A commission headed by Wilder has already shifted the debate about how Virginia will cope with its $1.5 billion budget shortfall. Another commission that he started and helps lead is promoting a ballot initiative to alter the structure of Richmond city government, and the change almost certainly will be approved by voters this month. The ex- governor's proudest personal project, a museum of slavery, opened offices in Fredericksburg last month.
And, since it is an election season, Wilder is characteristically feuding with his party, this time about the use of a Confederate flag image in a congressional campaign. "The level of visibility that Wilder has and his ability to continue to capture the attention of the media almost a decade after leaving office is remarkable," says Robert Holsworth, director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Public Policy.
Wilder certainly used the media to advantage during a flare-up with current Governor Mark Warner this past summer. Warner chose Wilder to head the budget commission in part because of his credibility on fiscal issues: During his own term in office, Wilder plugged a $2.2 billion budget hole without raising taxes. But Warner wasn't crazy about his recommendation to abolish or combine two dozen state agencies.
Wilder quickly called a news conference and Warner backed down, saying he welcomed any proposal to cut state spending at a time when the deficit was $1.5 billion. "I told the governor," Wilder says, "'I wouldn't have taken the job unless this was a serious effort.'" Since then, the panel has recommended a half-billion-dollars' worth of projected savings from procurement and information technology changes.
Meanwhile, Wilder has been leading the movement to change Richmond's structure of government from its council-manager format to a strong- mayor system. Council members are currently elected by district, and choose a mayor among themselves. Recent councils have not been supportive of the city managers they've hired, and voter turnout in council races has declined precipitously in recent years. As a result, Wilder doesn't believe Richmond citizens have a proper say about how their city is governed. Most of the electorate is likely to agree with him on November 5, but whether the legislature will take action in response to the referendum remains a big question. Ben Lambert, who holds Wilder's old state Senate seat, says that the city is doing fine under the current governing body. Still, he admits that Wilder "sure has shaken up everybody around here."
Shaking things up comes naturally to Wilder. If he had waited for the Virginia Democratic Party to promote his first statewide candidacy, he might still be in the state Senate. Instead, he won election as lieutenant governor in 1985, and four years later became the only African American ever elected governor in this country. Perhaps concluding that he owes little to the party, he has been slow in recent years to offer his support to other Democrats running for state office. Now he is engaged in a public dispute with the state party chairman about a congressional candidate displaying the Confederate flag. "If you just leave things alone to go along and get along, you are fine," Wilder says. "Unfortunately for them, and maybe for me, I've not been that person."
