ABINGDON, Va. – Retiring after 22 years in the state legislature, Delegate Bud Phillips, D-Castlewood, is credited with doing much for Southwest Virginia – and could soon be appointed to serve as a judge in Wise.
“I’ve been asked to look at that position as a judge, general district court judge, and I have it under consideration,” Phillips said. “If it occurs, then I’ll try my best to do the best job I can for the citizens and the lawyers in the region.”
If it doesn’t happen, he said, he’ll continue to practice law, and remain involved in public service, such as teaching and working on economic development efforts. Either way, he said, he’ll be involved in things that are important to Southwest Virginia.
Judge Phillips?
If Phillips is made a judge, the appointment could be made by the 30th Circuit Court judges. If appointed before the end of the year, Phillips would have to resign early from the Virginia House of Delegates.
Just a few months shy of completing his 11th term in office, Phillips is not seeking re-election. If appointed as a judge, he would be up for approval by the Virginia General Assembly, which must confirm the appointment.
A call to Chief Circuit Judge John Kilgore to ask about the likelihood of Phillips’ appointment as a judge was not returned Friday.
While no one will speculate on what the legislators might do, a judgeship could be viewed as a sort of consolation prize after the Republican-dominated legislature eliminated Phillips’ House district during this year’s redistricting process.
The 2nd district, which Phillips represented, was sent to Northern Virginia and he and Delegate Joe Johnson, D-Abingdon, were both placed into a newly drawn 4th House District. Soon after, Phillips announced that he would not seek another term.
While Phillips and others in the legal community have shied away from making predictions about his future, his general assembly colleagues from over the years are enthusiastic about the idea of him becoming a judge.
“I think he’ll make a good judge,” said Vance Wilkins, a Republican former House speaker who worked with Phillips many years in the legislature before his retirement in 2002. He describes Phillips as thoughtful and fair-minded.
“He was a quiet and thoughtful person [in the legislature], and that’s the proper temperament of a judge, so I feel he’d do a good job as a judge,” Wilkins said. “I think it would be a mistake if they didn’t do something like that.”
Infrastructure and education
Phillips’ priorities over the years have focused squarely on his district: education and infrastructure, both of which he says are essential to help the region grow.
For many of the big projects that have helped Southwest Virginia over the years, Phillips – long known for his willingness to work across the aisle – points to a partnership with Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon.
This year, it would seem, marks the end of that era: Boucher left office after his defeat in November’s election and Wampler, like Phillips, has announced that he will retire from politics by the end of the year.
Wampler, while reluctant to acknowledge his own accomplishments, speaks highly of Phillips’ ability to keep the good of his people in mind, above party differences.
“While Bud and I are of different political parties, we always found a way to put partisan differences aside for the common good of Southwest Virginia,” Wampler said. “That doesn’t mean we didn’t have differences of opinion from time to time, but I think that diversity of thought is what made our delegation, the Southwest delegation, a very strong voice in Richmond, and Bud was a huge contributor to our effort.”
Wampler said what stands out most to him about Phillips’ work in the legislature is the passion with which he defended the needs of Southwest Virginia’s children.
“He would deliver [passionate speeches] on the floor of the House on matters of why school-age children in Dickenson County should have the same opportunity as students in Fairfax County should have for a quality education,” Wampler said.
Jackie Stump, a Democrat who entered the legislature with Phillips and Johnson in 1989, said the retirement of Phillips and Wampler at the same time will be a great loss.
“We were all team players,” he said, “but Bud was kind of out front with education and trying to watch out for our kids down this way, and he did an excellent job on that. And of course the other two things that we all worked on were naturally water and roads.”
Johnson, Stump said, has also long been one to work across party lines for the good of the region.
“We always kidded Joe as being kind of the father that kept us all straightened out,” he said. “Joe has a lot of good wisdom.”
Legislative legacy
Phillips grew up on Sandy Ridge, a mountaintop near the Dickenson-Wise county line where he remembers doing farm work during the day and playing ball every afternoon.
After high school, he followed his father’s footsteps into the coal mines for two years before graduating from college and becoming a teacher and principal in Clintwood. While working to support his family he studied law and ultimately passed the bar exam to become a lawyer. He was later elected to the House of Delegates.
“When I started out in the general assembly, I only thought I’d be there two years,” he said.
Twenty-two years later, he said what’s made him effective was his focus on local issues – and his decision to avoid getting involved in statewide ideological debates.
“When I went to the Virginia House of Delegates, I promised the citizens that I would focus on local issues to try to improve their lives and not use my office as a platform to run for higher office, and not as a platform to become involved in a lot of statewide issues,” he said. “So I’ve been primarily focused on issues dealing with education and trying to ensure that teachers had adequate salaries, that our school systems in Southwest Virginia received their fair share of funding.”
He said one of his major accomplishments has been raising the profile and funding level of the state’s community college system, convincing state leaders that it’s an effective way to help educate the population.
He said his speeches over the years about the need to create “a culture of education” to improve the region helped local education leaders get serious about finding ways to let families know that a college education is attainable for Southwest Virginians.
With the help of Wampler and Boucher, he said, he’s been able to nearly solve one of the biggest public health and quality of life issues that faced his district 22 years ago: the need for water. In some communities, he said, people had few options but to catch rainwater from their rooftops and in buckets.
“We were able to go from about 35 percent of the citizens in my district having clean water to about 95 percent now, which is a major milestone,” Phillips said. “People now take the water for granted, but they didn’t 22 years ago.”
He also argued for funding over the years for various health initiatives, particularly clinics that provide free and low-cost health care to the poor, recruitment of doctors and regional efforts to tackle health issues facing Southwest Virginia.
He recalls two tragedies that he took personally that resulted in new laws.
The first was the revamping of coal mine safety regulations after a deadly coal mine explosion killed 18 men and devastated the community in 1992.
“I promised the family members that I would do everything I could to ensure that Virginia mining laws were updated and where we put in place a system whereby we’d have a better opportunity to protect our underground miners,” he said. “I served on a committee that revamped Virginia’s coal mining laws, and as a result of this revamp, I think we have some of the safest mines in the United States and in the world.”
Another case that shocked the community was the death of Annie Leftwich, a 4-year-old Dickenson County girl tortured to death by her mother and stepfather; a law was passed setting tougher penalties for such offenses.
Phillips has been involved in just about every significant project in the region in the past 22 years, from helping to draft the tobacco commission legislation that’s reinvested millions of dollars in tobacco settlements into communities to bringing prisons to Southwest Virginia to create jobs and setting up the Heart of Appalachia Tourism Authority.
‘Stay focused’
Phillips said he worries that, without him and Wampler in the legislature, “It could have a huge effect on how Southwest Virginia is treated in the budget process.”
Phillips, a Democrat, serves on the House appropriations committee while Wampler, a Republican, serves on the Senate finance committee, both of which are key to the state budget process.
“The landscape has drastically changed with the retirement of Congressman Boucher, Sen. Wampler and myself with regard to the opportunity to influence budgets, the state budget and the federal budget,” Phillips said. “I would really hope that my colleagues in the general assembly and in Congress would see the need to pick up where the three of us have left off and move forward. I would challenge them to do so.”
He said one of his fears is that the region, whose legislative delegation has been compared to a pack of wolves for its unrelenting pursuit of the region’s issues, will become fractured like other parts of the state by partisan politics and ideology.
“One of the keys to the successes of our general assembly delegation was that once we decided – knew – what was the right thing to do, whether it be a program or policy or funding, we all got behind those programs or policies or legislation,” he said.
“It didn’t matter whether you were Democrat, it didn’t matter whether you were Republican, it didn’t matter whether you were from Bristol or Sandy Ridge, we all got together to pursue those things that were in the best interest of Southwest Virginia.”
His advice to those who will represent the region going forward: “Don’t become involved in these partisan philosophical debates. Focus on what’s important to people: to create jobs, economic development and provide a good education,” he said.
“I’ve always said my constituents cannot eat politics. They can’t go to school based upon a partisan point of view. They can’t find work based upon somebody’s political ideology. It takes programs and it takes a vision of how to improve the region.”
So far unopposed
With Phillips stepping down it appears that Johnson, 79, will run unopposed again this year, as he says he’s done since 1989. Just days before the filing deadline, no one had stepped up to run against him.
Johnson, who was raised in the rural Washington County community of Hayter’s Gap, had previously served as a delegate in the 1960s. He’s known for his hand-shaking zeal and continuous presence in the community he represents.
These days, he’s been turning up all over the coalfields, touring his new territory, getting acquainted with the people Phillips has represented over the past 22 years. After winning a bout with cancer, Johnson said he’ll continue to serve as long as he’s able.
Johnson said the cultural differences between his new, larger territory in the coalfields and his native Washington County are not as great as some might think. Though Washington County’s economic focus is on agriculture and the counties he’s adding – Dickenson, Wise and Russell – have a lot of coal mining, both parts of Southwest Virginia have a lot in common, he said.
“On one side [of Clinch Mountain] we have those that work on top of the ground; on the other side of the mountain we have the people that work underground, to produce a product that we depend on heavily,” he said. “We believe in an honest day’s work; we want to educate our people; we’d like to keep the best and brightest here in Southwest Virginia; we’re always looking toward bringing bigger and better-paying jobs to our locality.”
For the new part of the 4th District as well as the old, Johnson said, the door to his office is always open. And the addition of a little bit more travel time to communities in his district won’t stop him from striving to serve.
“My goal is to serve the people in the best possible way,” he said, “and make sure that those that do not have a voice in Richmond will have one.”
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