
DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050562

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEDYARD KING, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   96 lines

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: HAGER'S WIN GIVES GOP EDGE IN SENATE TIEBREAKERS DEMOCRATS KEEP SLIM HOUSE MAJORITY

Democrats apparently withstood a GOP sweep of statewide races to retain control of the House of Delegates Tuesday.

But the victory was hardly resounding, with one Norfolk race headed for a recount.

Now the question is whether the Democrats will be able to stand behind their campaign rhetoric and fight Gilmore on the issue he rode to victory: the abolition of Virginia's personal property tax on cars.

``There is great political risk to Democrats in opposing the car tax,'' said Tom Morris, a political observer who serves as president of Emory and Henry College in Emory. ``Jim Gilmore won on that issue. This was a referendum on the car tax issue.''

Republicans gained two seats, giving them 48 in the 100-seat body. Democrats, who lost seats in Fairfax and the Yorktown area, were hanging onto control with 51 seats. Independent Lacey Putney of Bedford won re-election handily.

Putney, independent in more than just name, could become a key swing vote.

Democrats could lose another seat if an apparent eight-vote victory by Donald Williams in Norfolk's 86th District is overturned. Republican Beverly Graeber has already said she will request a recount. That would leave Democrats without a majority, although they would still have a 50-49 lead.

The eight-vote difference is from the unofficial election night tally.

The vote in the district will not be certified until today, at the earliest. It is unclear how long it would take to have a recount authorized, although state law provides that one be done and paid for by Norfolk because the vote difference was less than a half percent of the total ballots cast.

The last major recount occurred in the 1989 gubernatorial race. It wasn't until December that the state certified L. Douglas Wilder's victory over J. Marshall Coleman.

Graeber's was a seat most Republican strategists expected to win. Williams' victory, one of the earliest making the rounds at GOP headquarters, was a harbinger that Republicans probably would not capture the House this year.

The House now becomes the last stand for a party that ruled Virginia less than a decade ago. Democrats held all three top statewide seats then, and held commanding majorities in both houses.

With Republican John H. Hager winning the lieutenant governor's race, the Senate is effectively in GOP hands.

Gilmore rode into the governor's mansion on a promise to do away with the unpopular personal property tax on most cars and light trucks. But Democratic legislative leaders say its virtual abolition would hurt cities' and counties' ability to provide the most basic of services.

House Majority Leader Richard C. Cranwell of Vinton expressed his continued opposition to the tax Tuesday night, saying he will ``insist on financial sanity in the state.''

Cranwell, who won his Roanoke area seat with 53 percent of the vote cast, had been the subject of rumors that he would challenge Speaker Thomas W. Moss for the top spot in the House. But Cranwell, who narrowly lost the race for speaker six years ago to Moss, denied the rumor.

Republicans might have suffered from the party's inability to field candidates in every district. Thirty-two of the 100 House seats did not feature a Republican challenger. For that matter, 30 seats did not feature a Democratic candidate. It was the lowest number of contested races in a decade.

Minority Leader S. Vance Wilkins Jr., R-Amherst, said there are two or three other Democratic seats that could have changed hands had the GOP been able to field quality candidates. But he thinks Democrats could provide just the kind of ammunition the Republicans need to retain control in 1999 if they fight the car tax.

``I think they will stop it at their peril,'' Wilkins said as a packed Richmond hotel ballroom roared approval for the Republican ticket. ``I'd like to see it get done, but that's certainly going to be an issue if they (kill) it. The best thing for them to do is pass it and get out of the way.''

The Democratic House could also hamper other Republican initiatives, most notably the easing of environmental regulations to woo industry and the imposition of public school standards that Democrats have branded as insensitive and unrealistic.

By maintaining the House, the Democrats keep control of one of the most important political plums: judicial appointments. And they'll have large say over the makeup of key legislative committees that essentially determine what becomes law and what doesn't. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

HOUSE TALLY

WAS

53(D)

46(R)

1 (I)

NOW

51(D) 48(R)

1 (I)

Photo

JOHN H. SHEALLY III/The Virginian-Pilot

...S. Chris Jones... KEYWORDS: ELECTION VIRGINIA RESULTS HOUSE OF

DELEGATES RACE VIRGINIA