Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9310220372
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
That was about the time his grandmother, Lucretia Baker, began taking the boy with her to the Republican Woman's Club meetings and other political gatherings. Young Tommy Baker was impressed at meeting prominent Republicans such as Linwood Holton and John Dalton.
At some point during the next six years, Baker decided that the day would come when he would go into politics himself.
It came in 1989, when he ran for an open House of Delegates seat and won. Two years later, he won again as an incumbent. He has no Democratic opposition now for a third term.
Baker said he is doing what he has wanted to do ever since he was a kid ``and that's practicing law and being in the House of Delegates.''
He will continue to seek re-election, he said, as long as he continues to believe he can make a difference.
His only regret, he said, is that his grandmother did not live long enough to see it happen. She died in 1979. She would have enjoyed chatting about politics and hearing his point of view from the legislature.
Baker, 37, represents Pulaski County (where he lives and practices law), the city of Radford (where he was born) and the Central and Western Magisterial Districts of Giles County. He went to New River Community College and Radford University before earning his law degree from Washington and Lee University.
He and his wife, Jo Ann, have one son, Jefferson, who will be 3 years old in December. He is named for the late C. Jefferson Stafford, a conservative Giles County Republican who also served in the House.
``Jeff and I were good friends, and he was very helpful to me when I ran the first time,'' Baker said.
Stafford died while still in office and his wife, Barbara, was appointed to complete his term. When redistricting forced Stafford and Baker into the same district before the 1991 election, she bowed out.
The accomplishments Baker lists on his campaign literature this time around include being a co-patron of the bill that allowed elected school boards in Virginia, securing state money to help restore the old Pulaski Courthouse gutted by fire and to help renovate the Norfolk Southern train station now owned by the town of Pulaski, helping get $3.8 million from the state for the Regional Economic Development Center at New River Community College, providing Giles and Pulaski counties with Enterprise Zone availability and getting several million dollars for improvements at Radford University.
He sees school funding disparities and economic development as two of the big issues coming up in 1994.
It is unrealistic to hope that the General Assembly, with its power shifts to urban parts of the state, will voluntarily change the school funding formula to help poor rural school districts, Baker said. If such changes are to come, he believes, it will take a suit against the state.
``Yeah, I'm afraid so. I hate that. I wish we didn't have to, but I'm afraid that's the only way to get it resolved,'' he said.
Last year, in a suit against the state filed by a coalition of rural school districts, a circuit judge ruled that the Virginia Constitution does not require equal funding for all districts. The coalition has appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Baker also said Virginia`s next governor will have to get out and hustle like North Carolina and other states for new industry, if economic development is to improve. ``We've got to have some more guidance from the top,'' he said.
Incentives like those offered by other states cost money. Baker has ideas on where to get some of it.
``For instance, I can just point to all the money that the Lottery Department spends over and above its own operations,'' he said, referring to the department's spending on television and other advertising. ``It says something about where your priorities are.''
If the millions of dollars people spent on buying lottery tickets had been spent instead on more general purchases, he said, sales tax revenue would have amounted to a whole lot more over the years since the lottery was approved in 1988.
Baker is a Republican in a General Assembly dominated by Democrats. He sees that as no problem.
``There are far and away more regional issues that come before the legislature than partisan issues,'' he said. He called bipartisan relationships the best way to get things done in the legislature.
Baker observed that he had Democratic support for his 1992 budget amendment to strip away $56 million from the lottery advertising budget.
``The importance of that is that, on the floor of the House of Delegates, that's the first time the budget had ever been amended,'' he said.
The feeling about regional matters taking precedence over political ones seems to be mutual.
``I consider Tommy one of my good friends and he's been a very valuable ally in working issues across party lines,'' said Del. Tom Jackson, D-Hillsville.
Jackson said he has worked through Baker to line up votes for Southwest Virginia issues from the GOP side of the aisle.
``One reason we've become friends is we have a common rural background and we tend to view issues in a similar manner,'' Jackson said. And the fact that Baker has a friendly personality helps. ``I think personalities and their effect on the legislative process is vastly underrated.''
Looking beyond 1994, Baker sees the Lake Gaston pipeline to pump water to Virginia Beach as a matter that could eventually affect this part of the state.
The Roanoke River is a tributary of Lake Gaston so its water level could be lowered by the pipeline over time. And when Roanoke needs more water, he said, ``the New River's close by.'' He worries that the water shifts could one day threaten one of the New River Valley's major resources.
``This is another classic case in point here of regional issues as opposed to partisan issues,'' he said.
Baker's approach to legislation seems to be the same as his approach to practicing law: low key.
His brick office building just off U.S. 11 in Dublin looks at first glance like another home along its street. Its only concession to being a public building is a carpeted wheelchair ramp leading to its front door, where the law office sign is almost too small to read from farther away than the front porch.
``I've never been one as an attorney to advertise,'' Baker said.
But that has not kept him from being busy, not only as a legislator and lawyer but as town attorney for Dublin where he also lives.
``Yeah, I've got plenty to do,'' Baker said.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB