Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993 TAG: 9312100222
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"One thing about [Gov. Douglas] Wilder, he hasn't treated educators well," said Rob Jones, president of the Virginia Education Association. "It would be an easy act to follow."
But whether Allen will be an eager suitor remains unclear.
Allen transition spokesman Ken Stroupe would say only that the governor-elect has a history of building coalitions and will be willing to work with any organization, regardless of party affiliation.
Despite its traditional backing of state Democratic tickets, the VEA has no official party affiliation, said Gary Waldo, director of the Roanoke-area arm of the VEA.
"Don't take us for granted," may be the message Jones is trying to send, Waldo said. "There is a feeling sometimes the Democratic Party has assumed that we have nowhere to go."
Not so, said state Democratic Party Chairman Mark Warner.
"The Democratic Party does not take lightly the support it's gotten from teachers around the state," Warner said. "I don't think the Democratic Party has taken teachers for granted - ever."
Jones has made no secret of his resentment toward Wilder. At the VEA's annual conference in April, he blasted Wilder for failing to come through on six promises he made to teachers during the 1989 gubernatorial campaign - including raising teachers' salaries above the national average.
"The feeling was, in 1989, that we had done a great deal - a tremendous deal - to elect Doug Wilder," said Waldo, who credited the VEA's 50,000 members with producing 100,000 to 200,000 votes for Wilder.
Resentment built in large part, he said, not just because of the broken promises, but because teachers had less access to Wilder than they did to former Democratic governors Charles Robb and Gerald Baliles.
"I think there is a feeling that [Allen] is trying to build bridges in a way that will last," Waldo said. "Governor Wilder has kind of cut us off in the last couple of years."
Jones said Allen now has the opportunity to broaden his support by going after teachers, one of three Democratic mainstays along with labor and minorities.
There is precedent for VEA support of Republicans.
For the first time, the VEA's political action committee played both sides by endorsing gubernatorial candidates Mary Sue Terry and Republican Clinton Miller in April. It shifted its endorsement solely to Terry after Allen became the Republican nominee.
At the local level, VEA chapters often have endorsed moderate Republican candidates for the General Assembly, Waldo said.
But not without raising the hackles of some Democrats.
"We caught hell," said Waldo, when the teachers' organization endorsed Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, a Republican, for the House of Delegates in 1989. Teachers endorsed him again in his successful state Senate campaign in 1991.
"Some fairly prominent area and regional legislators really were very critical of us," Waldo said, "like we were guilty of treason."
"We are not an appendage of any political party."
Waldo emphasized that the VEA would support any legislator or candidate it found to be a "friend of education." Any move to build better relations with Republicans should not be taken as an effort to sever existing good relations with Democrats, he added.
Trumbo said there were just as many Republicans as Democrats in the VEA and that a marriage between his party and the teachers' organization was not such a farfetched idea.
"I think it would be a grand union," he said. "I don't think we're that far apart on some issues."
Waldo said Trumbo continued to garner support from local teachers because of his concern for educational disparities, support of binding arbitration and efforts to raise the number of teachers paid for by the state.
But Trumbo departs from many in his party in his support for closing the spending gap between Virginia's rich and poor school districts. And Allen has made clear he prefers to address the problem by tightening academic standards rather than by sending more money to rural and inner-city schools.
Still, Jones remains optimistic.
"When I just try to step back and look at the big picture, I see [Allen] as a public school advocate," he said.
He is also hopeful that more Republicans - like Trumbo - will come forward to work on the disparity issue.
"I see an opportunity to build a coalition," he said.
Bob Hollsworth, a Virginia Commonwealth University political analyst, said the chances for a coalition may be stronger because several recently elected Republican members of the House of Delegates come from the rural corners of the state, which are most affected by the spending gap.
"I think disparity is primarily a rural-urban issue," he said, not a Republican-Democrat one.
Hollsworth said state Democrats have more than money at stake if the VEA switches camps.
Teachers do a lot of work during campaigns and hold a significant amount of political influence statewide, he said.
But Hollsworth doubted the Allen camp would come courting unless the VEA embraced back-to-basics school reforms, merit pay for teachers and other popular Republican issues, such as school vouchers.
"I think simply the prospect of getting some VEA people in their corner won't make the Republicans want to rush to join them," he said.
by CNB