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ago viewed Don Beyer as an upstart Volvo dealer springing into power out of a political nowhere, today changed their attitude. That first year, watching them watch Beyer conduct the Senate, you could see smirks on the faces of tenured members much aware that the Neophyte had not yet won his stripes.
No longer. He now runs the Senate with authority and assurance. Now he’s got more than idealism, he’s got power and knows how to us it. As the states number one Democrat, he has broken 50 tie votes, successfully promoted legislation on crime, education and small business empowerment. During the last hectic days of this session, he assessed and competently dealt with a maze of confusing amendments within motions, addending other motions from the floor, that would have turned catatonic any other students of Robert’s Rules. He breaks stride, Steps down from hi President’s podium, to confer with Senators who seek his leadership.
In 1990, Beyer, during an interview towards the end of the first legislative session, stated: ‘There are probably no watershed issues for a Lieutenant Governor...but...for every politician there are non negotiable issues about which he or she feels so strongly that they would have to walk away from office sooner than compromise their positions...” I
Today, he knows better, saying, “I’ve evolved. I haven’t seen a situation where one would have to resign rather than fight. In fact, I have my criticism of Senator Bradley from New Jersey who said ‘the system is broken, therefore I quit.’ When we’re dissatisfied with the outcomes of the system, we have to work even to harder to fix it.”
He knew, for example, that the nomination of the first AfricanAmerican on Virginia’s Supreme Court was an uphill fight (verified by the refusal of every Senate Republican to even cast a vote on the^nomination). Beyer believed his party’s nominee to be “a great jurist with impeccable credentials.” Despite the failure of her nomination, he was satisfied that at least the door is now opened; he doesn’t see it as a defeat, but as a first step.
In 1990, being personally affable was political leverage to Don Beyer; in 1997, he doesn’t eschew personal popularity — but he’s more focused, more politically goal oriented and
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