Heading home after 14 years chronicling Virginia politics

After my first day at the state Capitol, I was ready to go back home to Roanoke.

The House of Delegates was deadlocked on Jan. 14, 1998, so Republicans and Democrats spent the afternoon and much of that evening in separate huddles behind closed doors, occasionally emerging to yell at each other. I milled around outside the restrooms, hoping someone on a break would tell me what was going on.

Workers dismantling Gov. George Allen's office trooped past me with an assortment of exotic animal trophies. I stared at kangaroo limbs and antelope derrieres and wondered when anyone had time to eat lunch.

Half-starved, sleep-deprived and totally stressed out, I was back again for more the next morning. How could I leave without knowing how this crazy drama would end?

That curiosity has kept me coming back, day after day, for 14 years. As a young reporter, I could never have predicted the amazing and preposterous events I would witness in Thomas Jefferson's Capitol.

Some of my memories are small but priceless. The day Del. Lacey Putney, the House's lone independent, joined the Republican caucus and forced a power-sharing agreement between the two parties, House Speaker Tom Moss chewed him out, then twirled on his heel for a dramatic exit... only to realize he was storming into the ladies' lounge. "See what you've done to me?" Moss sputtered as he beat an undignified retreat.

But it's also no exaggeration to say that I've been an eyewitness to one of the most important and tumultuous periods of Virginia's political history. I've watched as Republican lawmakers made the transition from beleaguered minority to a fractious majority, then ceded the state Senate back to the Democrats. I've covered four governors, four speakers of the House, two rounds of redistricting and a ridiculous number of news-free Shad Plankings.

I've learned that party labels reveal less about state leaders than their personalities. Govs. Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner were both driven and obsessive, although toward different ends. Both got most of what they wanted out of their four-year terms, but only Warner left Virginia better off than he found it. Govs. Tim Kaine and Bob McDonnell share amiable dispositions and a tendency to spread themselves too thin.

Like Moss, current House Speaker Bill Howell has a distaste for the trench warfare that comes with the job, leaving those chores to lieutenants and weakening his power in the process. Speaker Vance Wilkins did too much of his own gutter work and had few defenders when he fell in a sex scandal. Putney served only briefly as an interim speaker, but he's been here since before I was born and will still be here after I'm gone.

After many delays, I am finally going back home to Roanoke. My last days at the Capitol have been punctuated by unwelcome milestones. The suicide of House Clerk Bruce Jamerson. The retirements of Del. Harvey Morgan and other irreplaceable lawmakers. The conviction of former Del. Phil Hamilton on bribery and extortion charges. The dwindling of the press corps down to a handful of over-worked, under-appreciated but amazingly committed journalists who continue to serve as watchdogs for us all.

Every loss is traditionally marked by the cliché that the legislators, lobbyists, staff and reporters who populate the Capitol are a family. But I would say that we are more like a small town. We choose to be here, together, for a few frazzled months every year. Co-existence has gotten harder as the left and right tug harder from both ends with fewer in the middle trying to hold the whole contraption together. But we're all stuck under one roof, and somehow we manage to get through each winter without a brawl.

In a few days, "we" will become "they" as I join the departures. I know I will miss the General Assembly as it trundles on without me. I'll miss doorkeeper Eddie Radden's hugs and cheerful greetings whenever I entered the House chamber. I'll miss Del. Chris Jones' encyclopedic knowledge of John Prine lyrics and Del. Lionell Spruill's playful commentaries about the eccentricities of "white folks." I'll miss Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar's pointed reminders about the number of shopping opportunities until Valentine's Day. And I'll miss the radiant white of Jefferson's temple to democracy against the winter blue sky.

Anyone who has lived in a small town, as I did, knows that life doesn't saunter along in slow motion. It seems to speed by faster than it would in the big city. That's true at the Capitol, where every 46- and 60-day session is over before you can say "sine die."

Too many of my 14 legislative sessions have ended without anyone stopping to ask, "What did we accomplish?" Too often when that question is posed, it elicits a shrug.

Somehow, big corporate interests, predatory lenders and tobacco companies managed to scrape together a few wins even in the toughest years. There are far fewer victories for students trapped in failing public schools, jail inmates whose only crime is mental illness or families struggling to survive on minimum wages and no health insurance.

As I stood at the rear of the House chamber recently, I scanned familiar faces and guiltily realized how many new ones I barely know. Perhaps I'm becoming one of the old-timers who talks too much to other old-timers. But it's the newcomers I entrust with my hopes as well as my apprehensions about the future. I'll still be watching the drama that I wandered into 14 years ago, only from a distance. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Christina Nuckols is leaving her job as Richmond-based editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot to become editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times. Email: christina.nuckols@pilotonline.com.