Republicans smart to seek traction in August
Legislative session will include crime crunching and policing reform, largely driven by the more progressive Democrats
So, how will Virginia Republicans play next month’s special legislative session? Let’s just say there’s some serious nonharmonic convergence about to take place.
This session, called by Gov. Ralph Northam for Aug. 18, was originally slated to consider state budget adjustments — adjustments obliged by the adverse economic effects of the pandemic.
But now the session will also include crime crunching and policing reform, largely driven by the more progressive elements of the majority Democrats.
“I look forward to bringing legislators back in session as we continue to navigate these unprecedented times,” said Northam. “We have a unique opportunity to provide critical support to Virginians … let’s get to work.”
Unprecedented. Unique. But how about some education, too?
House Minority Leader
Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, says he cannot understand how the governor failed to address the “looming crisis in public education and the thousands of children who will be negatively impacted. Hoping things will improve is not a plan of action, and kids need to be in school.”
So that goes on the legislative special session list, too, maybe?
Gilbert’s GOP caucus dramatically dwindled in the
2017 and 2019 House elections, of course, and may still suffer some cognitive dissonance over what to do about it. Which is to say the Republicans keep grabbing at whatever floats by — never a healthy sign.
Still, if the Democrats wish to catch a wave by getting into crime and the police and all that, why shouldn’t the Republicans seize upon other current anxieties, too, and see what they may make of it?
The GOP message appears to be that the option of online education is one thing. Making it mandatory — essentially the only option — is another thing and, to the Republicans, thoroughly insufficient. Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico (a member of the politically talented Stolle clan) said much the same last week and she knows the suburbs well.
Dunnavant told the right-of-center website The Center Square that “lawmakers also should work on providing greater investments in schools and teachers,” as well as ensure immunity from COVID-19 related lawsuits.
That exhibits practical, nonideological thinking of the sort that could get the GOP back in the business of winning elections — or, at least, to have a fighting chance.
To put it in military terms, the Virginia GOP is presently entrenched along an EmporiaGretna-Floyd-Wytheville line.
It’s strong in the rural sticks, but that’s hardly enough to reclaim Virginia.
Gilbert, the unapologetic rightwing House Republican leader, hails from Woodstock and there’s something of an anomaly there. Shenandoah County was once the domain of state Sen. Bill Truban and Del. Clinton Miller, one-time leading stalwarts of the moderate, pragmatic school of Republicanism.
A generation or so ago, you could ride down the Valley Road and find much the same mentality in Linwood Holton, Caldwell Butler and Pete Giesen. Longtime Augusta County Republican state Sen. Emmett Hanger adheres to that “just-get-it-done” tradition now, but often finds himself a lonely guy in a populist, Trump-dominated party.
Gilbert, on the other hand, exudes the demeanor of the protagonist in my favorite childhood book: “Mr. Bear Squash-You-AllFlat.” Mr. Bear was a big, intimidating guy who had the terrible habit of showing up in the forest just to sit on your house.
Which can work in legislative terms, so long as you have the numbers to back you and the right issues. Will education provide? It may not have the juice that Gilbert prefers.
Gilbert may be tempted, instead, to take the Democrats up on the crime/police push, because that happens to be where the ultimate Mr. Bear — the one in the White House now desperate to find a re-election issue — happens to be headed.
Think Portland. Think Chicago and other destinations for Trump-dispatched federal troops. Think about how all that may provide a noisy, disconcerting and unsettling background for an effort, during the August special legislative session, to “hold police accountable” and prevent “excessive use of force,” as some Democrats intend.
The smart move for Democrats? Do the doable. There’s something of a consensus forming, based on testimony this past week from police organizations, whose representatives publicly expressed support for some of the Democratic priorities.
Grab that. Tend to the budget, too, Democrats. Be thoughtful on the schools, as required.
And push everything else to the January regular session.
Mr. Bear was undone by a rubber tire house. It did not flatten and, to his dismay, Mr. Bear bounced into the air — proving that flexibility is a useful thing in many circumstances.
After writing editorials for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co. and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.