Obenshain: Building a conservative governing majority in Virginia

By Guest Post | Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 | Magazine, Politics

by Senator Mark Obenshain

Flash back to February, to the final meeting of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee for the year. The committee is chaired by nineteen year incumbent Democrat Janet Howell. The docket in front of each member of the Committee was obviously incomplete; eight House bills – most of which passed the House with bipartisan majorities, but were opposed by the Democratic leadership – had been left off the list deliberately.

That Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections was not the first time that bills distasteful to the Democratic leadership conveniently disappeared from the agenda, nor would it be the last, but it was notable in one respect: the unabashed and unapologetic “explanation” from Senator Janet Howell.

When asked whether the bills would be taken up, she brusquely stated that they would not. When I made a motion to have them added to the agenda, she quickly ruled it out of order. And when I inquired into the grounds on which she based her ruling, she paused, then offered a curt “I believe it’s out of order.”

That, unfortunately, is the way the game is played in the Democrat-controlled Senate of Virginia, here a motion is out of order if not to the liking of a senior Democrat, and where committees become graveyards of bills not even granted the most perfunctory consideration.

In another committee, the Senate Committee on Education and Health, conservative bills typically received a vote, invariably defeated on a 10-5 party-line vote. Here is yet another symptom of Democratic control run amok – a committee stacked 2:1 in favor of a narrow 22-18 Democratic majority.

The Courts Committee is 10-5 as well, and Commerce & Labor, Finance, and Privileges & Elections all come in at 9-6. In all, 92 committee slots are held by Democrats compared to only 60 for Republicans.

The proportionality rule leadership is supposed to uphold would require most committees to be 8-7, and none more than 9-6. Democrats unilaterally organized the chamber as if they had 26 members, not 22. To the Democratic majority, rules don’t matter – only (liberal) results. As a consequence, the Senate is the chamber where good bills go to die.

It’s also the chamber that stands in the way of the reforms we need to stay ahead of a still shaky economy. Already, one left-leaning coalition is laying the groundwork for new taxes. With a Republican Governor and House of Delegates, that’s a non-starter, but a Democratic Senate can drag its feet on the structural reforms we need for our Commonwealth to thrive.

Still more, a Democratic Senate may yet reemerge as a barrier to securing property rights in Virginia. For years, Democrats in the Senate maneuvered to block eminent domain reform, but this past session, when it became clear that the first year resolution would pass, Democrats fell all over themselves getting behind it. They even obtained a revote to allow more Democrats have an epiphany on property rights.

But for the proposed amendment to go to the voters, it has to pass the General Assembly a second time next year. Their stunning mass conversion notwithstanding, I fully expect Democrats to move to block it – if they have the votes. It’s critical, then, that we deny them those votes.

Two years into the McDonnell administration, conservatives can look back on some significant victories, but for each success there are several notable losses – chiefly because the Democrat-controlled Senate is standing in the way of meaningful reform.

We succeeded in securing an audit of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) that revealed a stunning $1.4 billion sitting unused in dormant accounts and unclaimed federal matching funds. But anyone who has seen VDOT in action – or is it VDOT inaction? – knows that identifying unused resources is at best half the battle. We need to overhaul the agency, a proposal going nowhere fast in a Democratic Senate.

For years, we have accepted poorly maintained roads and inadequate infrastructure. Funding has been an issue – something Governor McDonnell and the General Assembly sought to address this year by authorizing a new bond issue for transportation projects – but just as important is how VDOT is spending the tax dollars it receives. Over the years, I’ve seen countless examples of wasteful spending and ill-conceived projects. It’s time to overhaul the Department, but Democrats don’t want to hear it.

No, the issue is broader than that: it’s time to overhaul how we do business in Richmond, and Democrats are planting their feet. With a government in Washington that knows no limits and is intent on foisting liberal policies on Virginia – the latest is an end-run on Virginia’s right to work laws in the Metro expansion project – we need bold reformers, not liberal yes-men.

A few months ago, Democrats were crowing about their perceived opportunity to expand their slim majority in the Senate. In a memorable admission, Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw said, “If I lose a few seats as a result of redistricting, and I’m in the majority, I’m not doing a very good job.”

Now it’s not for me to comment on how good of a job Dick Saslaw is doing for his caucus, but redistricting looks to be backfiring on my Democratic colleagues. No one is talking about Democrats picking up seats anymore – even though the Democrats were in the driver’s seat on creating the new Senate lines. The only question is whether Republicans can take the majority.

Republicans are more energized and fielding far more challengers – and they’re good challengers, quality candidates who will make effective Senators. Democrats, meanwhile, struggled to recruit candidates for many races, and the Democratic brand is so sullied that they’re fielding ill-disguised “independents” against Republican incumbents in some races.

Still, we cannot take anything for granted. Republicans need to pick up three seats to take the majority, and that won’t be easy. But we have the right message – and the right candidates. Let me tell you about a few of them.

The only Senate race pitting two incumbents against each other, District 20 is shaping up to be quite a battleground. Bill Stanley is putting everything on the line here, moving out of a gerrymandered district he would have shared with Senator Ralph Smith to mount a serious challenge to Democratic incumbent Roscoe Reynolds in a district that already knows him well. Stanley has already represented some 40% of them.

Reynolds voted against a common sense proposal to bring state employee pension plans out of the 1970s and into the present day – and that’s going to cost us. He opposed an effort to force tax and fee hike proposals to receive a standalone vote, preferring to allow them to be buried in the budget. It’s unsurprising, then, that he voted for both tax hikes proposed this past session.

He has voted to raise the gas tax, the sales tax, the occupancy tax, and the car tax. He backed an internet sales tax that would have driven many businesses out of Virginia. But he’s certainly been okay with new spending, supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in new benefits and programs – even in-state tuition for illegal immigrants! That makes for quite a contrast with the steadfast conservatism evident in Senator Stanley’s record.

Elsewhere, Ben Loyola is taking on Ralph Northam, a Democratic incumbent who would like you to think he’s a moderate. His voting record tells a different story.

Northam also voted to raise the gas tax. He voted against a constitutional amendment to prevent raids on the Transportation Trust Fund. He helped block a Right to Work amendment to Virginia’s Constitution. Against preventing taxpayer dollars from being spent on elective abortions. Notwithstanding the fact that he’s a physician, he even voted against challenging ObamaCare.

And on eminent domain, Northam has had it every which way. He voted repeatedly to kill the amendment in committee, then, when its passage was assured, experienced an epiphany. Suddenly, after years of fervent opposition, Northam finally and belatedly supported an amendment prohibiting the government from seizing your property for economic development purposes or anything other than
true public use.

Fortunately, Northam’s challenger, Ben Loyola, is a man of unwavering principles, and a candidate who understands what it takes to get our economy into high gear. Ben’s inspiring personal story begins when his father, a Cuban naval officer, fled to America with his young family when Castro seized power.

Now a successful entrepreneur, Loyola started a fast-growing, award-winning defense engineering firm. Building on his experience as a fighter pilot and decorated thirty year veteran of the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserves, Ben created scores of jobs. He is part of a great group of conservative challengers across Virginia who brings real world experience to bear on job creation and economic growth.

Bryce Reeves is another such candidate. A successful small businessman with a strong knowledge of the world of finance, Reeves is a former Army Ranger and also served as a detective in Prince William County’s narcotics bureau. His life story is one of business acumen and public service – a perfect combination for the Senate.

Reeves is challenging Edd Houck, who chairs the black hole known as the Senate Committee on Education and Health. Under Houck’s chairmanship, this uber-partisan committee has become the graveyard for more bills than one can count. Houck presides over the spiking of school choice bills, no matter how modest. He sees to the defeat of pro-life measures, no matter how limited. He is the go-to Senator for the teacher’s union – but not, unfortunately, for students and their parents.

Houck is way too liberal for the largely rural district he represents, and Bryce Reeves is just the candidate to take him on. In Reeves, we have an opportunity to replace Houck’s big government mentality with reform-oriented limited government conservatism.

In Roanoke, Virginia Senator John Edwards (the other Senator John Edwards) has staked out a reputation as a fair-minded, business friendly moderate. Unfortunately, his rhetoric doesn’t match reality.

Virginia FREE, a nonpartisan pro-business organization, ranked him as the third most anti-business senator last year – worse than Janet Howell, Dick Saslaw, or Yvonne Miller, to name just three. And little wonder : has the Senator from Roanoke ever met a tax hike he didn’t like or a regulation he didn’t support?

He pushes a gas tax increase year after year, and has supported every major tax increase proposed during his time in office. He voted against E-Verify, the castle doctrine, and the transportation single lockbox. He voted against making it illegal to coerce a woman into having an abortion and in favor of taxpayer funding of abortion. He helped kill a bill requiring magistrates to determine the citizenship
status of arrestees, and opposed the eminent domain reform amendment in committee before flip-flopping on the Senate floor when passage became a fait accompli.

I would say that he votes more like a D.C. liberal than a Southwest Virginia “moderate,” but that’s unfair to D.C. liberals.

Edwards, though, has drawn an incredibly strong challenger in Delegate Dave Nutter. Where John Edwards scores an anemic 6% on the Family Foundation’s report card, Dave Nutter came in at 95%. Where John Edwards votes as a tax-and-spend liberal, Dave Nutter works for limited and accountable government. I’ve met with voters across the Commonwealth, stumping for our great slate of Republican candidates, and let me tell you: it’s Dave Nutter’s message, not John Edwards’, that resonates with the voters.

And finally, at a time when we desperately need a return to constitutional principles, Miller Baker is a breath of fresh air – a man who not only believes in upholding our founding document, but knows it through and through. An expert in constitutional law and a successful litigator, Baker has taken part in defining cases before the Supreme Court, successfully defending Wisconsin Right to Life’s free speech rights and working to keep federal powers in check.

A member of the Reagan Justice Department by the age of 24 and counsel to a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee during the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, Miller Baker is a man who doesn’t shy away from a fight – and, more than that, he wins those fights.

Baker is running against George Barker, a liberal Democrat and one of the architects of the Senate redistricting gerrymander. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Barker’s overreach left him out of a job?

The year 2011 holds great promise for Virginia’s conservatives. In my travels across Virginia, I have stood alongside exceptional candidates and met with countless enthusiastic voters. We have the energy, we have the momentum, and right now, we have the financial edge – but it all comes down to one Tuesday in November.

Liberals across the country are watching the elections in Virginia with trepidation. On November 8, let’s show them that conservatives are energized. And next year, we can show them how conservatives govern.