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

DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994                   TAG: 9406290031
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

3RD PARTY SEEKS STATE BOARD APPROVAL ON DRIVE

RICHMOND - A petition by a group of former Ross Perot supporters to form a political party that would back Marshall Coleman's bid for U.S. Senate is expected to be considered today by the state Board of Elections.

Coleman, a Republican former attorney general, is running as an independent for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Charles Robb. Also in the field are Republican Oliver North and former Gov. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat running as an independent.

Louis Herrink of King George County, who filed paperwork last week in Richmond for the Virginia Independent Party, said he is unsure what the electoral board will do.

``You've really got to roll the dice on this one,'' he said Wednesday. ``This whole thing is a political decision as much as it is a legal decision.''

The board, appointed by Wilder when he was governor, is headed by Bobby Davis, a Democrat from Virginia Beach. Jack Russ, a Republican from Northern Virginia, is vice chairman. Michael Brown is the secretary of the board and runs the office. He is Wilder's nephew.

Brown said he expects the board to act today, but he was noncommittal about whether the VIP meets the requirements to become a political party.

Herrink said he does not expect a warm reception in Richmond. ``As sure as I'm sitting here, neither the Democrats nor Republicans want a third party,'' he said.

Herrink, who coordinated the Perot presidential petition drive in the 1st Congressional District in 1992, said the VIP meets the main requirement to become a party. The petition committee has representatives from each of the state's 11 congressional districts.

State law also says the petitioning group must have run a candidate for statewide office in either of the two preceding general elections who received at least 10 percent of the vote. The code also requires that the group have a state central committee and a state chairman who have been in place for six months.

According to Herrink, the VIP party would operate separately from the state's United We Stand America, a nonprofit, educational group that grew out of Perot's 1992 presidential campaign.

Herrink, a former GOP state legislator, said the idea for the new party took off after Republican Sen. John Warner arranged a meeting a couple of weeks ago between the Perot group and Coleman. Warner has called North, the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, unfit for public office.

Herrink said it's not clear how much the Perot supporters would help Coleman.

``We can put a pretty good group of people to work for him,'' he said. But he couldn't say how many people would back Coleman ``until we get out there and beat the bushes.''

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB