By Spencer S. Hsu and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 11, 1998; Page B01

RICHMOND, Feb. 10—Gov. James S. Gilmore III's $493 million proposal to cut the car tax sailed through a Senate hearing with barely a ripple of Democratic complaint today, with the administration so certain of passage that it did not bother to mount a defense.

With 21 votes in the 40-member Senate already committed to the plan, Republicans chortled as the tax cut easily survived its first major public hearing. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats scrambled to drum up support for a competing $208 million bid to slash the state's sales tax on food, without much apparent success.

Back-to-back public hearings on taxes before the Senate Finance Committee summed up the mood of the 28-day-old session so far, in which GOP lawmakers have been supremely confident and Democrats have encountered frustration at most every turn.

House Democrats were still threatening to force a series of votes aimed at contrasting the cut in the car tax, also known as the personal property tax, against other possible tax reductions. And they argued that addressing a $6 billion backlog of school construction should also be a priority.

But even former foes of the Gilmore car-tax plan acknowledged today, one by one, that it seems inevitable.

"Sometimes battles are won before you take the plate," said Richmond City Council member Joseph E. Brooks on behalf of Virginia cities, who last summer vigorously opposed Gilmore's tax-cut plan as a dangerous intrusion on local taxing power.

"In this case I don't think being in favor or against the deal would have any validity at all," he said. "This is a foregone conclusion that this is going to pass."

Added Alan D. Albert, a lobbyist for county and city treasurers, "From a technical point of view . . . we will make it happen."

Charles Crowson, counsel for Virginia's local commissioners of revenue, said, "We, too, endorse the governor's package."

The spectacle of local officials and tax collectors coming out in favor of the plan delighted GOP aides. While the former testified, Gilmore's deputy press secretary handed out a letter by Virginia AFL-CIO President Daniel G. LeBlanc, a core Democratic backer, supporting "Governor Gilmore's general proposition to eliminate the personal property tax."

"I don't think we have seen the need to mobilize people, because we're confident of the popularity of the program," crowed J. Scott Leake, spokesman for the Joint Republican Caucus. "We are surprised Democrats are putting up this much resistance," he quipped.

All that left some Democratic tax-cut opponents fuming. While local officials grudgingly accepted Gilmore's plan, they also asked for a constitutional amendment to guarantee that the state will always reimburse cities and counties for the lost revenue.

Sen. Joseph V. Gartlan Jr. (D-Fairfax) chastised the local officials at the hearing for abandoning their opposition to the five-year, $2.8 billion tax cut, which they once attacked as too costly and too favorable to the wealthy.

"Everyone assumes this is a fore-gone conclusion and then in the next breath is willing to enumerate difficulty after difficulty with it," said Gartlan, calling the debate an "absurdity."

"You can't have it both ways."

Later, Sen. Madison E. Marye (D-Montgomery) staged a Ross Perot-like presentation with charts of his proposal to eliminate Virginia's 4.5 percent sales tax on food.

"Not all of Virginia's nearly 6 1/2 million people own a car, but they all have to eat," Marye said, arguing that a family that buys $100 of groceries a week would save $52 in his plan's first year, versus $19.19 from Gilmore's car tax, in low-tax rural regions.

Gilmore spokesman Mark A. Miner responded: "The public hearing that counts was held in November. Where have these people been the last nine months?"

Lawmakers picked up the pace on a variety of other issues today:

The Senate voted 24 to 16 -- with six Democrats joining 18 Republicans -- to identify candidates by political party on state ballots for the first time. The current law is a remnant of Democratic one-party rule in Virginia, designed to insulate incumbents from challenges in increasingly GOP districts. The Senate bill goes to the House, which has killed similar bills in committee.

In the House this week, gun rights advocates effectively killed a Fairfax County-backed measure to ban weapons from county recreation centers.

That step came with the help of Fairfax freshman Del. Jeannemarie Devolites (R) -- who campaigned in support of the ban. The Militia and Police Committee voted 12 to 10 Monday -- with Devolites joining 10 Republicans and one Democrat -- to send the bill to the Courts of Justice Committee, which has been a graveyard for gun control legislation.

Devolites said that if she had voted yes on the bill, the tie committee vote would have killed it anyway.

"By voting to refer it to courts [committee], I at least gave it a second chance," said Devolites, who represents Vienna and Oakton. She said the Senate may approve a similar bill that could give the House another chance.

Supporters of the bill criticized gun rights advocates for orchestrating the vote so that Devolites could help them without having to cast a vote to kill a bill supported by local officials in her district.

"What her action says is the National Rifle Association has got the hearts and minds of the Republican Party in its grip," said Del. Robert D. Hull (D-Fairfax), the bill's sponsor.