By Spencer S. Hsu and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 14, 1998; Page C01

Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) yesterday declared open season on Democrats fighting his two-year, $493 million plan to begin phasing out the car tax, dropping by Virginia's five major media markets to try to cast his foes as opponents of the public's will.

Just four days from the deadline for initial legislative action on Gilmore's centerpiece tax cut, Democrats in Richmond fired back. With a volley of television sound bites and colorful props suitable for a fall campaign, Democrats said the skyrocketing cost of Gilmore's plan -- originally estimated at $260 million -- had voided his electoral mandate to cut the car tax. They urged the governor to negotiate a blend of tax cuts and increased spending on schools.

It may have seemed like a continuation of last fall's campaign, but both sides acknowledged that yesterday's sniping -- which also included debate on Democratic plans to kill the sales tax on food and impose a massive school construction program -- amounted to the first shots of the 1999 elections, when all 140 seats in the General Assembly will be on the ballot.

"For the delegates and the senators who are opposing our car tax at General Assembly, I serve notice: Their reelection campaigns start today," Gilmore said during the Northern Virginia leg of his tour, an hour-long stop at Reagan National Airport.

"I am calling on citizens and community leaders across this region to come forward and offer themselves as candidates in opposition to these people who would ignore the wishes of their own people," Gilmore said. "I will not betray the people."

Gilmore stood in front of a red, white and blue banner that said, "End the Car Tax Now!"

Meanwhile, in Richmond, House Democratic Leader C. Richard Cranwell (Roanoke) marshaled a half-dozen rural and suburban Democrats in front of their own red, white and blue banner that lampooned Gilmore's "No Car Tax!" campaign slogan, adjusted to read "No Car Facts!"

"In my part of the world, a deal is a deal," said Del. Barnie K. Day (D-Patrick), a hardware store owner who blasted Gilmore's credibility for waiting until after the election to acknowledge that the first two years of the tax cut would cost nearly twice the initial estimate.

"This is not the car-tax plan he campaigned on," Day said. "I'm not calling it a bait-and-switch, but it crossed my mind to call it that."

The stepped-up rhetoric in part reflected the increased tension in Richmond as the legislature nears a Tuesday deadline for each chamber to approve legislation. After that, the House and Senate may consider only bills that already have passed the other chamber.

For Gilmore, who was elected by a landslide in November largely on the appeal of his plan to cut the car tax, anything short of passing the plan by convincing margins would leave him politically wounded, analysts said.

Meanwhile, Democrats are reeling from a string of electoral defeats and fear that the GOP anti-tax message could lead to a Republican takeover of the legislature in the 1999 elections.

"The Democrats are going into campaign mode to cut that [trend] off as soon as possible," said Brad Coker, pollster for Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc. "Their only play for a political rebound in 1999 is to hang a lot of baggage on Gilmore's tax cut . . . and hope for bad things to happen," such as an economic downturn that would squeeze state revenue and make Gilmore's tax cut a budgeting problem.

On the other hand, Robert E. Denton, a political scientist at Virginia Tech, said Gilmore's hastily scheduled flying tour is also telling.

"Here's a newly elected governor who came in with such a mandate, and he's having to urge people to call their lawmakers?" Denton said. "Democrats are beginning to see that people believe their arguments."

Today, Democratic attacks were tightly scripted and based on messages their polls told them are capturing voters' attention: The Gilmore plan's cost has doubled, it would not eliminate the tax in localities that choose to raise rates, and it would direct tax relief disproportionately to owners of expensive cars in high-tax regions.

"As the public is more and more informed . . . they are less and less enamored with the whole plan," said House Speaker Thomas W. Moss Jr. (D-Norfolk).

Democrats indicated today that they would force a vote to slash the state's 4.5 percent sales tax on food -- a tax break they note would apply more equally to residents of all incomes. That, Democrats hope, would force any wavering Republicans to choose between the car-tax cut and killing the food tax.

Gilmore said that he spoke with Cranwell late Thursday and that the House Democratic leader asked whether the governor would pare down his plan to allow for a Democratic plan to cut the sales tax.

"We would be happy to listen, but my full intention is not to deviate," Gilmore told reporters after returning to Richmond yesterday. "We are not going to scale down the car-tax" cut.

"Apparently, there are a precious few of these folks who don't understand what a 13 percentage-point victory means," said Gilmore, referring to his margin of victory over Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. in the governor's race. "The idea of democracy is unknown to them, so it's important for them to get the message."

The General Assembly was slowed by partisan bickering of another type yesterday, as the House and Senate delayed action for three hours in a dispute over judicial appointments. Afterward, the House scuttled most of its floor schedule. The Senate also postponed debates over an assisted-suicide ban and more liberal concealed-weapons laws.

In committee action, the House Education Committee unanimously passed a bill to permit separate-sex grades and schools for boys and girls.

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee also delayed a hearing on a resolution by Del. A. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond) for a study on whether to strengthen privacy protections for autopsy records.

The measure is being pushed by the Spotsylvania County sheriff's office, which contends that media reports about autopsies have hampered its investigation into the May abduction and slaying of Spotsylvania sisters Kati, 12, and Kristin Lisk, 15, and the September 1996 kidnapping and slaying of Sofia Silva, 16.

The measure also is supported by survivors of homicide victims who contend that autopsy records became the basis of a novel by mystery writer Patricia Cornwell, who once worked in the Richmond medical examiner's office.

Cornwell was a major campaign contributor to Gilmore and his GOP predecessor, George Allen.

Hsu reported from Richmond, Allen from Arlington. Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report from Richmond.