Where To Begin With This Train Wreck of a Resolution

They say history repeats itself, and in council chambers and supervisor boardrooms across Virginia, that certainly seems to be the case.

Earlier this year crowds packed meetings of Boards of Supervisors and City Councils in nearly every county and independent city demanding that their local elected representatives pass a constitutionally dubious, yet unenforceable resolution declaring themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries.

Now with 2020 nearing its end, crowds are gathering once again, this time to demand that their local governing boards approve another constitutionally dubious resolution, this time regarding Gov. Northam’s recent amendment to Executive Order 67.

The latest resolution is being promoted by a group calling itself “Virginia Constitutional Conservatives” (if you’re a Virginia Republican, their unsolicited, hyperbolic fundraising emails have probably been accumulating in your spam folder for most of the year), and can be broken down into three parts:

1) A claim that Gov. Northam’s 25-person limit on gatherings is unconstitutional;

2) A demand that the local Sheriff must arrest anyone — even members of the Virginia State Police — attempting to enforce the governor’s executive order, and a demand that the local Commonwealth’s Attorney must refuse to prosecute anyone who fails to comply with the governor’s executive order;

3) A pledge to remove local funding for the Sheriff’s Department and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office if they fail to comply with #2.

Where do we even begin with this train wreck of a resolution?

This group calls its resolution a “nullification resolution” and cites Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as evidence that the Founding Fathers would endorse its actions. Yet, even Madison noted the distinction between “opinions” expressed by states and legal remedies enacted by the courts.

The Supreme Court has consistently denied the legality of nullification; if states cannot legally nullify federal actions, in a Dillon Rule state how can counties and independent cities legally nullify state laws and executive orders? (We didn’t have a problem with the Dillon Rule when progressive localities were forced to comply with executive orders issued by Republican governors; is our commitment truly to the constitution and the rule of law, or to our current position on the issues of the day?)

If this group believes Executive Order 67 is truly unconstitutional, they should take their concerns to the courts where these issues are properly and definitively decided.

A cursory understanding of Virginia civics reveals the folly of part two. Our Sheriffs and Commonwealth’s Attorneys are constitutional officers directly elected by the voters in their jurisdictions. They answer to both the voters and the constitution, not their local Board of Supervisors or City Council.

Local governing bodies can pass all the resolutions they wish to express their opinions on state laws or executive orders, but our constitutional officers are under no obligation to obey their wishes, nor should they be as true justice should be immune from political influence.

After spending the better part of 2020 accusing every Democratic candidate on a ballot anywhere of planning to defund the police, it’s ironic that self-described conservatives are actually the ones pushing a vote to defund the police (Rep. Spanberger and Speaker Pelosi are probably having a laugh at our expense right about now).

Even if, in a moment of insanity, a local governing body chose to defund its local Sheriff’s Department or Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office for failing to abide by a resolution, these constitutional officers are under no legal obligation to obey. It seems unlikely that such a move would even be possible under a state constitution that requires the funding of constitutional offices.

On an even more basic level, would voters in Virginia’s reddest counties who proudly back the blue support their supervisors’ decision to gut law enforcement budgets?

This half-baked resolution fails on all three counts, yet its most egregious failure involves the people being encouraged to crowd into boardrooms to demand its approval.

Like the well-intentioned speakers supporting the Sanctuary City resolutions, grassroots supporters of this resolution fear that their constitutional rights are in danger during a period of political and social change. Change can be scary, and fear is a legitimate human response to unfamiliar situations.

What the organizers at Virginia Constitutional Conservatives have discovered is that fear, like fire, can also be energizing. Like fire, though, fear can also get out of control and cause severe damage — to our constitutional order, trust in our fellow citizens, and to other humans.

To read the email blast Virginia Constitutional Conservatives sent last week, you could be forgiven for believing that it’s 1775 all over again for it reeked of “revolution envy.”  When you cast yourself as the virtuous Minutemen someone must, by necessity, become the vile Redcoats.

In a recent email updating supporters on the status of the resolution, Virginia Constitutional Conservatives typecasts a county supervisor as the villain for having the temerity to suggest that while he supports the premise of the resolution, he is unwilling to violate the law by ordering his county’s Sheriff to arrest people. For this treachery, he received ominous messages from people who refused even to listen to his perspective. When a well known conservative like Supervisor John Sharp becomes an accomplice to tyranny, it’s clear that those who would hijack the conservative movement are at best dishonest and unscrupulous grifters trying to fundraise off fear, or at worst Jacobins prepared to lead conservatism into a dark place where fear and infighting trump optimism and opportunity. Possibly both.

At the eve of 2021, conservatives stand at a crossroad. Will we embrace the better angels of our nature and allow our time-honored principles to guide our policy-making efforts as we work to build a better future for all Americans? Or will we embrace the Jacobin grifters who encourage us to wage a war of all against all in order to fill their organizations’ coffers?

Choose wisely, conservatives, for the decision we make today may well set the course for our state and our nation for generations to come.