"RICHMOND, June 10 -- Speaker S. Vance Wilkins Jr. entered a state Capitol hearing room tonight to wage an uphill struggle for political survival among his own House Republicans, many of whom said they were determined to send him an unmistakable message to leave office because of allegations that he made improper sexual advances on several women.

Republicans in the House of Delegates convened the emergency session in a solemn, drama-drenched atmosphere unlike anything they had seen: a high-stakes confrontation between Virginia's most powerful legislator and his largely handpicked cadre of lawmakers from every comer of the Old Dominion.

"I've never been to a meeting like this," said 34-year House veteran Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (Fairfax), the senior caucus member, and a potential candidate to succeed Wilkins as speaker.

Callahan, echoing many colleagues, said Wilkins "will be subjected to a bunch of probing questions that will be difficult to answer."

Lawmakers said there was a hardening consensus that Wilkins must step down soon to minimize the short-term embarrassment for the party and any long-term political damage. But Wilkins indicated he will fight every inch of the way to hang onto the speakership, which gives him near total control over the flow of legislation through the General Assembly.

Legislators in all the different House factions -- a small group of Wilkins loyalists, several committee chairmen who want to see him gone and a fair number of fence sitters -- said they intended to focus on allegations, reported Friday in The Washington Post, that Wilkins made sexually aggressive advances last summer on a woman employed by his former construction company in Amherst County, where both live.

At the scheduled meeting time of 7 p.m., delegates filed into their caucus room, located underneath the House chamber in the Capitol. There was little of the backslapping that usually accompanies such reunions. Nearly everyone arrived at the stroke of the hour.

A heightened Capitol Police presence added to the gravity, with officers keeping reporters and TV cameras well away from the caucus room. Wilkins ran a gantlet of reporters and camera crews, smiling slightly and strolling arm-in-arm with his wife, Leona, who sat in the rear of the room before moving upstairs to the House chamber. He worked the delegate crowd, shaking hands and beaming broadly to largely unsmiling faces.

Reporters were ejected from the room by caucus leaders, who cited a state Freedom of Information Act exemption allowing them to hold a closed-door "personnel discussion."

According to sources, Wilkins, 65, paid Jennifer L. Thompson, 26, at least $100,000 in an out-of-court settlement that kept the matter from going to trial. Both parties signed a confidentiality agreement that prohibits them from discussing any facet of the harassment matter or subsequent settlement.

Wilkins has denied Thompson's harassment allegations. In a frenetic telephone campaign over the weekend to save his job, he confirmed to colleagues that there was a settlement and did not dispute its reported size, lawmakers said.

Wilkins also told colleagues that he agreed to the settlement for the good of the House GOP caucus, which was hoping to add to its fairly slim majority over Democrats in last fall's election. Republicans gained a dozen seats in the Nov. 6 House elections, for a total of 64, compared with 34 Democrats and two independents.

Some House members scoffed at Wilkins's explanations, noting that the settlement was made final after the elections and that a settlement as large as $100,000 indicated serious misconduct. Thompson alleged to her employer that Wilkins groped her repeatedly and aggressively, pinning her against office furniture, according to the two top officers of the construction company where she worked.

At the time, Wilkins, a House member since 1978, kept his legislative office in the same warehouse complex.

Delegates also said Wilkins would need to provide detailed answers to their questions about other alleged incidents that surfaced over the weekend.

Elizabeth P. Massie, 45, another Amherst County woman, said the speaker fondled her leg at a Dec. 15 party. Wilkins told the Associated Press that he had no recollection of the incident but later said that nothing improper happened.

Del. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), an important Wilkins ally, said he changed his mind and decided to seek Wilkins's resignation after learning of an earlier allegation. Black declined to discuss that matter, other than to say it suggested "a pattern" of improper sexual advances.

Wilkins continued to enjoy some support today, especially within the old guard that fought with him in the 1980s, when Democrats held sway in Virginia. The speaker is also popular among many of the nearly 20 GOP freshmen, most of whom were recruited by Wilkins and received generous contributions from him.

House Finance Chairman Harry J. Parrish (R-Prince William), a Wilkins loyalist, said before the meeting that while he was troubled by the allegations, particularly those made by Thompson, he did not entirely believe her story as reported by The Post.

"She could have stopped it at any time," Parrish, 80, said before returning home for a family graduation. "All she had to do would be to slap his face. She may have brought it on herself. There are so many unanswered questions."

Democrats have been restrained in their criticism of Wilkins and the Republicans, but a group of female legislators issued a pointed statement today demanding answers.

"Speaker Wilkins owes all Virginians an explanation, not only the Republican caucus," said state Sen. Leslie L. Byrne (D-Fairfax), a former House member.

Byrne criticized the Republicans' announced plan to hold the caucus meeting behind closed doors, saying, "Without the presence of the press or public, how can the Republican Caucus assure us that Vance Wilkins will offer a true accounting of his behavior and not merely slander his victims to defend himself?"

Several lawmakers said they wanted to give Wilkins a fair hearing, adding that they were acutely aware that they were under a spotlight larger than those from the many TV trucks that lumbered through Capitol Square today.

They also said they were anguishing in part because of Wilkins's remarkable record as a tireless party-builder of more than 20 years. Wilkins, an engineer by training, set aside his bridge contracting company a decade ago to pursue his dream of a Republican legislative majority. The GOP captured the statehouse for the first time in 1999, and the House made him speaker a few weeks later.

"I'm really saddened," said Del. William J. Howell (R-Stafford), a committee chairman. "This is a Greek tragedy."

Republicans who favored Wilkins's ouster said their task was complicated by having no historical guide on how to handle the leadership crisis, no step-by-step handbook for removing such an exalted figure as the speaker.

The speaker is elected by the House's majority party, but that person is always confirmed by the full 100-member House. It would take a special session of the General Assembly to give the House the chance to vote Wilkins out as speaker.

Over the weekend, several members of Wilkins's inner circle pressed him to resign, saying that would leave fewer scars on colleagues already angry and embarrassed by news reports on the allegations of sexual advances. The chairman of the House elections committee, independent Del. Lacey E. Putney of Bedford, would become interim speaker if Wilkins resigned.

But Wilkins told his closest allies that he would try to derail efforts to oust him, lawmakers said. The speaker made an abortive attempt to cancel tonight's special caucus meeting and held a late-afternoon, strategy session with his die-hard supporters to persuade the caucus to at least delay a final decision until later in the week. Four delegates showed up for that meeting, as did Wilkins's lawyer in the Jennifer Thompson matter.

"The depth of support that he has is still there -- which is surprising to me," Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) said before the caucus. He compared Wilkins's political predicament to the allegations of sexual misconduct that plagued former president Bill Clinton.

"The Republicans went after Bill Clinton, and rightly so, for abusing his public trust to take advantage of a young woman," Marshall said. "You cannot have a double standard here. You can, but you won't be the majority party if you do."

(R.H. Melton, The Washington Post, June 11, 2002).