THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701110006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty
LENGTH: 78 lines
Last year a local political activist phoned me at home, indignant that I used this space to pick on politicians. I had written something I thought was witty about how people with twisted personalities were drawn to politics - and added that we should be thankful that such characters go into government rather than seeking really important jobs doing things like car repairs or electrical work.
Anyway, to avoid offending this old friend I have not poked fun at politicians for months. But there are limits to my self-restraint.
Who could resist a good belly laugh at the expense of our elected officials in a week when Suffolk Del. Robert E. Nelms said he will introduce legislation abolishing legislative immunity, former Rep. L. F. Payne announced he'd been wrong about the Lake Gaston pipeline for 13 years, Del. Jay Katzen decided Virginia needed to repeal its obscure medical-marijuana bill, and the man who sponsored that bill in 1979, Rep. Rick Boucher, claims to have no recollection of having written the now-controversial medical-marijuana provision.
Bizarre behavior isn't confined to Virginia. Consider the Clinton administration's mad scramble to bring the Cody (Wyoming) High School marching band to Washington for the inauguration after The Washington Post reported this week that the school was elbowed aside in favor of a concert band from Jackson Hole where a big Clinton contributor lives? (Odder still, the Jackson Hole band is a concert-and-jazz ensemble that has never marched. According to news reports, the musicians were dashing madly up and down the school hallways and out in the snow this week trying to learn to march in time for the Washington parade.)
I sometimes find it hard to understand the minds of politicians. Take Delegate Nelms. Last Feb. 15, he was arrested and charged with indecent exposure in a Richmond park which also happens to be a well-known gay hangout. Nelms said he was simply relieving himself behind a tree, blissfully unaware that there are laws requiring humans to use toilets in Richmond.
To avoid prosecution, Nelms invoked an arcane Virginia statute giving state legislators immunity from prosecution whenever the legislature is in session.
The charges were dismissed because of Nelm's claim of immunity. Now, Nelms wants to abolish the same legislative immunity protection he invoked. It isn't fair, he says.
``As a Virginia citizen, I think all Virginia voters are entitled to the same rights under the Constitution.''
This is baffling. Why would Nelms try to hide behind the immunity statute in April, then move to abolish it nine months later? There was no requirement that Nelms claim immunity. If he objected to preferential treatment, Nelms should have insisted that the Richmond's commonwealth attorney treat him like any other man caught with his pants open in a public park.
In fact, that's what eventually happened when a grand jury later indicted him on the same charge. Nelms pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge, thus depriving us all of testimony of the arresting police officer.
And then there's L. F. Payne. First as a Democratic member of the state legislature and later as a U.S. congressman, he fought tooth and nail against the Lake Gaston pipeline.
Payne was consistent in his opposition to the project - until this week, that is, when he flew around the state announcing over and over that he is now a candidate for lieutenant governor. Somewhere between Rocky Mount and Virginia Beach it dawned on Payne that he might have trouble winning statewide office without a few votes in the state's largest city. That must have been the same instant he realized how badly Virginia Beach needs water.
Which brings us to one of Payne's likely rivals in the lieutenant governor's race - Del. Jay Katzen of Warrenton. Katzen recently discovered that Virginia is one of the few states with a medical-marijuana statute.
Katzen has decided the law must go.
Have there been problems with the law? None. Are nursing homes thick with marijuana smoke as elderly glaucoma patients sit around getting stoned?
Not the last time I looked.
Katzen swears this move to repeal the marijuana statute has absolutely nothing to do with his bid for statewide office in November.
But Katzen knows that his biggest obstacle to statewide election is name recognition. No one has ever heard of him.
By jumping on the marijuana issue, Katzen gets his name in the paper.
Go easy on politicians? Not in this lifetime. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.