ALAN DIAMONSTEIN never sat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He stood. His native energy, percolating through him at all moments, permitted no luxury of repose. Alan was always out in the chamber’s center aisle, constant in conversation, constant in negotiation and just, well, constant.
That’s an enduring image of Alan. His imposing, active heart gave out on Thursday morning at age 88.
Another image of Alan has him grounded, for short periods, in his role as chair of the House General Laws Committee, to oversee the hearings on the proposed recognition — a state holiday — for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Those hearings brought out the wretches of humanity, as one after another stepped before the committee to denounce King, in the vilest terms, as unworthy. Diamonstein endured it, had the committee endure it, all in the cause of a simple principle: free speech.
But that wasn’t all of it. Diamonstein knew that each obnoxious objection only hardened the votes in favor of honoring King. No one wanted to be aligned with “that.”
Alan became a friend shortly after I started writing editorials for The Daily Press in the early 1980s. He always seemed happy to see you, even when I caught him early one morning playing the Pac-Man machine in the 7-Eleven nearest the newspaper.
Energy. He had it to spare. And affection. He was good company in all weathers. It all combined to produce a lawmaker — Diamonstein served in the House for 32 years — of notable influence and achievement.
It put him in demand: to chair the Virginia Democratic Party, to nurture Christopher Newport University, to foster Achievable Dream, to oversee the University of Virginia and to be there, as counsel for all purposes, for more than two generations of Virginia leaders.
The Peninsula once harbored great political power: Alan. Hunter Andrews, state Senate majority leader and Finance Committee chairman. Ted Morrison, chairman of the House Finance Committee. And Richard M. Bagley, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
And, in its heyday, it was unchallenged political power. These were all Democrats when the Virginia Democratic Party was Virginia, for all intents. It was not going anywhere.
Until it did, starting roughly 20 years ago. And when the Democrats lost their legislative majorities, an unwritten, habit-bound and tradition-laden institution died.
It has taken the years since for the Republican Party, as current rulers of the Virginia General Assembly, to achieve some semblance of the same stability and institutional self-assuredness.
Now that appears threatened — a new collection of Democrats (not the old ones, by any stretch) are coming on — and the likelihood that legislative control will be contested with every coming state election, throwing rule from side-to-side, appears a near certainty.
That’s a concern. Virginia has steadfastly maintained a record of fiscal management — with bond ratings among the highest in the nation and a solid reputation for moderate financial stewardship — could be at risk with a more unsettled brand of state politics.
Continuity — an essential, when the Virginia Constitution ushers in a new governor every four years — could be jeopardized by lurching, oft-changing legislative leadership.
Which brings me to the subject of Suffolk Del. Chris Jones.
Jones chairs the all-important House Appropriations Committee and nobody — and I mean nobody, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative — yearns to see him go.
I mentioned former Hampton Del. Dick Bagley, who chaired the Appropriations Committee with gentile, but forthright intelligence and commanded broad respect for his equanimity and openness to varying points of view.
That’s Jones. He comes closest to the Bagley model of anyone over the past 40 years and, if he goes, so goes a body of institutional knowledge and commitment — commitment not to himself, but to Virginia — that benefits everyone.
“If you can look into the seeds of time,” Shakespeare’s Banquo tells the witches in the Scottish play, “and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak to me.”
Well, witches are in short supply these days and I haven’t a clue what will prove fertile on Nov. 5. The outcome could be interesting on a number of fronts.
Regardless, Jones is a keeper — a lawmaker of uncommon ability — and that is less than an endorsement than it is a tribute to Alan Diamonstein (and Dick Bagley, too) who loved Virginia always and first.
After writing editorials for The Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co. and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.
