VA Senate Democrats: “What Republican Sweep?”
By Chris | Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 | PolicyApparently the Democrats in the Virginia State Senate are of the mind that 2009 was all just a bad dream or something. In a year in which none of them were on the ballot, and which saw Republicans sweep all three statewide offices and increase their advantage in the House of Delegates by 6 seats, it has taken less than a week for the Senate Democrats to kick tradition out the door and play shenanagins with the Upper Chamber’s committee assignments.
As reported by the Roanoke Times and elsewhere, the Senate Democrats, apparently by their massive two-vote advantage in the Chamber, have decided to do away with the long-standing tradition of proportional representation for Senate committees.
Instead, the Democrats have decided that this two-vote advantage gives them the right to have two-thirds of the seats on two of the most influential committees in the Senate, Courts of Justice and Education and Health. But they didn’t stop there:
Democrats eliminated a seat on the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee, leaving them with a 9-6 majority on the panel. Democrats chose to shrink the committee rather than appoint a replacement for former Sen. Ken Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, who has left the Senate and was succeeded by a Republican.
To shrink the size and deny some Virginians representation on the Senate Finance Committee in one of the most challenging budget years Virginia has seen in a long time is a foolish and crassly political move. Furthermore it blindly ignores the political reality expressed by voters this past November.
Virginians want to see their legislators working together to find solutions to Virginia’s budget challenges, not engaging in political gamesmanship designed to kill important legislation before it even reaches the floor. If the Democrats in the Senate continue to act like they own the show rather than attempting to find common ground, they may find themselves in for a rude awakening in 2011.
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About the author
Chris Obenshain has been involved in Republican politics literally since the womb, when he attended Virginia's famous 1978 Convention in utero. 30 years later he still can't get politics out of his bloodstream. He currently works as a lawyer in southwest Virginia and serves as Chairman of the Roanoke Area Young Republicans chapter. As Old Zach, he helped found the blog Sic Semper Tyrannis in 2004 and has been blogging off and on ever since. He has also proudly served in the United States Army Reserve since 2002.
Comments
7 Responses to "VA Senate Democrats: “What Republican Sweep?”"
You know what Forrest Gump said – stupid is as stupid does, guess the Senate Dems have decided that they have no interest in keeping thier part time jobs. Sure hope they all have full time ones to go back to in 2011.
I am personally in favor of proportional representation on committees. However the Roanoke Times article you link to includes:
“Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax County, defended the shake-up, saying it was “as fair if not fairer” than the way Republicans apportioned committees in 2001 and 2004, when special elections forced changes to Senate committees.”
Chris Obenshain includes the statement about “long-standing tradition of proportional representation for Senate committees”.
What happened in 2001 and 2004? Saslaw seems to be countering criticism trying to point out Republicans did it first. Other reports said the makeup was more fair than when Republicans took charge in 2001, when they gained even more seats on committees but had the same 22-18 majority.
Can anyone provide me additional education on what happened back then?
McDonnell and Howell better wake up and realize that the Democrats aren’t messing around, they aren’t taking this lying down, and they are going to fight. We better be prepared to fight back.
We should have fought for Sledd, for Hunt, and we BETTER fight for Bolognese.
Chris is right, and there’s one more Senate tradition that should be mentioned.
Traditionally, a Senator who serves on a committee would not necessarily lose his committee seat because the majority switched. When a Senator left office, the committees would then be recalibrated. The result is that committees over time become pretty huge.
It doesn’t defend the out of proportion result, but no Republican lost a committee seat. It also shows the Democrats still hate Virginia Beach, something Glenn Nye is learning himself.
But Brian, were Republicans the first to break with the proportional representation tradition? I do not know myself, but that is the point Majority Leader Saslaw seems to be trying to make. What goes around comes around. Is this factual or is it an outright lie?
I am still in favor of proportional representation, but I am not going to criticize too strongly one side for just doing what the other did.
Perhaps instead of just relying on tradition, Senate rules should be passed which codifies the tradition. A two thirds majority of the Senate would be required to change the rules.
Its gone both ways since the GOP got to 22-18 in 1991. There has been an understanding of proportional representation since 1995 when the Senate was 20-20 and Virgil Goode forced the Dems hands to be equal with the GOP. Saslaw is flexing his muscle. I would say that the biggest outrage is that only 15 senators have a real say in Virginia’s budget. How the other 25 tolerate that abuse I’ll never know. In every other state I know of almost every senator has a role in either the tax committee or the appropriations committee. Virginia is a very rare state where both of these important functions are rolled into one committee.
Some one needs to fight for process change to make sure more members are involved in this critical governmental process – perhaps a bi-partisan group not already on the committee can raise hell about it.
this was written by a republican
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