Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409300059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK AND LAURA LAFAY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Although each body passed a slightly different bill on Thursday, legislators were confident that a committee would hammer out a compromise in time for a final vote today.
"We're going to lock up these monsters," vowed Sen. H. Russell Potts, R-Winchester, on the Senate floor. "And that's what they are. Thugs and monsters."
The Senate voted 33-6 to back Gov. George Allen's plan to end parole, while the House margin was 88-10 on a similar plan worked out as a compromise between key House members and administration officials Wednesday.
The Allen plan to end parole had sharply divided voters along racial lines, according to a Mason-Dixon Poll released this week. On Thursday, it had the same effect on the General Assembly.
All 13 of the state's black lawmakers voted against the plan. Only one white senator and two white delegates - Sen. Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, and Dels. Jay DeBoer, D-Petersburg, and Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke - followed suit.
"I'm for abolishment of parole and truth in sentencing," Woodrum said. "But the problem is, the bill we passed costs $2.2 billion and it deals with the back end of the crime problem."
But after he voted, Woodrum said he had been assured by other legislators that funding will come later for prevention programs. As a result, he said he was considering supporting the bill when the final vote comes to the House floor today.
In a speech to the House, Del. William Robinson, D-Norfolk, spelled out the position of the Legislative Black Caucus.
"The African-American community of this state is disproportionately victimized by crime, and we disproportionately populate the prisons," he said.
"The only way that's going to change is if this body will remember its commitment ... to help us save the young people of this commonwealth."
Republicans maintained that the state already spends enough on prevention programs. Ending parole will prevent crime by incapacitating those who commit it, they said.
"The real irony of this bill is that the people who will benefit from it the most will never thank us because they will never know who they are," said Del. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake.
Although the two bills passed overwhelmingly, they contained little funding for a plan that House staff has estimated could cost up to $2.2 billion. The House agreed Thursday to spend $21 million on new prisons to ease the immediate problem of local jail overcrowding. The Senate, which passed a more expensive bill, allocated $37 million for the same thing.
Lawmakers plan to argue about the rest of the money when they meet again in January. They are predicting a long partisan battle.
Allen has said he plans to seek permission from the General Assembly to borrow $367 million for the first phase of prison construction. The rest of the money, he said, could come from voter-approved bonds.
But some Democrats this week threatened to withhold support for the loan, and force Allen to ask voters to approve the entire amount.
Allen has said he is opposed to running up debt without voter approval, according to a letter he wrote in 1992. Democrats have been circulating the letter all week.
But voter-approved bonds must cite specific locations for prisons. And because the state could run out of rural, economically depressed regions in which to build them, voters might reject the financing of prisons planned near their communities.
Allen also has lost the opportunity to have the General Assembly commit money to his plan in a vacuum.
"When we come back in January, we'll have not only corrections, but higher education [and] transportation all on the table," said Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville.
"Then I think we'll have a better perspective as to the priorities and the limitations of funds."
At least $195 million of next year's funds should go toward intervention and crime prevention programs that will not be included in the bill to end parole, members of the Legislative Black Caucus said at a news conference early Thursday.
"We spend most of our money on the wealthy," said Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk.
"We need to spend money on poor people. Their housing is deplorable, there are no jobs and [their] schools are the worst in the state. We know what we have to do to reduce crime. We just don't have the will to do it."
Hours later, Del. Bernard Cohen, D-Alexandria, echoed Miller's sentiments on the House floor.
"This bill leaves unsaid ... that we will be building prisons for our 5-year-olds, not schools," he said.
by CNB