Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 3, 1991 TAG: 9102060026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE RICHMOND BUREAU
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Invoking it can bring down the wrath of the Democrats in the House of Delegates to kill a seemingly innocent measure in an instant.
In plain English, it's a pledge against raising taxes. Democrats, following the lead of Gov. Douglas Wilder, have made it a rallying cry of the 1991 General Assembly.
House Democrats promised to fight higher taxes early in the session. But it wasn't until a bill from Del. Robert Bloxom, R-Accomack, hit the floor that it became clear how hard - or silly - the pledge is.
Bloxom wanted to give Virginia's sweet potato farmers the chance to vote on taxing themselves 2 cents per bushel, up from the current 1 cent.
Such self-imposed commodity taxes are common among Virginia farmers, who use the pool of money to advertise their particular product.
House Majority Leader Thomas Moss of Norfolk noticed the word "tax" appeared in the bill nine times. He jumped on the measure. Democrats, he lectured, would have no part of this Republican-sponsored tax increase. And the hopes for growth in sweet potato sales withered as Democrats, who hold 59 of the 100 seats in the House, voted against it.
"It's just typical of the partisan sniping down here," Del. George Allen, R-Charlottesville, growled after the vote. "We gotta find something to fight about - the state song, the state insect, the UVa band or sweet potatoes."
Partisanship, of course, is nothing new to the legislature. Nor is it strange to see the level of partisanship rise in a year when all 140 members of the House and Senate face election.
But the state's revenue shortfall of more than $2 billion, the upcoming redistricting, and the inevitable shift of power toward Virginia's urban areas have combined to pressure Democrats to push a new, stronger agenda.
The agenda includes House Democratic Caucus support of gun control and the safeguard of abortion rights - stands that contrast starkly with traditional Democratic thinking in Virginia.
Those issues point to a shift in control of the party from the traditionally conservative, rural areas to the fast-growing crescent of the state from the Washington, D.C., suburbs to Tidewater.
Gun control and abortion rights may be popular positions in the suburbs, but they are risky politics in the country. In the past week, pressure from pro-gun lobbyists and anti-abortion forces showed how fragile the future coalition between urban and rural Democrats may be.
The primary cause of the problem is the budget crisis. Facing a $2.2 billion drop in estimated revenues, Democrats found themselves without a basic tool of election-year politics: money to bring back home.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans both responded to that by suggesting a $465 million proposal for a general obligation bond issue. The bonds would be used mostly for construction at colleges and universities, which are scattered throughout the state in nearly every member's district.
Wilder has signaled opposition to the plan, and House Democrats are in no mood to risk voter wrath by placing themselves on the November ballot with a borrowing scheme.
"The governor has the House locked up," said Sen. Johnny Joannou, D-Portsmouth. "And in the Senate, he can win on the floor, so there you are."
Despite the bond issue, Senate Democrats are in no taxing mood, either. Tax increase proposals by Sens. Dudley Emick, D-Fincastle, and Thomas Michie, D-Charlottesville, were summarily sent to non-functioning subcommittees where they will die without a vote.
With no hope of additional money, House Democrats began looking for alternative issues they might be able to use at the polls to deflect voter attention from the budget.
"We don't want to just talk about money" during the fall campaigns, said Del. William Robinson, D-Norfolk.
Abortion is controversial enough. Republicans say they will vote as they please when the issue hits the floor because any vote on abortion angers one side and pleases the other. "It's a wash," said former Del. Mark Hagood of South Boston.
Still, Democrats were delighted Friday when the House voted 50-43 to ask Congress to propose a constitutional amendment upholding abortion rights for adult women. A number of urban Republicans voted against the resolution.
The gun issue has proven the real test - and problem - for the Democratic urban-rural coalition.
Members of the caucus began hotly disputing whether the caucus position was binding on any member or was even an official position. The bill, sponsored by Del. Jean Cunningham, D-Richmond, would give voters the chance in November to decide whether to place a three-day waiting period on the purchase of handguns.
Hoping to avoid pressure from of well-organized gun lobbyists, especially the National Rifle Association, Democrats presented the bill as a "law-and-order" bill and dubbed it the Police Assistance Act.
The NRA was not fooled, and its campaign against the waiting period has shown the classic, take-no-prisoners approach that has made the association one of the nation's most powerful lobbying groups.
The campaign has included radio commercials and full-page newspaper ads, including one in Friday's Richmond Times-Dispatch that ran directly opposite the page with General Assembly news.
The NRA also sent out thousands of overnight letters to Virginia members. The Democratic caucus, the letter says, "in a secret closed-door meeting, has decided to double-cross Virginia's gun owners by putting your gun rights up for grabs."
And the NRA has generated as many as 600 phone calls in opposition to the referendum bill in some rural districts.
NRA lobbyists have said privately that the Virginia referendum bill threatens the group's plans to promote a nationwide law to require instant criminal background checks for handguns. "This thing could mess up the whole national program," confided one pro-gun lobbyist.
Two years ago, Virginia passed the nation's first instant check law. Although gun lobbyists resisted the move at first, the NRA ended up backing the measure. It has now become the blueprint for similar laws across the country, and the NRA has lined up congressional leadership behind a nationwide check.
By Friday, as more rural members abandoned the measure, it appeared the Democrats were ready to scuttle the bill or at least take a fallback position.
Republicans, meanwhile, have supported expanding the instant records check to cover all guns and were planning to oppose the waiting-period bill.
But they have maintained their focus on the budget problems since the session's first day, when the Republicans forced the Democrats to juggle the legislative calendar to give an extra day to the House and Senate to consider the final budget bill.
"That's the purpose of this session, to examine the budget," said Del. Steven Agee, R-Salem. "And fear is the motivating factor behind the Democrats' effort to spend all this consultants' money and time caucusing to find any way they can to draw publicity away from the budget."
Agee said he believes Democrats were scared into searching for an agenda, not so much because of Republican pressure, but because they fear Wilder might abandon them in the fall elections.
"They realize that Doug Wilder does not need a Democratic majority in the legislature in order to run for president," Agee said.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Alson Smith of Winchester scoffs at the notion.
"I may be one of the few people who believes this, but I think we are going to pick up seats in November," Smith said.
But that is not because of the issues, Smith conceded. "It's because I think we'll have the best candidates."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
by CNB