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The
Odd Couple
Bill
Howell and John Chichester find themselves at odds
over tax policy. But in a throwback to a past
political era, the two senior legislators manage
to stay friends.
Old
friends Bill Howell and John Chichester, two of
the most influential people in the Commonwealth,
have learned that the best way to keep a
friendship intact is just to agree to disagree
about politics and talk instead about families,
the weather, baseball, good places to eat and
other subjects not likely to be debated in the
Virginia General Assembly.
Howell,
speaker of the House of Delegates, and Chichester,
chairman of the powerful State Seat Finance
Committee, lived only a few miles apart in
Stafford County until Chichester moved to
Northumberland County in the Northern Neck earlier
this year.
Chichester
grew up in a family with deep Stafford roots, a
clan whose members ruled as local Democratic
kingpins during the long reign of the Byrd
Organization. Chichester's grandfather sat on the
Virginia Supreme Court, and his father served as a
long-time Stafford commonwealth's attorney.
When
the state Democratic Party was taken over by
liberals in the early 1970s, Chichester opted out,
as did many conservatives. In 1978 when Democratic
State Sen. Paul Manns of Caroline was dying of
cancer, my friend, the late Calvin Sanford, a
Republican delegate from Westmoreland, asked me if
I knew anyone from the Fredericksburg area who
might be a viable Republican candidate. I
recommended Chichester, Calvin arranged a meeting
between him and Northern Neck folks, and things
fell in place. When Manns died, Chichester won a
November election to fill his unexpired term and,
of course, rose to preeminence in the Senate.
Ironically,
though demonized these das by the right wing of
his party as a phony, tax-and-spend Republican, he
was regarded during the first dozen or so years in
office as among the Senate's most reliably
conservative members. He won the party's 1985
nomination for lieutenant governor by defeating
former attorney general J. Marshall Coleman, who
was regarded as tilting to the left by such party
leaders as former Gov. Mills Godwin.
Chichester
lost the general election narrowly to Democrat
Douglas Wilder because GOP gubernatorial nominee
Wyatt Durrette, ran an ineffective campaign.
Chichester also disregarded advice of key advisors
to go negative, and serious flooding in the
Republican Shenandoah Valley dampened turn-out in
that solid Republican territory.
As
a member of the Finance Committee, Chichester
forged a close bond with then Chairman Democrat
Hunter Andrews, who always insisted that the state
meet critical needs such as education and
transportation. Many have charged that Andrews
wielded a large behind-the-scenes presence even
after he lost a bid for re-election and Chichester
assumed his position as chairman.
Bill
Howell came to the Fredericksburg area as a social
conservative but also a lawyer-banker who
maintains close ties to the business community.
First elected to the House in 1987, he became
speaker when the acerbic Vance Wilkins was forced
to resign. He has gotten high marks from both
sides of the aisle for his manner of presiding
with levity and fairness. Although Wilkins worked
tirelessly to build a GOP majority in the House,
his style can be described at best as
semi-dictatorial. The Democratic minority, to put
it mildly, despised him.
Breakfasting
earlier this week with Howell and his wife, I
asked if he had seen Chichester recently. As it
happened, the Senator had dropped by Howell's
log-cabin office in Falmouth the day before just
to shot the breeze. The two had campaigned for
each other in the past but a political division
involving tax issues has come between them. Howell
and the social-conservative majority in the House
battled tooth and nail during the 2003
(?) legislative session over the Senate
Finance Committee's proposal for an even larger
tax increase than one proposed by Gov. Mark
Warner. Conservative Republicans blamed Chichester
and his Senate Republican supporters for the
passage of most of what Warner had proposed.
Chichester,
despite a fanaticism for the Boston Red Sox, is a
personable guy. I have known since my teenage
years, and I consider him a close friend and a man
whose political life is dictated by his
conscience. Bill Howell is also a good friend of
long standing, who stopped by twice to see me
during a recent hospital stay.
As
anyone who follows state politics knows, there is
a huge intra-party fight going on in the Virginia
Republican Party involving taxes and spending.
Howell and Chichester are at the very eye of the
storm and have quite differing opinions on the
subject. As for me, I don't feel that I am the
least bit under taxed, but when stuck in some
horrendous traffic jam wonder where the money is
going to come from to do something about all the
congested roads.
But
I'm glad Bill Howell and John Chichester are still
friends despite their political differences. Their
friendship harkens back to an era in state
politics when there was much more civility. I
doubt that ethos is destined to return, but
hearing of it does bring back fond memories for an
old political reporter who witnessed the days when
Republicans and Democrats would fight for their
views and bills by day and drink together by night
at the Holiday Inn Downtown bar.
Nowadays
in the halls of the Capitol, some Republicans are
not even on speaking terms with others.
--
July 25, 2005
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