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In late winter 1993, David Albo got
a rare opportunity. His political mentor and former boss, Delegate
Robert Cunningham (R), had just been forced from the Virginia House of
Delegates by lung cancer and wanted Albo, a young attorney at the time,
to succeed him.
Albo was eager to run for office but he lacked the one thing every
aspiring politician needs -- money. However, as a 30-year old single guy
and ex-fraternity president, Albo had lots of friends looking to help.
Although none of them had much money, they knew lots of other young
people ready to pitch in.
So Albo threw a party. A big party. 40 kegs of beer big. A
Richmond-based rock band big. One thousand people big. At $20 a head,
Albo's keg party raised over $20,000 toward his campaign. Not bad for a
guy who earned only $13,000 his first year out of law school.
Albo went on to win that election and become the second youngest member
of the Virginia House of Delegates, the lower branch of the state's
General Assembly. He ran then as the "Problem Solving Legislator." Now,
eight years, four terms and over 32,000 legislative votes later, Albo is
gearing up to run again, still billing himself as a problem solver.
Because the Virginia House of Delegates is a part-time legislative body,
meeting only a few months each year, most members hold jobs outside the
legislature. Albo's fulltime job is as a partner in the small Virginia
law firm of Albo & Oblon, where he handles mostly traffic cases.
Forty states besides Virginia have part-time legislatures. The remaining
9 state legislatures -- California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan,
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin -- meet year
round.
The dual lives that part-time legislators lead -- living and working in
their communities as well as serving in their statehouses -- can be
quite stressful. Albo says he could split himself in two and still not
make every civic function, court hearing, committee meeting or vote that
his jobs demand.
The time and resource crunch gets even worse around campaign season.
Should he face a credible opponent this year, the race will cost Albo at
least $140,000 and will require countless hours of knocking on doors,
speaking at public meetings and assembling mailings.
A serious challenger, Albo says, would have to raise over $210,000 and
log hundreds of hours on the campaign trail to have any shot at
unseating him. All this for a part-time job that pays only $17,640 per
year. So why do it?
"A faith in community service, that's all it is," Albo says. "Before I
got in the House of Delegates, I had that same belief that everybody has
about politicians: 'Oh, they're all out for themselves.' I can't think
of a single person over there who is doing it for personal gain. I
haven't found anybody who's gotten rich off it yet. I do it because I
love it."
Albo represents Virginia's 42nd District, a mostly upper-middle class
district located in the southern corner of Northern Virginia's Fairfax
County, the wealthiest county in the country.
Albo knows the district well. He is a graduate of Fairfax public schools
-- Rolling Valley Elementary through West Springfield High School. And
he returned to the area to set up a law practice after earning a B.A. in
economics from the University of Virginia and a law degree from the
University of Richmond.
Like many other rapidly growing suburban areas across the United States,
Fairfax is struggling to define itself in a time of great transition.
Home and business development is exploding. Farmland and open space is
being turned into shopping malls and housing developments at an
incredible rate. All this development is bringing lots of people, and
their cars, to the area. The commute to Washington, DC, and Tyson's
Corner -- two major work destinations -- is long and slow and getting
slower. The Texas Transportation Institute recently tagged traffic
congestion in and around Washington, DC, as the second worst in the
country behind only Los Angeles.
Not surprisingly, transportation is the number one issue on the minds of
Albo's constituents. He says that 80 percent of constituent inquiries
relate to roads and trains and anything else that might make getting
around the county a bit easier.
"What my people care about is so different than the rest of the state,"
says Albo. "The rest of the state might really care about their guns or
might really care about even religious issues, things like that. But
here, people drive an hour-and-a-half to work and an hour-and-a-half
back. What they care about is being home with their families. So
anything you can do to give them some of their life back is what they
want."
Albo has had a hand in developing a few of the area's biggest
transportation projects, but he is careful not to claim too much credit.
"I am part of the team," he says, that delivered the Springfield
Interchange, a $585 million project designed to ease passage through the
intersection of Interstates 395, 495 and 95, the traffic artery that
links Miami, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
The present interchange accommodates 350,000 commuters each day. The new
interchange will be one of the most complex in the country and will
include 50 bridges and 30 ramps along 41 miles of interlocking roadway.
Albo has also worked to ensure completion of the Fairfax County Parkway
and the Franconia-Springfield Metro.
Despite the many hours he puts in on behalf of his constituents, Albo's
work as a legislator has brought him little notoriety. He says that at
the local supermarket only one or two out of a hundred people will
recognize him as their representative in Richmond.
"My district's eyes are focused elsewhere," he says. Most people in this
area follow national politics, not the local stuff. "They don't have a
whole lot of time to do anything else but take care of their kids. If I
knock on doors, everybody's at a soccer game or a swim meet."
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