Saturday, February 24, 2007
Senator, aide have spoken for rural Virginia since 1982
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From The Roanoke Times
RICHMOND -- Many things have changed at the General Assembly since 1982.
Legislators no longer smoke on the floor of the House or Senate. Northern Virginia is much more heavily represented. Folks far-flung from their home districts keep up with local news through the Internet. Constituents and interest groups use e-mail instead of phone calls or letters to contact their representatives.
But one thing remains the same for many Southside Virginia residents. When they call their legislator, they're likely to hear the voice of Mary Catherine Plaster, who has served as Sen. Charles Hawkins' aide since he was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1981.
She's known as much for her quick wit and sharp tongue as for her intimate knowledge of state history, but either way, she adds color to the Capitol.
"She's such a Virginia character," said Del. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, who grew up in Chatham, the Pittsylvania County town that's also home to Hawkins and Plaster. "She does hearken back to a different time."
Hawkins values her keen mind and institutional knowledge. He also appreciates the fact that she speaks her mind.
"I don't want to be around someone who agrees with everything I say," Hawkins said. "Mary Catherine gives you her opinion, which I cherish. It helps me understand the things we're dealing with."
Carthan Currin, a Richmond lobbyist with Franklin County roots, used to work frequently with Plaster when Currin served as the director of the Virginia Tobacco Commission, which Hawkins leads.
"She has an incredible capacity to see through someone who's trying to use Charles, as opposed to trying to help him," Currin said. "For Charles she's a wonderful reality check of human nature."
Plaster grew up in one of Southside Virginia's old families, and she still lives in her childhood home. Her father, who died when she was 8, ran Sours' Grocery. He had purchased it from his father who, in turn, had built it on the property that used to house her grandfather's foundry. That grandfather produced shot used in the Civil War, in which he also fought. He fought at Gettysburg and was eventually captured in Statesville, N.C., but was able to return home.
Plaster retains a passion for what she calls the War Between the States, and it's easy to see why: Instead of just reading about it in books, it was part of her family's personal history.
Years after her father died, her mother married a man who became county sheriff and became co-chairman for the Pittsylvania County Democrats.
"We were all Byrd Democrats," Plaster said. "We did not have elections in November. There was the primary in August, and we didn't have anyone running against who won."
But the party moved away from its members in rural Virginia, according to Plaster, and many of its former members became Republicans.
The 1981 election of Hawkins, a haberdashery owner who ate early each day so he could be behind the register during most residents' lunch hours, became a sign of things to come. Now, every Pittsylvania County legislator in the General Assembly is a Republican.
But when Hawkins first came to Richmond, he was one of the few Republicans in a legislative body dominated by southern Democrats.
It was a different era of Virginia politics, not only for politicians but for their staff.
"When I first came, you'd have retired CEOs, retired judges and young kids buying their first gray suit," Plaster said.
In 1982, Plaster's first year in Richmond, aides and legislators shared a single computer on each floor of the General Assembly Building. During floor sessions staff members would gather around a loudspeaker to listen in. E-mail was in the future.
These days, legislative aides tend to be younger and have more political ambition. Their duties have changed as well.
Much of Plaster's time is now spent wading through the volumes of e-mail that arrive daily.
"It has eaten into our workday," Plaster said. "It's responsible in some instances for adding more people in the office."
But some things remain the same. Hawkins still speaks for the rural regions of Virginia. And the Chatham senator still sprinkles his speeches with rhetorical flourishes that often draw laughs -- but which nearly as often change votes.
Plaster tells a story of a bill that would have made lots of small changes to counties' land-use and zoning ordinances. It was the kind of bill, she said, that is "frightening for rural Virginia.
"Charles stood up and asked them if that was the same message the Indians received about land use from the settlers in Jamestown. Everyone laughed, but the bill was defeated."
But where once Hawkins was but one voice in a chorus speaking for rural residents, he has become more and more of an anomaly as urban regions such as Northern Virginia and Tidewater have increased in population and number of representatives.
Hawkins and Plaster each remember a saying from the senator's days in the House of Delegates: "The hand on the plow" -- or "The hand that milks the cow," according to Hawkins' version -- "shall always guide the commonwealth."
But "I think there's a feeling we hear that rural Virginia isn't being considered anymore," Plaster said.
Hawkins said that's because of the state's growth.
"We're becoming more of an urban-driven state, and every redistricting reinforces that," Hawkins said. "The problems facing rural Virginia become more acute because there are fewer of us here to hold the line."
Plaster also mourns the shrinking number of legislators who have owned their own business, as Hawkins did.
"Now it's teachers and people who derive their check from others, people who've never done a payroll or competed in the marketplace," Plaster said. "That marketplace survival mechanism isn't there anymore."
And it's quite possible the Senate may soon lose another self-made businessman. Hawkins was briefly hospitalized earlier this year after his heart rate shot up.
Plaster too has had health issues: She had surgery on her carotid artery, but missed only a week before she was back at work.
If Hawkins decides to retire and takes Plaster with him, "you'd lose tremendous clout and grace," Currin said.
Hawkins said he will make a decision and announcement sometime after the legislative session, which is scheduled to end today. When and if that happens, there's little doubt that Plaster -- who has spent her life outside the General Assembly doing everything from tombstone inscriptions to receiving alumni for Atlanta's Emory University -- will find plenty to do to occupy her time.
But Richmond will be poorer for its loss.
