THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210097
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE AND DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 163 lines
The first meeting of the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee Friday was mostly uneventful, but it earned an asterisk in the figurative books of history.
The reason: New chairperson Yvonne B. Miller, a Norfolk Democrat. She is the first woman to head a committee in the Virginia Senate, and the first African-American woman to lead a General Assembly committee.
In typical fashion, Miller made little fuss. ``I'm pleased and honored,'' she said after the short meeting.
Her Senate colleagues, however, drew attention to her new position on the Senate floor.
``Woman have made great strides, both in getting elected and, now, in seniority,'' said Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, one of a record 21 women in the 140-member Assembly this year. ``It's something that will benefit us all.''
The Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee oversees all laws concerning welfare and social programs, liquor laws, morals and prison issues. Counting Miller, it comprises eight Democrats and seven Republicans.
Miller is one of the Senate's more liberal members, and debate over whether Democrats or Republicans would control her committee was one of the last hitches to the Senate's power-sharing agreement reached by both parties last week. ``BAWDY VEHICLE'' BILL SURE TO GET LAWYERS' SCRUTINY
Thelma Drake wanted to do something about prostitution on the streets of her Ocean View neighborhood.
``I see it every single day,'' said Drake, a real estate agent and a freshman member of the House of Delegates.
One of her first pieces of legislation is a so-called ``bawdy vehicle'' bill aimed at discouraging men from driving into Ocean View and consorting with prostitutes in their cars. The legislation would expand the legal definition of a ``bawdy place'' so that police could charge the men with, in essence, maintaining a brothel on wheels.
The bill is sure to raise a few snickers when it comes before the House Courts of Justice Committee, which is crammed with lawyers who live for a chance to pick apart a nonlawyer's legislation.
One question she may encounter: Why is the bill necessary when police already can charge someone with using a vehicle to promote prostitution?
``I'm getting a lot of heat here because these other legislators don't have this problem in their districts,'' she said. ``We're trying to improve Ocean View, but it's not going to happen as long as your children look at you and say, `Mom, is that a guy or a girl?' '' OFF-TRACK BETTING STANCE MAY BOOST STOLLE'S RACE
His tough stand on off-track betting has provided Virginia Beach Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle added visibility in the General Assembly.
It also has given him something more practical: A potential list of lucrative supporters for his expected bid for state attorney general.
Under his OTB bill, the biggest winners would be the state's horse-breeding community.
``Thank goodness for Senator Stolle!'' shouted one horsewoman at a subcommittee meeting last week.
The horse breeders could help Stolle expand his support to the tony horse regions of Piedmont and Northern Virginia.
``I don't have a horse industry mailing list,'' Stolle told a reporter. ``I might in the future, now that you bring it up.''
Stolle stressed that his interest in limiting the number of OTB parlors had nothing to do with his budding run for statewide office. He noted that making some people happy - and others mad - is the byproduct of virtually any piece of legislation, even his many law-and-order bills.
``The inmates don't support me very much, but then again, they don't vote,'' he chuckled. HOLTON, GODWIN SEEK FUND TO ENCOURAGE REGIONALISM
GOP Gov. George F. Allen hasn't signed on, but two of his Republican predecessors are pushing for creation of a $200 million fund to reward regional cooperation.
Former Gov. Linwood Holton, a lobbyist for the Urban Partnership, and former Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. joined chief executives of several major Virginia businesses and a group of mostly urban lawmakers at a news conference launching the legislation this week.
Realists, the governors and their allies are willing to settle for getting a ``Regional Competitiveness Act'' on the books and a $50 million appropriation for next year, to be increased later. Even that sum may be a challenge in a tight budgetary year.
Among the hopeful signs: close to half of the House members have agreed to be co-patrons, and a suburbanite, Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, will patron the legislation in the Senate. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT . . .
It's the job of the chief executive - that's the governor - to present a spending plan for the state every two years. Now, there's a $67.3 million hole in that plan. And the governor and the legislature can't agree how to fill it or who's to blame.
Facing stiff opposition from anti-gambling groups, the Allen administration on Wednesday backed away from a proposal to bring two controversial new lottery games - Powerball and keno - to Virginia next year. Gov. George F. Allen used revenue from those games to balance his proposed two-year budget.
On Thursday, Democratic senators were saying they consider the gap the governor's doing, and they called on him to find a way to fill it.
Allen points to the General Assembly. The budget he gave legislators last month balanced. Allen administration officials say they had to back off plans to implement the games this week because the General Assembly is considering laws to ban them.
Senate Democrats called that the equivalent of giving them a budget that doesn't balance in the first place.
Things got a little more complicated Friday when the Allen administration acknowledged that it may not be able to sell enough surplus property to pay for a host of college contruction projects.
Stay tuned.
Thanks to a compromise discussed in a subcommittee Thursday, the state's first off-track betting parlor is still on track to open in Chesapeake later this month.
State Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, backed off his insistence that satellite wagering couldn't start until the operator, Colonial Downs, opened its track in New Kent County. In return, Colonial Downs would earmark its share of profits from off-track parlors in Chesapeake and Richmond to build the track in New Kent.
The Senate General Laws Committee will consider the compromise bill this week.
Under the proposal, Colonial Downs could offer off-track wagering for at least 12 months at a restaurant/betting parlor under construction on South Military Highway in Chesapeake.
The facility could remain open longer if the General Assembly next year determines Colonial Downs is making sufficient progress on the New Kent track.
One of the General Assembly's most powerful members stepped away this week from a lucrative representation agreement with Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield.
House Majority Leader C. Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County said he will not represent the state's largest health insurer in its quest to become a for-profit company.
Trigon has paid Cranwell's law firm at least $225,000 in the past two years.
Cranwell, who did nothing illegal, said he will ask a House ethics panel to determine whether he should vote on the state budget, State Corporation Commission appointments or any other legislation regarding Trigon, which wants to go public and raise capital through financial markets. The insurer needs approval from policyholders and the SCC. The General Assembly this year will fill two openings on that three-member panel.
In exchange for permission to go for-profit, Trigon also has agreed to turn over to the state $159 million it earned in tax breaks for a nonprofit educational and medical foundation. Gov. George F. Allen already has budgeted $95 million of that money for state education needs. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr., left, and former Gov. Linwood
Holton spoke at a news conference Thursday in Richmond. They are
seeking a $200 million fund to reward regional cooperation.
Miller
Drake
Stolle
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY by CNB