Morgan reflects on his 32 years as state delegate
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by Tom Chillemi
When the Virginia House of Delegates convened this week, for the first time in 32 years Harvey Morgan of Saluda was not at the state capitol.
Since 1980, Delegate Morgan represented the 98th District. Morgan, 81, did not seek re-election last November.
Retirement is bittersweet for Morgan. “I still love it (state politics) and it’s hard to give up,” he said.
The antidote for Morgan and his wife Mary Helen is a short vacation. “It won’t be as hard to give up if I’m not there,” he said.
Morgan said he gets a lot of satisfaction from helping people, and had plenty of opportunities to do so as delegate. “I love people and like public service,” he said. “I thoroughly enjoyed cutting through red tape.”
He remembers one call he got from a person frustrated by a DMV record error. Morgan said he made a call and found out that one digit was wrong and the problem was fixed in 30 minutes.
He credited his secretary for knowing which agency to call when answers were needed.
“People come up to me all the time and thank me for the things I did,” said Morgan “My forte, if I have one, is bringing people together in dispute situations.”
In 1982, menhaden were schooling in rivers in Mathews, and menhaden boats were setting nets too close to crab pots. Morgan met with 30 to 40 watermen, and they appointed a few men who sat down with Morgan and menhaden industry representatives. The problems were resolved and the crabbers were reimbursed for the full price of pots.
“Since then, I’ve never had a complaint from crabbers about that,” said Morgan. “I applied the same process to other conflicts. It comes naturally to me. I’ve always been fairly direct.”
Through the years, Morgan’s humility remains. “I can’t get over how many congratulations I’ve gotten,” he said. “I had no idea people thought I was that effective.”
In one example, a large architectural rendering of the state capitol was presented to Morgan who chaired the renovation of the building. “It was not an easy sell,” he recalled. “It was the first renovation in 100 years. They also gave me credit for saving the finance building, but that’s not true.”
Morgan said he will miss not being able to help people, the legislative staffs and other legislators. “It takes so much time,” he said. “I allowed it to be a full-time job. I never learned to say ‘no.’ ”
In a pure democracy, people vote on all decisions through referendums. California has drifted toward being a pure democracy, and during one election had 104 referendums on the ballot, Morgan noted.
Morgan noted that about 40% of the population pay no taxes, and there are a huge number of people “on the dole. Any time you have people who are not contributing to society and are making decisions by voting, you are going to see a downward spiral because you have society supported only by those who work for a living.”
There need to be strict rules on how many lobbyists can be hired, he added.
As for the banking and economics, Morgan quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said government should not be in the banking business. “Jefferson said that if you have the authority to lend and tax, you have the ability to destroy.”
Morgan already had a successful career as a pharmacist and didn’t need to be in the General Assembly for the pay. “I didn’t feel like I had to be there [in the General Assembly]. Clearly, that’s a minority point of view.”
Morgan added, “I never felt like I had to vote certain ways to be re-elected. If people wanted to re-elect me that was great. I wanted to serve, but I didn’t want to prostitute myself just for re-election.”
Changes take place slowly in a democracy, said Morgan. “Our founding fathers intentionally designed our government to be inefficient and that’s because if it’s too efficient, you could completely change things overnight.”
That’s one reason Virginia governors are limited to one term at a time and cannot succeed themselves. “They have so much power” and make 4,000 appointments, Morgan pointed out.
U.S. Congressmen would benefit if they spent less time in session and more time in their districts, Morgan contended. “They wouldn’t forget what real life is like.”
The good part about Virginia’s government, said Morgan, “is that we are a citizen part-time legislature and live and work under the laws we pass.”
In 1980 the governors of Bay states all signed pacts to do certain things by 2010. “We failed,” said Morgan. “Now, the EPA is telling us how to do it.”
Pushing back hard are homebuilders, and the National Farm Bureau, which has filed a lawsuit against the EPA’s actions. “It’s shortsighted for them,” said Morgan, who noted the Virginia Farm Bureau has endorsed the Bay cleanup.
Another concern for the former delegate is pre-need funeral insurance. Typically, those who are poor and elderly buy pre-need funeral insurance because they do not want to burden their families with expenses. Funeral industry representatives who sell these policies often get a commission of 10 to 20%, said Morgan.
In the early 1990s, Morgan authored one of the first laws in Virginia requiring that interest be paid on the policies. The amount of interest is tied to the Consumer Price Index. He said billions of dollars have been lost by policyholders in other states due to the lack of interest payments.
“We need to preserve the laws we have,” said Morgan, “but some insurance companies are trying to change the laws. I was working on that. Now that I’m gone, I feel like they’ll (insurance companies) think they can do something about it.”
Keith Hodges of Urbanna was elected in November 2011 to replace Morgan as the 98th District Delegate.
