On one hand, the Virginia elections were, like, a week and a half ago. (That comes out to approximately three months in Trump Time.)
On the other, with recounts and lawsuits pending in enough races to push Virginia Democrats from their current post-election tally of 49 seats in the House of Delegates to a 50-50 power-sharing arrangement—or even an outright majority in the 100-seat chamber—there’s still quite a lot of statehouse action afoot here. (More on this later.)
Also, everyone and their cat is trying to claim credit for the big wins in Virginia. “Victory has a thousand fathers” or whatever, and pretty much all of the dozens of “outside” groups on the ground can credibly claim a slice of credit for Nov. 7’s successes.
Campaign Action
But what nobody’s talking about is how the existing Democratic Party apparatus—especially the Virginia House Democratic Caucus—facilitated these victories.
- Virginia’s election laws provide great flexibility in terms of allowing outside groups to share information with campaigns and committees, and the extant party infrastructure helped new organizations avoid duplicating efforts and allowed everyone involved to maximize resources (while reporting all investments and transactions—helpfully easily searchable via the Virginia Public Access Project).
But since Virginia’s election laws are as rare as they are permissive, the myriad groups jockeying to lay a hand on the Old Dominion trophy will have to adjust their tactics to have similar success in other state legislative elections in 2018.
Okay, back to the ongoing action in Virginia.
Rage Against the Voting Machine: Three districts are preventing either political party from feeling satisfied with its numbers in the Virginia House of Delegates. Recounts or legal action are likely or underway in House Districts 28, 40, and 94.
- The most controversial of these razor-thin margins is in House District 28, which is currently the home district of Republican speaker of the House until his retirement takes effect and his replacement is sworn in.
- Thing is, his replacement could be a Democrat.
- Democrat Joshua Cole currently trails his GOP opponent by 82 votes, but two significant issues have come to light in the past week.
- The recounts in HD-40 and HD-94 are shaping up to be more straightforward matters.
- In HD-94, Democrat Shelly Simonds trails the incumbent Republican by 10 votes.
- Democrat Donte Tanner trails by 106 votes in HD-40.
Appointmatic for the People: Meanwhile, even if Republicans retain their slim edge in the House, they’re already terrified that Gov.-elect Northam will appoint GOP lawmakers to his administration.
- This is a viable tactic not only in the state House, but also in the state Senate, where Republicans have just a 21-19 advantage. Democrats need to flip a single seat to have a governing majority in the chamber (with Lt. Gov.-elect Justin Fairfax breaking ties).
- Prime targets for these appointments would be the handful of Republicans representing districts won by Northam last week—at least four in the House (or more, depending on how the recounts and legal action mentioned above shakes out) and five in the Senate.
Republican fear of a Democratic governor deploying this tactic is deliciously karmic: After all, it was one of their own party who pioneered it as a way to win chamber control some 20 years ago.
- Then-Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore plucked just a couple of Democrats from the General Assembly and gave them prime appointments in his administration, effectively ending Democratic majorities in both chambers of the legislature in the process.
Yes, “pulling a Gilmore” is a real thing Northam might do. And everyone should call it that.
Recallmatic: Last week in this space, I reported that the second of three scurrilous recalls Nevada Republicans are pursuing against three women state senators failed somewhat spectacularly as organizers submitted fewer than half of the required 7,104 signatures to recall retiring Independent Sen. Patricia Farley.
- This followed the apparently successful attempt to trigger a recall election of Democratic Sen. Joyce Woodhouse last month. (Democrats are pursuing legal action to block that recall.)
- On Tuesday, Republicans submitted just 1,900 more signatures than the minimum 14,975 required to recall Democratic Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro. In the world of signature gathering, this is regarded as an extremely thin cushion. The Clark County registrar will determine via sampling if a sufficient number of signatures are legit over the next week or so.
As a reminder, Republicans are pursuing these recalls because they see no nope in ousting any Democratic senators from their solidly blue districts in 2018 and see their underhanded attempt to undo the results of 2016 elections in these seats as their only hope of regaining power in the legislature before 2020. Sad!
Vetodelay: Back in May, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton line-item vetoed all the funding used to keep the (GOP-controlled) legislature operational ($130 million, FYI) from the state’s budget. Dayton, a Democrat, wanted to force Republican lawmakers back to the bargaining table; Republicans straight-up sued him instead.
- The case eventually arrived at the state Supreme Court, which ordered the two sides into mediation (it failed inside of two days).
- On Thursday, the high court backed Dayton 5-1, upholding his authority to veto the legislature’s funding.
- So far, the legislature has scraped by on emergency funding, and the court’s ruling found that lawmakers have access to at least $26 million more to stay in business until it convenes in February.
- But what happens after that is anyone’s guess.
Since next Thursday is Thanksgiving, I won’t junk up your feeds while you’re enjoying turkey and/or arguing about politics with your loved ones. See you in two!