I ask the question, because it’s hard to tell nowadays.
One of the fundamental rules of legislative politics is simple: the gavels go to the side with more seats. Every legislature, from the federal Congress to your local Board of Supervisors, cares about who controls the body. With control over the body comes control over the agenda, control over the pace of legislation, what bills get brought up and which languish in committee or die on the floor. And when one party is teetering on the brink of losing their majority, they often will go to extraordinary ends, including gerrymandering and other tactics of dubious legitimacy, to save that majority. Just ask Harry Reid how much he’s sweating the special election in Massachusetts and the loss of Senator Frank Lautenberg today. It’s the kind of thing that keeps Majority Leaders up at night.
Unless, apparently, you’re talking about the Virginia State Senate.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. Right now, we’re sitting on a 20-20 tie in the Senate, and both parties are playing fast and loose with control. Given the current make up, every seat in the Senate is critical and, as is rarely the case, the Lt. Governor’s race actually means something. As the tie breaking vote on organization and non-budget bills, effective control over the body rests with the LG. So you would think both the Republican and Democratic parties and the Senate Republican and Democratic caucuses would be fighting to the death to maintain control of the LG slot and their existing seats, not to mention exploiting any potential opportunities for pick ups caused by death, retirement or party switching.
They aren’t. At least, not when it comes to protecting existing seats and holding (or winning back) the LG job. Both parties have seen sitting State Senators risk their seats to run for statewide office, even when those seats represent potential losses in open seat special elections. And then there’s the LG races, where both parties have fields that included sitting state senators alongside legislatively inexperienced candidates with no track records.
It boggles my mind that both parties are being so cavalier with something as important as control over the Senate.
On the Republican side, for Lt. Governor, we chose a candidate who has never held elective office and who just two weeks ago told an incredulous lunch gathering of some members of the Republican Senate Caucus that he had “no idea” how to be Lt. Governor. At the same time, we nominated a sitting State Senator for Attorney General. If he wins, a special election will be held, probably in February, for the seat he’s vacating. While the district is reliably Republican, anything can happen in low turnout special elections, as was seen in Northern Virginia when Ken Cuccinelli’s State Senate seat was lost to the Democrats upon his election to Attorney General.
On the Democratic side, a similar thing is happening. While the Democrats won’t complete their nominations process until June 11 with a statewide primary, there are two state Senators running, one for AG and one for LG, and their opponents both have no elected experience. For LG, Ralph Northam, of party switching talk fame, is the establishment choice, and if he wins, a special election for his State Senate seat would potentially give Republicans a solid pick up opportunity. Northam’s district is more purple than Obenshain’s, with both McDonnell winning it in 2009 by 8 points, and Ken Cuccinelli winning it by 5 points. In a non-presidential year, in a low turnout special election, Republicans have a viable shot of winning back that seat. Opposing him is Obama tech guru Aneesh Chopra, who while being able to leverage the largesse of the tech and DC insider community has raised almost $1 million, he has never held elective office either, and has no experience at all in anything remotely similar to the biggest job he’ll have as LG – bridging the gap between the parties to make a split Senate work.
As for the Attorney General race, on the Democratic side State Senator Mark Herring, also the establishment Democratic choice, is running against Justin Fairfax, an assistant US attorney with solid ties to DC. While Fairfax doesn’t have any elected office experience, that kind of experience isn’t necessarily as useful in the AG job, so it shouldn’t really hurt him. Herring, however, sits in a district in Northern Virginia similar to Northam’s, one that went for Bob McDonnell by 10 points in 2009, and 4 points for Cuccinelli. In an open seat race, that seat is also a potential Republican pick up in a low turnout special election.
Both parties seem to be taking serious risks with control of the State Senate, both through their nominees or potential candidates for LG and by the fact that three members of the State Senate are either on the statewide ticket or are actively seeking a slot on it. At some point, these races have to be about more than the individuals running, especially when control is at stake. Both parties could win a battle and lose the war if things go the wrong way for them come November.
Given the make up of the House of Delegates, where Republican control is assured at least through the next decade, the State Senate is where the action is in Virginia and where both parties will want to hedge their bets against a potential loss of the statewide offices. For Republicans, control of the State Senate takes the pressure off the statewide races. For Democrats, control of the State Senate is their last bulwark to stop Republicans from completely running the Commonwealth. This wasn’t the best time for sitting State Senators to decide to act on statewide ambitions. And it probably also wasn’t the best time for both parties to dabble with fresh faces in jobs that actually require some kind of legislative experience thanks to current realities.
There’s a lot of time between now and November, and even more time between now and next February, when whatever special elections need to happen will likely happen. But I get a knot in my stomach whenever I think about how many things need to go right for Republicans to be back to status quo ante 2014.
