William G. Thomas was a brash young law student at the University of Richmond in the early 1960s when he began learning a political lesson not taught in the classroom. A senior Democratic senator from Martins-ville had introduced a bill that would force students to take the bar exam after they graduated from law school. Thomas rebelled, maintaining that students should sit for the test during their senior year as usual. He and like-minded students rallied and got the bill killed.

Photo by Mark Rhodes

His first effort as a lobbyist came back to haunt him. A few years later, Thomas, a neophyte lobbyist, once again found himself face-to-face with the same senator from Martinsville. Thomas was pushing for a bill to raise the loan ceiling for small lenders. The senator was trying to resurrect changing the timing of the bar exam. He offered Thomas a backroom deal: "If you don’t touch my bill, I won’t touch your bill," the senator told him. Both bills passed.

It’s that long reach of memory, as well as a reputation as a smooth negotiator and formidable adversary, that draws accolades for Thomas, a 62-year-old Northern Virginia native who has lobbied lawmakers in the halls of Virginia’s General Assembly since 1968. Among his wide-ranging client list: Dominion Virginia Power, Exxon Mobil Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., the Virginia Health Care Association and the Maryland Jockey Club that manages Virginia’s race track, Colonial Downs. "He’s been involved for so long that he’s got an institutional knowledge that’s highly respectable," says Mike Toalson, executive vice president of the 5,000-member Home Builders Association of Virginia and a fellow lobbyist who has known Thomas for 15 years.

When he began his career, which includes an administrative law practice, there weren’t many lobbyists around. Today, the list has expanded to 460. With so much competition, what makes a lobbyist effective? "A lot of lobbyists know legislators well and many know the process well, but somehow bringing some kind of intellectual analysis to what the problem is and how to find a solution that will work in both the process and in the politics of the situation is what separates good lobbyists not from the bad, but from the garden variety lobbyists," he says.

Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges for any lobbyist is dealing with the legislature’s shifting institutional culture and its colorful personalities. An avid wing-shooter, Thomas introduced the notoriously cranky speaker of the House, the late A.L. Philpott, to duck hunting. Both Philpott and the former Senate majority leader, Democrat Hunter Andrews, were complex personalities, says Thomas. Both had volatile tempers that were known to grow shorter as legislative sessions wore on. "Both of them could be curmudgeonly. Some people found that intimidating but I never did. I liked them."

Colleagues say Thomas’ innate understanding of political dynamics makes him an effective voice for clients. "No one understands better the constituent needs of the legislative body," observes Eva Teig Hardy, senior vice president of external affairs and corporate communications for Dominion Power.

Through the years, Thomas has been involved in plenty of thorny issues. He has been a staple in the perpetual effort to abolish the state’s certificate of public need requirement for Virginia hospitals, which would please doctors’ lobbies. Along the way, he has lost some battles. What he calls "my big loss" came in the early 1980s — a titan, three-year battle that pitted then-Virginia Power, the southwest region and coal interests against the railroad companies and railroad labor unions in an effort to build a coal slurry pipeline to pipe coal directly from southwest Virginia to the ports in Hampton Roads. Thomas represented Virginia Power and the Texas company that would have built the pipeline; Virginia’s former governor, John Dalton, lobbied for CSX.