask how is someone going to vote is really difficult,'' she said. ``Is there going to be a Democrat plan? A Republican plan? Three a day?''
Often prim and formal in public, Woods is more high-spirited and irreverent in private, friends say. As a lawmaker she is known for an attention to detail that can exasperate even allies, and for strong ties to her constituents. She was one of the few Northern Virginia incumbents who ran unopposed last fall.
An independent thinker, the senator has gained gradual confidence in that political role since arriving in the House of Delegates in 1988. She was elected to the Senate four years later.
Last week's news conference was ``the apogee of something that's developed the last couple of years,'' said her former seatmate and fellow moderate, Sen. Robert Calhoun, R-Alexandria, who was defeated by Ticer last month. ``It's a very independent, almost stubborn attitude that she's not going to be bossed around,'' he said.
In 1993, Woods split from Republicans to provide the key vote on bringing church day care centers under greater state regulation. Last winter, she opposed key parts of GOP Gov. George F. Allen's agenda, including a variety of social services and education spending cuts, and a proposal to make sex education optional in public school districts. Unlike most Republicans, she favored special penalties for barring access to abortion clinics.
An analysis by The Virginian-Pilot found that during the 1995 session Wood split with others in her party on controversial votes more times than any other Senate Republican.
In Woods' view, it is a Virginia Republican Party increasingly dominated by the Religious Right that has changed, not she. She appears particularly offended by the confrontational style of the Allen administration.
Drawn to the GOP by the progressivism of former Gov. Linwood Holton, who served from 1970 to 1974, Woods says she remains committed to the views that attracted her: fiscal restraint, a strong national defense, and her sense that Holton was ``very much a champion of people.''
``That's the reason government exists,'' she said.
What she is not interested in, said Woods, is partisanship. Ticking off her priorities last week, including strong public education, a health care system that includes the poor, and an economy that ``strengthens all Virginia, not just a favored few,'' Woods praised former governors of both parties.
``When we have failed, it has been when we have strayed into blind alleys and the dead ends of radicalism,'' she added.
Her commitment to a people-oriented government was only deepened by a bout with cancer five years ago, Woods said. She missed most of the 1990 session, but passed her five-year milestone this year without relapse.
Surviving cancer puts life in perspective, Woods said. She approaches difficult situations by asking, ``What is the absolute worst that could happen? . . . Things that seemed insolvable before aren't.''
And things like partisan power plays seem trivial.
Unlike Sen. Virgil Goode, a Democrat who is as conservative as many Republicans, Woods has not sought to capitalize on the strength of her bargaining position by asking for key committee assignments. ``My gut is no. I'm not comfortable with that for me,'' she said.
Her primary interest, she said, is ``in preserving the integrity of the Senate as a body which will exist long after we're not here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY REPUBLICAN PARTY VIRGINIA by CNB