THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By JOHN GOOLRICK
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Ithink I am right in saying that Virginia has five living former governors. There were six until Albertis Harrison passed away earlier this year.
Those five are all remarkable individuals, and though some have been embroiled in occasional controversies, there has never been the slightest hint that any one of them ever sought to use public office for personal gain.
Mills Godwin was a Democrat when he was first elected governor in 1965 after serving as lieutenant governor under Harrison. When Godwin returned to the electoral scene in 1973, he got the Republican nomination and won. Though his health has deteriorated over the years, he still makes public appearances and remains one of the finest orators Virginia has ever produced.
Linwood Holton became the first Republican governor in modern times when he won in 1969. Still active in state affairs, Holton's most-remembered legacy is his streamlining of state government. Thanks to him, Virginians no longer have to stand in long lines every year to buy their license plates. Holton also made it clear that he wanted to help stamp out the last vestiges of the segregated society that had marked Virginia in the first 70 years of the 20th century.
Charles S. Robb rose from lieutenant governor to the governorship in 1981, the state's first Democratic governor in a dozen years. It was Robb more than anyone who took the state Democratic Party away from its losing leftward drift and initiated a centrist direction that resulted in the election of three consecutive Democratic chief executives until the streak was broken in 1993. Robb's major legacy was bringing more women and minorities into state government.
Gerald Baliles will forever be known as the ``transportation governor'' unless he becomes governor again (and there are rumors that he might want to become governor again). His transportation initiatives pumped millions and millions of new dollars into road-building and created in many regions new infrastructure that brought rapid growth and development.
L. Douglas Wilder faced, perhaps, the toughest situation of any Virginia governor this century almost from Day One of his term in January 1990. The state's flourishing economy of the 1980s had gone into the tank, and Wilder stood tough fiscally even against many groups that had been a major part of his constituency. The first black ever elected governor of a Southern state, Wilder's fiscal responsibility would have made the late Harry Byrd Sr., architect of the Massive Resistance movement, proud.
Now George Allen, a Republican, is the state's chief executive and at this juncture seems likely to be remembered in the future for three things - virtually abolishing parole for repeat violent offenders, economic-development incentives and his combative, highly partisan battles with the General Assembly. Indeed, never in this century has Virginia seen such partisanship at the highest levels of government. But then, of course, never has the state been so evenly divided between Republican and Democratic leadership.
I've had an opportunity over the years, both as a journalist and columnist, to observe at fairly close range all five of Virginia's living former governors and the present incumbent. Their styles have been different, and they all had their share of failed programs.
Yet on the whole, their stories have been extraordinarily successful in keeping Virginia a state with relatively low taxation and a quality of living environment that keeps the population growing and attracts the kind of high-tech industries sought by nearly all of the states. Our governors of the '60s, '70s, '80s and into the '90s have basically given us pragmatic, down-to-Earth, responsible leadership which is a lot more than can be said for chief executives in a sizable number of other states who have either gone to jail, been indicted or may be listening for the footsteps of grand juries. MEMO: Mr. Goolrick, a former political reporter, is an aide to 1st District
Rep. Herbert Bateman. Opinions expressed are his own. by CNB