Calling Republicans in the Virginia Senate who went along
with the redistricting coup scoundrels is an understatement. Calling Prince
William County Chairman Corey Stewart a scoundrel after his support of the
Senate GOP fait accompli is also an understatement.
After Republicans in the Senate “took up a bill that had
called for minor “technical adjustments” to House district lines and amended it
on the floor so that it changed lines for all 40 Senate seats,” Prince William County
Chairman Corey Stewarts stated, “ In my opinion the Republican members of the
Senate acted boldly and justifiably in readjusting the Senate districts.”[1]
Aside from the ethical absurdity of Stewart’s statement, the
move by the Senate GOP was more than a “power grab,” it was an unprincipled
political act that shames the institution that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
and Patrick Henry (among others) governed under.
When Virginia’s government was conceived, it wasn’t born so
that opposing parties could play unscrupulous tricks on one another, like
guerilla fighters waiting for the enemy to put down its guard. Rather, Virginia’s
government institutions were established to facilitate compromise and
cooperation as set out by the spirit and the letter of written rules and
regulations.
But the continuing GOP narrative of self-selected rule
following and grotesquely out-of-touch political moves only serves to alienate this group and those
who would attempt to justify their platform and their actions.
Bill Bolling, a perfect example of what an individual will
do when pulled from the reins of political ambition and short-sightedness,
refused to go along with the Senate Republican’s coup to redraw the lines of
the Senate. Bolling noted that such a move would set “a bad precedent” and cause
such an increase in partisan politics that the agenda for the 2013 legislative
session would most likely be derailed[2].
And Lt. Gov. Bolling is most likely right.
In their jaded, fear-centered, states of mind, the GOP
continually drives a stake into the heart of any attempt at understanding,
tolerance, patience, open-mindedness, and compromise. For anyone who would
argue that the Democrats are just as much to blame or even more so need only
witness this recent GOP move in the Senate.
It’s said that you reap what you sow, but unfortunately for
Virginians, everyone will get a taste of the bad medicine being poured into the
GOP’s legislative saucer. Instead of accepting that their extreme political
ideologies are not welcomed by a majority of Virginians, these vacuous villains
have damned the entire state to another year of almost laughable
ineffectiveness.
Here’s to a new year in Virginia, a little more ridiculous than
the last.
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