Democrats’ wildly complex plan to win a legislative majority

A couple of weeks ago on the radio show, Shaun Kenney and I discussed at some length the behind-the-curtain maneuvering of Virginia Democrats to use the courts to help them score the legislative gains they have been unable to make at the ballot box. The plan has a lot of moving parts and if any one of them falters, the entire scheme fails.

It’s the topic of Jeff Schapiro’s column today and, true to form when good copy appears on the scene, Jeff dives in:

It’s not just losing that scares House Republicans. They’re panicking over the possible remedy — that the court draws new districts and orders a special election.

A special election must be considered in a larger context. It would be one of three House elections held in as many consecutive years, two of which fall in presidential and gubernatorial cycles, when higher turnouts favor Democrats. The coattails of the party’s national and statewide nominees could pull along candidates for the House.

This is not to suggest that a win in court would allow Democrats to win back within three years the House they lost in 1999, ending their century-long run on legislative power. But Democrats could shrink the GOP majority and transform districts, largely in Virginia’s eastern urban-suburban corridor, from reflexively Republican to competitively bipartisan.

That could remake the House from a black hole in which Democratic ideas disappear to a deliberative partner capable of compromise. Couple that with a Democratic take-back of the Virginia Senate, and perhaps McAuliffe achieves legislative traction on the back end of his four-year term.

This assumes many things. But it hits the same themes Shaun and I discussed (minus the panic). Democrats are pushing the courts to redraw House districts in advance of the 2015 elections. The definite aim is to have multiple House elections — 2015, 2016 and 2017 — with the 2016 elections taking place in a federal year, with federal turnout dynamics…and, perhaps, federal campaign finance laws in effect.

Republicans circulated a memo to party leaders outlining the possibilities, but also added information Jeff does not include, specifically, that the Democratic lawsuit is being financed by the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, an arm of the Democratic National Committee which does not have to disclose its donors (a practice that Democrats and their major media friends excoriate when done by others).

Digging around and talking with folks who are following this, it’s not hard to discover that labor is writing some of the biggest checks. It’s perfectly legal for them to do so, but it is a point worth noting — as is the reluctance of any of the state’s old-line media outlets to follow-up on this item despite it being brought to their attention.

The lawsuit, though, is just one part of the larger scheme. Another, and seemingly innocuous, part is a constitutional amendment from Del. Marcus Simon that would eventually shift Virginia’s statewide and legislative elections to even-numbered years. Virginia is an outlier in retaining off-off-year elections and Del. Simon wants to correct that in order to generate cost savings and greater (Democratic) turnout.

What Republicans fear is that the redistricting lawsuit would not only result in a series of annual elections under new lines, but that the process would create Democratic majorities which would take Simon’s proposed amendment, tweak it, send it through the process again, and make permanent an election cycle that favors their turnout models.

Jeff shows how Virginia’s history with snap elections in the early 1980s did not result in wholesale change. It would still take Republicans 16 years to gain a House majority.

What Jeff does not say directly is that Virginia and the one we live in today are wildly different places. Could Democrats make gains not only faster than the GOP did, but do so in the span of a single election? It’s not impossible, largely because of what Jeff does say:

McAuliffe wants to deliver Virginia for his buddy Hillary Clinton, assuming she’s the nominee. As he’s doing this year to restore a Democratic majority in the Senate, McAuliffe will go all-out for Clinton. There would be a well-financed, statehouse-to-White House voter-mobilization program linking Democratic candidates, top to bottom.

In 2017, Virginians pick McAuliffe’s successor as well as the House. Eager to be followed by a Democrat, McAuliffe could do for the nominee what he did for himself in 2013: push up turnout to include federally focused voters who often stay home in gubernatorial years. Their votes could trickle down to House candidates.

As Jeff notes, it’s all a long shot and it also rests entirely on the assumption that Terry McAuliffe is as fully engaged in Virginia politics as some need him to be.

There is one more item to consider that may show the Governor is, indeed, more involved in the long game than I suspected:

McAuliffe (D) last week nominated three people to serve on the three-member board, two Democrats and one Republican, in keeping with state law requiring the sitting governor to give one seat to the opposing party.

The Republican is Matthew Gray of Richmond, state director of the Humane Society of the United States.

Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, wrote to McAuliffe this week objecting to the fact that the governor did not seek the GOP’s input on the nomination.

Gray, according to the piece, had voted three times — in 2009, 2013 and 2014 — in Democratic primaries. Under Republican rules, those are disqualifiers. Senator Mark Obenshain went further:

Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) said he had not reviewed Gray’s voting record. But he had met with Secretary of the Commonwealth Levar Stoney over another concern.

“I’ve seen his résumé and actually visited with the secretary of [the] Commonwealth this morning to talk about the appointment and was told candidly that he has little or no experience in elections or election law,” Obenshain said.

“It would concern me greatly for a designee to be put on a board like this to represent a political party that wasn’t consulted. And to the degree that he really is not qualified for the position, it kind of negates the whole purpose of representation.”

There may be nothing to this, and Mr. Gray may turn out to be a fine nominee. But to Republicans, it appears as though McAuliffe is attempting to pack the State Board of Elections with friendly faces that could be of use in (snap) elections to come.

As I noted earlier — there are a lot of moving parts and absolutely no guarantees of success.

Rube Goldberg would be proud.