John Warren Cooke, former speaker of Virginia House, dies

1915-2009

John Warren Cooke, a former speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and the last son of a Confederate veteran to sit in the General Assembly, died Saturday at Palace Green, his home on Put In Creek in Mathews.

The 94-year-old Mathews native, born when his father was 76, was the son of the Rev. Giles Buckner Cooke, an Episcopal priest who had served on the personal staff of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee during the Civil War, and Katharine Grosh Cooke.

Mr. Cooke, who had a foot in three centuries, was elected to the House as a Democrat in 1941 and did not seek re-election in 1979, setting a record at that time for the number of terms served.

He served as House majority leader from 1956 to 1968 and as the powerful speaker of the House, who controls the flow of legislation and makes committee assignments, from 1968 until 1980.

At his retirement, he represented Essex, Gloucester, King and Queen, King William, Mathews and Middlesex counties. From 1966 to 1972, he also represented Charles City and New Kent counties.

In a House dominated by Democrats, Mr. Cooke's predecessor as speaker had exiled Republicans to committees "that rarely met and had no influence," said former Gov. Linwood Holton, who was elected in 1969 as Virginia's first Republican chief executive in the 20th century.

Mr. Cooke's speakership coincided with Virginia Republicans' first significant gains in the 20th century.

From 1874 to 1970, 24 consecutive Virginia governors were Democrats, and Republicans were afterthoughts at the state Capitol, Holton said.

In a House dominated by Democrats, Mr. Cooke, a pillar of the Byrd organization, did the unheard-of: He named a Republican, Del. Arthur R. "Pete" Giesen Jr. of Waynesboro, to the powerful team of House budget negotiators, which he termed "a matter of fairness."

That was, Holton noted, "an example of how John Warren, as speaker, ended the practice of trying to isolate Republicans." Mr. Cooke later appointed more Republicans, women and liberals to major committees.

"He was a magnificent speaker," Holton said, "and he never let partisanship in any way obstruct or deter policies as they moved forward for the betterment of the commonwealth."

The former governor also recalled that Mr. Cooke was a patron of legislation that Holton sought to create the Cabinet. Other key Democrats opposed the bill, and it would not have passed without Mr. Cooke's support, Holton said.

The publisher and former president of Tidewater Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, Mr. Cooke was pivotal in bringing the General Assembly, whose committees often deliberated in executive sessions, under the Freedom of Information Act during the late 1970s.

In a 2003 Times-Dispatch interview, Mr. Cooke said some of the most difficult days of his career came as the assembly wrestled with the issue of school desegregation during the 1950s.

"In those days, you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't support public schools," he said. "And I haven't gotten over it, either.

"I don't know if I broke with the [Byrd] organization or not [because] I voted to keep the public schools open. It got to the point where you were either on the side of public education or you were not."

However difficult the issue before the House, Mr. Cooke shepherded his colleagues as "a true Virginia gentleman," fellow legislators remembered.

"Civility was his code [in the House], and he worked wonders with it," former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles recalled in a 2003 speech at the dedication of the John Warren Cooke Conference Center of the Mathews Memorial Library.

Mr. Cooke, who had attended Virginia Military Institute and served as a deputy in the Mathews County clerk's office, had considered a run for governor after retiring but decided against it.

In 1984, he served on the first House Ethics Advisory Panel, which monitored conduct of House members.

In 1991, then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder named him to a 12-member Commission for the Preservation of the Capitol to promote greater awareness and understanding of the history and significance of the Capitol and to consider ways to preserve it.

The much-honored legislator was a charter member of the first Mathews Rotary Club, a former president of the Tidewater Baseball League, a former chairman of the Mathews Ration and Price Control Board and a former chairman of the Mathews County Democratic Committee.

Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Anne Brown Rawn Cooke; a son, Giles Buckner Cooke III of Williamsburg; and a daughter, Elsa VanNess Verbyla of Mathews.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

Contact Ellen Robertson at (804)649-6115 or .

Staff writer Bill McKelway contributed to this report.