THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 23, 1997 TAG: 9701230371
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Staff writers Warren Fiske, Robert Little and Jane Evans, and
The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 90 lines
Goode's successor, a Democrat, votes with GOP on bill
The Virginia Senate passed a bill Wednesday with some unexpected help from its political past - the ghost of Virgil Goode, who has long since gone to Capitol Hill in Washington.
The Senate voted to strip welfare benefits from parolees who test positive for drug use twice. The bill passed 27-12, a comfortable margin by most standards.
But behind its easy ride on the Senate floor Wednesday was a vote in the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee that nearly put the bill to rest for the year.
The Democrats on that committee, who hold an 8-7 majority, all voted against the bill - except Roscoe Reynolds. The bill passed 8-7.
Reynolds is the Henry County senator who took Goode's place this year, winning a campaign in which he promised to be the Senate's next Virgil Goode.
The former Franklin County senator was best known for his Southern twang, and the quirky independence that had him siding with Republicans more than Democrats.
So will voters see in Reynolds a Goode-esque defiance that essentially hands control of the social services committee to the Republicans?
``I don't know that you will, I don't know that you won't,'' Reynolds said, mimicking another confounding style of his state Senate predecessor.
Democrats weren't ready Wednesday to give up on Reynolds as a faithful partisan.
``We'll just have to see,'' said Norfolk Sen. Yvonne Miller, chairman of the committee.
ALSO WEDNESDAY
State song's words still contentious
Once again, lawmakers are trying to rip the ``old darkey's heart'' out of the state song.
The Senate General Laws Committee voted Wednesday to change racially offensive words in ``Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,'' which has been the official state song since 1940. The song is about a slave's memories of Virginia.
The proposal would substitute the word ``dreamer's'' for ``darkey's;'' ``my loved ones'' for ``old Massa;'' and ``Mama and Papa'' for ``Massa and Missus.''
That wasn't exactly what Sens. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Stephen D. Newman, R-Lynchburg, had in mind when they introduced the bill. They sought a legislative group to commission a new anthem and gracefully retire the old one as ``the state song emeritus.''
Among those who already sent in proposals for a new song was early 1960s singing star Jimmy Dean, now a successful Richmond sausage producer.
But Lucas, who is African-American, said she was willing to accept any compromise if ``it would make those lyrics go away.''
In a unanimous vote, the House OK'd a bill to provide full scholarships to second-year community college students who earn at least a B average in their first year of technical training programs.
The program is part of Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr.'s legislative agenda. Beyer is his party's likely nominee for governor this year.
The proposal would cost about $4 million in the first year. It now goes to the Senate.
NOTICED & NOTED
Governor's race starts as a dead heat, poll says
The poll numbers are in and the early indications are that this fall's expected gubernatorial race between Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. and Attorney General James S. Gilmore III is starting off as a dead heat.
Beyer, a Democrat, holds a statistically insignificant 41-to-40 percent lead over Republican Gilmore, according to a survey of 816 registered voters by Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research of Columbia, Md.
The poll shows that wide majorities of Virginians don't even know the names of the candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Among the four GOP candidates for attorney general, for example, only 32 percent had heard of Sen. Mark Earley of Chesapeake and lawyer Gil Davis of Northern Virginia. Only 30 percent had heard of Sen. Ken Stolle of Virginia Beach and lawyer Jerry Kilgore of Gate City.
The poll, conducted Jan. 14-16, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
ILLUSTRATION: Reynolds
Beyer
Gilmore
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY