THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604140097
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Two bills pushed through the General Assembly by House Speaker Thomas W. Moss have triggered a conflict involving the most powerful members of all three branches of state government.
Moss, a Norfolk Democrat and lawyer, pushed two bills through the legislature this winter that target the Virginia Supreme Court. Moss was rebuffed last year by the court for missing a filing deadline in a case he argued on behalf of a southwest Virginia man who wanted to get a pawnbroker's license.
One measure essentially would gut a Supreme Court rule that sets certain deadlines for the filing of court transcripts by lawyers appealing a case. The other piece of legislation would force the court to file annual reports to the General Assembly, detailing salary data, expenditures and the revenue of each state court and a summary of why petitions have been denied.
Republican Gov. George F. Allen announced Wednesday that he would block both bills.
Allen cited a letter sent him by Virginia Chief Justice Harry L. Carrico, who expressed outrage at what he called an unconstitutional intrusion into the court's affairs.
``There are serious constitutional questions involving separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches raised,'' Carrico wrote, urging the governor to veto the two measures.
Some lawmakers and legal officials didn't go that far, but they questioned Moss's action.
``Looks like he's trying to teach them (the judges) a lesson,'' House Minority Leader S. Vance Wilkins Jr., R-Amherst, said Friday.
Wilkins himself has felt the sting of the speaker's power. This year, Moss removed him from a plum committee assignment for his role in Republican legislative campaigns last fall.
Allen's office would not comment on the issue. It released Carrico's letter, dated March 15, and pointed to the governor's statement Wednesday. The statement referred to Carrico's letter and noted that Republican Attorney General James S. Gilmore III concurred that the justice had raised ``substantial'' constitutional concerns.
Moss said both bills passed the legislature unanimously. Since neither would change the outcome of his client's case, Moss said the measures created no conflict of interest, and he denied that retribution or intimidation was his motive.
``They're all your words,'' he told The Washington Post. ``There is no way it can help me. . . . I resent any implication of a conflict of interest.''
The bill requiring annual reporting, for example, simply is meant to ``get the facts'' of Supreme Court actions on petitions for appeals, he said.
``They like to protect their own little fiefdom up there. . . . What have they got to hide? Why wouldn't they want to tell anyone what they're doing? That certainly can't be a constitutional question.''
Kent Sinclair, a University of Virginia Law School professor, said Moss' conduct is not uncommon, though unhealthy for the state's judiciary.
``Many times we see bills put in the Virginia legislature which are reacting to recent lawsuits'' by legislators who have served as attorneys in the cases involved, Sinclair said. ``That's not a good way to shape the procedures of the state.''
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY
by CNB