Gov. James S. Gilmore III (TWP)

By Robert H. Melton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 16, 1998; Page A01

RICHMOND, March 15—When James S. Gilmore III became Virginia's governor, he had to answer one basic question that he raised himself during last year's campaign: Could he deliver on his promise to roll back the state's despised annual tax on automobiles?

The answer today appears to be yes, although along the way the General Assembly -- with its near-equal numbers of GOP and Democratic lawmakers -- nicked and scratched Republican Gilmore as if to remind the new chief executive that they, too, have a voice in government. They made that point again today when they told Gilmore to come up with the last $20 million to finance the school construction part of the car-tax deal, which the governor says is not his job.

Legislatures with grizzled leaders such as Virginia's and rookie governors with a red-hot issue always perform a clumsy ballet, and this genteel capital has watched one from the edge of its seat for two long months. Gilmore first stuck out the hand of friendship and then, as the cost of the car-tax repeal doubled, launched an in-your-face campaign to reignite popular support for it.

Democratic legislators, thrown off balance by Gilmore's thunderous victory last November on one issue, sought to regain their voice. When they did, they reminded mothers and fathers across the state that their children's schools were falling down around their ears.

Hence tonight's House-Senate budget deal: More than $450 million for car-tax relief in the coming two years and upward of $100 million for school renovations and new construction. While that amount barely addresses the billions of dollars needed to build new schools and repair old ones, it's far more than many thought would be available at the same time the state was axing the car tax.

Although Gilmore and his staff were waiting tonight for the dust to settle on the agreement, the 11th-hour compromise on the day after the legislative session was supposed to end appears to be a solid victory for the former prosecutor and state attorney general.

"He comes out with much of what he wanted, although it's not the entire delivery," said Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University here.

Paying for the car-tax relief "clearly will require substantial economic growth and the long-term price tag is concerning people, even beyond his opponents," Holsworth said. But, he added, "In the endgame, when it could have been catastrophic for him to stick to his guns, he was very tough and that served him well.

"He did not give away his central campaign promise."

Gilmore also can point to a number of other successful initiatives that fit his conservative agenda, including encouragement for charter schools, a ban on some third-trimester abortions and a quietly important opening for Republicans finally to have a say in the legislature's selection of judges.

At the same time, the General Assembly taught Gilmore a few lessons: Don't be tardy introducing your programs. Make sure your staff is always polite to committee chairmen. And remember, when your bill hits our floor, it belongs to us and no longer to you.

"It's a game, and we're learning the rules," said M. Boyd Marcus Jr., Gilmore's chief of staff and political alter ego. "We'll be better at it next year.

"When they're in town, we're playing on their field," said Marcus, as he peered from the governor's floor of the Capitol one story down to the two wings of the legislature. "But when they leave town . . ."

Gilmore is widely given credit for maintaining a sharply focused agenda in his first legislative session. But by putting nearly all his eggs in the no-car-tax basket, he also had everything to lose.

And it now seems to many that the freshman governor was hurt when his car-tax measure became part of the state budget bill. That massive document is always loaded with pork projects that become bargaining chips as the assembly session winds down, creating complications for passage of Gilmore's top priority.

"He needed a deal right now," one anxious Gilmore adviser acknowledged this weekend.

Gilmore won the deal with an aggressive style, hammering home a clear message nearly every day of the session with a sound bite for the television cameras, a statewide photo-opportunity fly-around, and a shrewd mail-and-telephone campaign to put pressure on Democrats in swing districts.

At the same time, his relentless focus on the car tax hurt him in other areas, alienating Democrats on a long menu of issues, and some Republicans as well, most of them from Northern Virginia.

"It's not a confrontational style," mused Del. C. Richard Cranwell (D-Roanoke), the most painful thorn in Gilmore's side this session. "What's concerning me is the lack of communications. The one sure way to lose down here is to be greedy and try to have it go your way and only your way."

Sen. Jane H. Woods (R-Fairfax), who frequently has sided with Democrats, said Gilmore's rocky start reflected the "normal friction between a new executive and the legislative branch, particularly for a governor never having served in the legislature."

When it came to a measure extending health insurance benefits to needy children, Gilmore dug in his heels, favoring a cheaper alternative that Woods said fell far short of what Virginia needed. Woods met with Gilmore in his office to discuss the issue, and she recalls criticizing him for proposing a hastily constructed alternative.

"The only real plan was ours, and it was being picked apart," Woods recalled this week. "I said, 'That is not negotiating, sir.' "

In the end, though, walking away with most of the car-tax relief he wanted should suit Gilmore, most observers said.

"If he gets it, it's a Super Bowl win," said Charles J. Davis III, a former capital press secretary and now a lobbyist at the assembly. "The winner of the Super Bowl doesn't come out unbruised.

"They're hobbling a little bit, but it feels good."