ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601150086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: General Assembly Notebook
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
The big news: After two days of rigmarole, the state Senate adopted precedent-breaking rules that share power between political parties.
The footnote: State Sen. Madison Marye, the sage of Shawsville, cast the lone dissenting vote against the Rules of the Senate contained in Senate Bill 1.
The veteran Democrat did vote for the steering committee report that set committee chairmanships and other power-sharing details for the session. That passed 40-0.
But Marye objected to the principle of co-chairmen for the powerful Senate Finance Committee. And he thinks increasing the size of the committee from 15 to 17 members is just going to slow things down.
"I just wanted to establish the fact that I didn't approve of what we'd done," Marye said Friday. The senior Democrat said he had no qualms about divvying up some of the committee chairmanships among Republicans and Democrats to reflect the Senate's 20-20 deadlock between the parties.
"I think most of us were resigned to the fact that we were going to have to give a little bit, each side," he said.
But Marye said splitting the Finance Committee leadership between John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, and Stanley Walker, D-Norfolk, may only lead to problems down the road.
"I don't think you can have a staff that serves two masters," he said.
Marye said a similar power-sharing setup in Florida led to partisan problems. "It seems to me that this is going to leave a space for an awful lot of wrangling and haggling between parties," Marye said. "I hope it doesn't work that way, but I think it will."
Marye has proposed a solution, of sorts: a constitutional amendment to create an odd number of senators and delegates, 41 and 101, respectively. That would avoid the possibility of a 20-20 split in the Senate, and the two days of leadership wrangling. Yet he doesn't realistically expect it to get very far. "That's one of those bills I put in for people to think about," he said.
Marye has been a member of the Finance Committee and expects to be reappointed today. As part of the new regime, he has assumed the chairmanship of the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee. He gave up the General Laws chairmanship to Sen. William Wampler Jr., R-Bristol.
The Agriculture committee traditionally meets Monday mornings. When Marye announced Friday he would hold the first committee meeting then, a colleague reminded him the committee wouldn't have members assigned until later today, making it, for now, a committee of one.
``I said, `That's OK. The chairman will be there and he'll bring his bottle bill,''' Marye joked, referring to his long-stymied attempt to impose a refundable deposit system on beverage containers.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB