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By GEORGE BOWLES
Some Virginia Republican leaders, it seems, would rather keep alive the opportunity to fault Gov. Chuck Robb for the problems besetting the Old Dominion’s corrections system than to have a meaningful role in solving thpse problems.
The circumstances surrounding the resignation last week of Donald W. Huffman, chairman of the state GOP, from a commission which had been set up to study the Mecklenburg corrections facility point strongly to this conclusion.
The commission was established three weeks ago by John W. “Billy" Williams of Charlottesville, chairman of the state Board of Corrections, at the suggestion of Robb. Its six members were all members of the board and it was, by design, non-partisan in its composition.
Serving as chairman of the panel is former Sheriff Carroll E. Lillard of Madison. The five members included Huffman, Williams, Richmond Vice Mayor Claudette Black McDaniel, Radford attorney Stephen Rosenthal and Harry Greene of Alexandria, a former inmate.
Huffman was in Dallas attending the Republican National Convention when jiews of the appointment of the commission first reached GOP ears. Williams had called Huffman and asked him if he would be willing to serve, and Huffman had agreed to do so. It had seemed to Huffman he would be performing a valuable public service in an area in which responsible help was sorely needed and in which he had considerable expertise. He had, after all, been a member of the Board of Corrections for about five years.
But some of the more politically attuned state Republican pooh-bahs took a strongly contrary view.
They saw, or claimed they saw, a dark Machiavelian design in the Huffman appointment. With the party chairman on the commission, their reasoning went, any possible use of the prison issue against the Democrats would be “de-fanged.” It would be a bit hard to criticize Robb for whatever future policies might evolve concerning Mecklenburg if Huffman was a party to the formulation of those policies.
So, from both the Republicans back home in Virginia and those in Dallas, the pressure mounted on Huffman to reconsider his acceptance of the commission post.
Huffman, meanwhile, maintained his dignity and aplomb through it all. He steadfastly denied he was under pressure to step down and said he would make a decision after a discussion of the matter with Robb upon his return to Virginia at the
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