Virginia dealers want help with automakers

Looking for state help against continued hemorrhaging in their industry, car dealers are turning to one of their own in the General Assembly: the part-owner of a Dodge franchise who just happens to be a powerful senator.

Senate Republican Floor Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. of James City County is sponsoring legislation -- opposed by carmakers, including Fairfax County-based Volkswagen -- that could force manufacturers to pay dealers millions of dollars for discontinued vehicles and unused parts and tools.

Norment, a lawyer and one of three owners of a struggling Yorktown dealership, said he does not have a conflict of interest in carrying the measure, because it applies to all vehicle franchises in Virginia. The state has 525 new-car dealers and has lost 25 in the past year during the recession.

"Clearly, I don't have a conflict of interest from a legal standpoint," Norment said. "Perceptually, someone might raise the question that, 'As a minority owner of a dealership, isn't there an incidental benefit to you?'"

The legislation -- a similar bill is sponsored by Del. Clifford L. Athey Jr., R-Warren, a lawyer who represents car dealers -- has touched off a high-stakes lobbying battle between manufacturers and dealers that has gone largely unnoticed.

It may be decided by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who lured Volkswagen's headquarters to Northern Virginia from Michigan, but also has seen the shuttering of a Ford plant in Norfolk and the shrinkage of a Volvo factory in Dublin.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, in its latest written appeal to legislators, is attacking the Norment and Athey bills as "protectionist" and as potentially generating "billions of dollars in additional costs to automakers."

At least 22 states have enacted laws allowing dealers to recover from manufacturers the cost of unsold or discontinued vehicles, according to the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association.

The Virginia legislation, designed in part potentially to steer to dealers some of the federal aid for carmakers, revises the complex framework under which the state courts and motor-vehicle agency settle disputes over stock and parts.

Norment and Athey were enlisted as patrons of Senate Bill 1410 and House Bill 1778 by Don Hall, president of the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association. It has a potent grass-roots presence in politics, pumping more than $461,000 into the 2007 legislative elections.

For the hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee, Bob Deeds -- an employee of a Charlottesville dealership and father of a Democratic gubernatorial candidate -- sat with dealers as his senator son, R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County, voted for the Norment proposal.

Hall said he did not believe Norment has an ethical conflict. Hall said the senator's familiarity with dealer issues makes him a potent advocate for the proposal.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or .