Too damn many Republicans.

• Author: Schapiro, Jeff E.
• Position: Virginia's power sharing policy in the General Assembly

The GOP is growing in Virginia, changing the way things have been for more than 100 years. Republican gains make Virginia the first state ever to have two chambers under a power sharing agreement.

For all the changes that power sharing has brought to the evenly divided Virginia House of Delegates, there remains one constant: Thomas W. Moss Jr.'s sense of humor.

"The only problem with Republicans," cracked the Democratic speaker of the House, whose girth and shock of white hair conjure an image of an old-time ward heeler, "is that there are too damn many of them."

But not enough to deny Moss' re-election as presiding officer during the tempestuous opening this past January of the General Assembly.

While Republicans pounded on their desks and hollered, "Objection! Objection!," Democrats - temporarily in the majority because of three GOP vacancies - rammed through Moss as speaker. Still, partisan parity in the 100-member House forced Moss, a 32-year lawmaker and speaker since 1991, to relinquish some of his authority.

Power sharing in the House is the latest sign that Virginia's government and politics are in transition, with the last of the old Democratic order giving way to a surging Republicanism. Power sharing isn't new here. The Virginia Senate adopted it after splitting 20-20 in 1996. Though Republicans now have the numbers to control the Senate, power sharing remains the rule until 2000. As a result, Virginia's is the only state capitol in the nation with power sharing in both chambers.

The Senate move to power sharing was painless compared with the House. Delegates opted for co-chairmanships on all committees, a decision that contributed to a dramatic slowdown in the legislative process. The powerful Appropriations Committee was expanded, and the House-Senate Budget Conference Committee became so big that it couldn't complete its work. Seniority was subordinated to a preoccupation with parity, costing some delegates leadership positions to which they would have automatically ascended by virtue of tenure.

"There's a certain sort of artificial cordiality built into this," says Delegate Jay W. DeBoer, a Democrat who serves as co-chairman of the House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee but who, because of the power sharing agreement, missed his shot as chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the Assembly's investigative arm. "It might even be called paranoia," he says of the uneasy politeness that has settled over the body.

This has also affected the House's professional...