Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202090104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN F. HARRIS THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
KINDER, GENTLER ANDREWS? IT'S RELATIVE
Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews was reflecting recently on his three decades in public office, including the tantrums and tirades that have become legendary."I think I've mellowed," he concluded.
The next day, Gov. Douglas Wilder broke into laughter over that observation from his fellow Democrat. "Mellowed from what to what?" he asked.
At 70, the state's most powerful legislator said his recent calm - he was once so angry with a lobbyist that he started flinging lighted matches into the offender's lap - comes partly with the wisdom of age. But it also reflects a recognition that the General Assembly is different now. Republican gains in the November election left the party with more clout than ever before, encouraging a change in the way Andrews reigns.
What hasn't changed is Andrews' theatrical style, never more in evidence than when he is on the Senate floor.
There, the majority leader's exotic Tidewater accent rides on a lilting voice that stretches vowels to twice their normal length and sounds like a blend of Old South and upper-class British. His appearance manages to be both comic and regal: His nearly bald head ringed in gray tilts back, jaw jutted and lips pursed, an effect made more striking by his beaklike nose and prominent ears.
Andrews doesn't talk about killing a senator's pet project. Instead, he lectures that "some bills need the benefit of rest and the wisdom of slumber." Likewise, Andrews would never say he won re-election in a squeaker last fall. What happened is that he was "refreshed by the people."
If Andrews's edges are growing a little softer, fellow Democrats and rival Republicans credit something other than just advancing age. They see at work the survival instincts of a powerful politician who is determined to stay that way.
The once-inconsequential Republican Party now holds 18 of 40 Senate seats. Andrews, after years of running with token opposition in the Hampton district he has represented for 28 years, got only 53 percent of the vote last time.
Enter the new Andrews. The man who once described open meetings as "a retarded form of government" has discovered new virtue in public hearings and open-door budget briefings. The lordly demeanor that made him famous has been tempered, at least a bit, by previously little-used traits such as patience and accommodation.
It has worked. Andrews's influence, fellow legislators say, is as secure as ever, not just as majority leader but as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the funnel through which every tax and spending measure enacted by lawmakers must pass.
"He probably has more influence this year," said Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer, because the Democrats' narrow majority has heightened the need for party loyalty. "Hunter, more than any person, sets the tone of the Senate."
With some politicians, supporters and detractors divide easily into opposing camps. With Andrews, things are more complicated; colleagues admit to a host of conflicting sentiments.
Seen in one light, Andrews is the master parliamentarian whose knowledge of Virginia and its laws is unmatched. Even Republicans say his fierce sense of loyalty has protected the legislature from encroachment by Wilder and other governors who might usurp power.
The opposite side of this, legislators say, is that Andrews can be the most frustrating person ever to walk the halls of the Capitol. His obsession with rank and decorum sometimes comes off as mere snobbery; his famed temper seems calculated to bully people.
"Hunter is an odd bird," said Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, who is clashing with Andrews this year over how best to organize a large public works bond proposal. "He's an excellent legislator, and I respect his energy, but he can be awfully difficult to get along with."
Of his volatile temperament, Andrews said: "You blast off, then you forget about it. . . . I like people to disagree and argue with me."
Probably no person has more ambivalent feelings toward Andrews than Wilder. Their relationship of 20 years has been prickly, dating to Wilder's time in the legislature, and the rivalry has been central to many of the main episodes in Wilder's 2-year-old administration.
Early in his term, in a highly publicized move, Wilder had Andrews fired from his state-appointed seat on the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac railroad company, owned by the state pension system. Wilder aides said Andrews was guilty of a conflict of interest because he owned stock in CSX Corp., which was merging with RF&P.
Score one for Wilder. But Andrews struck back last year, when he stitched together a coalition that trounced Wilder on a budget vote.
This year, things are cozier, at least on the surface. Andrews and Wilder are working together on a proposal to pass a $534 million bond package to build facilities for higher education, parks and human services.
Many legislators believe Andrews is lying in wait to kill the governor's proposed tax on hospitals, a way to humiliate Wilder on the most publicized part of his legislative agenda this year. Andrews denies such motives.
Asked about Andrews, Wilder momentarily broke into the impersonation he has been perfecting for years, with an upper-crust accent on the name "Huntah."
Wilder acknowledged that he and Andrews "didn't get off to the best start" during his first days as governor - each man was jostling the other to show who was boss, he said. But for the most part, Wilder said: "We've usually gotten along well . . . He respects strength and intelligence."
Early in Wilder's term, a joke made its way around Capitol Square that Wilder had done the impossible: He had turned Andrews into a sympathetic character.
The point was that with Wilder seemingly eager to ignore the General Assembly whenever convenient, the legislature needed someone just as stubborn and grasping to look out for its interests. Andrews fit the role nicely.
Sen. Robert Calhoun, R-Alexandria, recalled their introduction. "He said, `Hello, I'm Hunter Andrews. People say I'm an SOB and I want you to know I really am.' "
Examples of the Andrews temper abound. When an advocate for mental-health spending turned up at a public hearing last year to object to a budget cut, according to witnesses, Andrews suggested that she needed psychiatric help.
Bluster isn't the only side of Andrews' personality. When newly elected Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, made her first Senate speech several days ago, Andrews was the first to cross the floor to congratulate her. When someone gets the better half of an argument with Andrews, he responds with an admiring "Touche', touche'!"
Andrews said he is amused when he hears junior senators complain that they have little influence. "When I came up here, senators were hauled in and told, `The custom is, you don't speak for two years,' " Andrews recalled. "And we didn't."
Some speculate that those years of service gave Andrews such a strong sense of entitlement that he is immune to the kind of criticism that makes other politicians squirm.
He is regularly roasted in the Hampton Roads media, for example, about supplementing his law practice with the judicially appointed position of commissioner of accounts, a job for which he is paid many thousands of dollars annually to process wills and trusts. Because Andrews helps appoint the judges who appoint him to the high-pay, low-work post, it seems to many an obvious conflict of interest.
Andrews doesn't care. "If you can't stand the heat," he said, "you shouldn't be here."
More heat has been directed at Andrews this year from Republicans, who suspect he is trying to engineer a tax increase to meet the state's budget problems.
Andrews denounces the "partisan spin doctors crafting their sound bites," but the criticism underscores a contradiction: Although Andrews epitomizes the Virginia Old Guard, his politics are by many standards fairly liberal.
"On human issues, I've been fairly progressive," he said. "But many people perceive me as an old mossback conservative."
For all his influence, some legislators suspect that Andrews is ultimately frustrated in his role. He never became governor or U.S. senator, although at one time he aspired to both jobs.
And although he relishes the job of Senate Finance chairman, he hasn't matched the unchallenged power that his predecessor, the late Edward Willey, enjoyed in that role.
"He labored for a long time, then when he ascends to the throne he finds the rules have changed," said Sen. Robert Russell, R-Chesterfield. "I'm sure there is a frustration in that, but I would think he's adapting well."
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