ASSEMBLY MULLS CAMPAIGN REFORM

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 3, 1993                   TAG: 9302030209
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE:  BY GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
ASSEMBLY MULLS CAMPAIGN REFORM
The drive for campaign finance reform in this year's General Assembly got caught in a political cross-fire Tuesday, as a Senate committee killed one bill and Republicans strove to make the cause an issue for their coming campaigns.
The fight seems to be shaping up this way: Delegates want reform because this is an election year. Senators face no elections, and the Democrats who run that body are cautious about reform. Many are bitter over being left out of an ethics review panel appointed last year by Gov. Douglas Wilder.
Tuesday, Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk, felt her colleagues' wrath when she took an ethics bill produced by Wilder's commission to the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.
The bill would enact several campaign finance reforms, most notably restricting political contributions to $5,000 in statewide races, $2,000 in state Senate races and $1,000 in delegate races.
Senate Privileges and Elections Chairman Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, complained that Miller's bill was too complex and had too many ramifications.
Gartlan shunted Miller's version into a proposed ethics study of his own.
Republicans jumped on the study plan as a sign that Democrats are wavering on reform.
A Republican committee, headed by Del. Peter Way of Keene in Albemarle County, issued a slate of legislative initiatives that shadow the proposals of Wilder's commission.
The Republican plan is even stricter than Wilder's in some areas; it would bar legislators from accepting compensated appointments such as commissioner of accounts and from lobbying for two years after leaving public service.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB