Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993 TAG: 9304080264
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Staff report
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SMOKERS' RIGHTS VETO HOLDS
The General Assembly rebuffed Gov. Douglas Wilder on a variety of bills in its "veto" session Wednesday, most of them relatively obscure.But Wilder won on his only high-profile veto, a "smokers' rights" bill that would have barred employers from firing or refusing to hire workers who smoke off the job. Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, the bill's sponsor, made no attempt to override the veto.
A rundown of assembly actions:
Legislators rejected Wilder's attempt to broaden a bill banning lobbying by the chairmen of the state's political parties to also ban lobbying by any legislator's family or business or law partners. The measure is an apparent slap at former state Democratic Chairman Paul Goldman, Wilder's closest political adviser and a part-time lobbyist.
Wilder said he wasn't surprised he lost the battle. "I can say I didn't have anything to do with the hypocrisy associated with that bill," he told reporters.
Wilder failed in a bid to limit the retirement benefits of legislators. Under a law passed in 1992 and signed by the governor, a $6,000 annual office allowance paid each legislator is considered income when retirement benefits are computed. Because retirement benefits are based on income, counting the allowance increases the benefits.
Lawmakers say the allowance is taxable income and thus should count as salary in retirement computations. Wilder said he was mistaken in approving the allowance as income last year and tried through an amendment to wipe it out; legislators said his amendment wouldn't have done what he wanted in any case and defeated it.
The lawmakers refused to make changes sought by Wilder and environmentalists to make it easier for citizens who object to the granting of air- and water-pollution permits to challenge the permits in court.
Legislation the governor now must decide to sign or kill as is would allow such citizen challenges only by people who could show they would have "immediate . . . pecuniary and substantial" interest in the permit.
Patricia A. Jackson, director of the Richmond-based Lower James River Association, warned that the assembly's stand could lead to a federal takeover of pollution permitting in the state.
The assembly agreed to Wilder's suggestion that "straw" purchasers of handguns - people hired to buy the weapons for others - should be subject to a five-year rather than a two-year prison term.
Legislators rejected Wilder's plan to give school principals a veto over parents who wish to delay the admission of their children into kindergarten for a year.
The assembly agreed to Wilder's proposal to remove Covington from a bill creating a regional economic development authority for the Alleghany Highlands area. As approved, the authority's members will be Alleghany County and Clifton Forge.