THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601200003
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
There being 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats in the Virginia Senate and no imaginable alternative, Democrats have agreed to share power. A century of one-party dominance ends as Republicans take the helm of four of 11 Senate committees; a fifth, the powerful Finance Committee, has co-chairmen, Democrat Stanley Walker and Republican John Chichester.
This arrangement resulted when Democrats couldn't muster the unanimity needed for a tie vote on organizing the body which Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, a Democrat, presumably would have decided in his party's favor. ``We've created an experiment,'' said one veteran legislator. ``Some experiments prove something. Other experiments prove nothing.''
True enough, but in itself the act of sharing has virtues. Firstly, Republicans get a say in naming judges, thus ending a Democratic monopoly odious on its face. Secondly, sharing was the grown-up thing to do; it avoids the rage that builds against power unfairly seized or maintained.
The lieutenant governor does have a tie-breaking role when senators divide themselves evenly on a piece of legislation. But it was voters themselves who divided the Senate equally between the parties. Dividing the power was the only way to reflect the sentiment deposited in the ballot box, and to acknowledge the reality of Democratic slippage.
Traditional Democratic control of Southern legislatures wasn't so much earned as inherited: Democrats now are challenged to think harder about party policies and how to build public support for them rather than coast on the party label.
Voters may have left them power to share in the Senate because Governor Allen's failed attempt to purge the legislature seemed to place personal and partisan needs on a higher plane than public policy. In any event, he appeared chastened in his speech to legislators - shifting from a posture of crude disdain to one of aggressive good will. This was forced just as power-sharing in the Senate was forced, but some good may result. There is an expectation of improved behavior, and there's little question the gentlemanly co-chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee will do their best to provide a model of power clothed with civility.
The situation in the House is much murkier. Although the election left unchanged the slim five-seat advantage held by Democrats, Speaker Tom Moss gave the Republican side some hard whacks. Having only eight of the 22 seats on the Finance Committee, the Republicans lost another seat; their five seats on the 22-member Appropriations Committee were cut to four. Reasons other than raw partisanship may have figured in Moss' decision but, if so, they were not easily discerned.
The speaker's cryptic comment that his actions served ``the best interests of the commonwealth'' postured him more as law-giver than as lawmaker. But, then, the standards of public utterance have been a mite depressed since George Allen asked 13,000 Republicans assembled in state convention to help him kick Democrats' ``soft teeth down their whiny throats.'' Moss seems to qualify as partisan villain of the day, but the problem is a bit more extensive within Virginia and the nation as well.
Partisanship is a natural and needed part of politics; it organizes and animates the process, focusing issues and debate. But of late it has crossed over too much into meanness which has dispirited much of the public and more than a few distinguished public officials who are quitting office when their judgment and manners are most needed.
It is not too much to hope that the ``experiment'' in the Virginia Senate can demonstrate a better way. Senators Walker and Chichester aren't just putting on manners; they have them in a fashion that eludes some powerful figures strutting on the political stage. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB