Bacon's Rebellion

Senate RINOs Protect Senate Benedict Arnold

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by

James A. Bacon
in

This just in from Victoria Cobb, Executive Director, Virginia Family Foundation.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Information Alert: Senate fails to remove Potts from Chairmanship

Today, the Senate of Virginia failed to remove Senator Russ Potts (R-27, Winchester) as chairman of the Senate Education and Health Committee in a carefully orchestrated vote on the Senate floor.

The Committee on Committees introduced a report to the full Senate assigning members to various committees and recommended that Senator Potts be stripped of his chairmanship but not lose his seat on the committee. The report was rejected on a vote of 20-19. Beside Potts, three Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in voting to keep Potts as chair: Senators John Chichester (R-28, Fredericksburg), Fred Quayle (R-13, Chesapeake) and Charles Hawkins (R-19, Chatham). In what may be a General Assembly first, Senator Fred Quayle voted against himself as the proposed new chairman of Senate Ed and Health. Senator Frank Ruff (R-15, Clarksville) was not present today to vote.

Rumors regarding the fate of Senator Potts have been flying around the capital in recent days, and the sense today was that the outcome of the vote was predetermined and Potts chairmanship was never in doubt.

Should a similar vote take place after newly elected Lt. Governor Bill Bolling takes his seat as President of the Senate, and the vote ends in a tie, Bolling would not have the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote. Senate rules prohibit such a vote on a committee report. It is unclear at this point whether today’s actions will be the final decision on the chairmanship.

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The 2007 election can not come soon enough.

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15 responses to “Senate RINOs Protect Senate Benedict Arnold”

  1. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    If you didn’t know anything else about Russ Potts, if all you knew was that 17 Democrats and three Republicans voted for him, and 19 Republicans voted against him. Which party would you conclude he belonged to?

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    This whole fiasco is emblematic of what’s going on in the party.

    The party’s social-conservatives, who control the party apparatus, need to realize that they are really not the ones in control of the party. They like to think they are, but they really aren’t.

    The folks in control of the party, like it not, are the senior members of the Senate, i.e., Quayle, Chichester, Hawkins, Potts, Norment and perhaps few others because they are the ones that get to vote on the issues. They get to choose what lives and what dies – thank god.

    In addition, why would Quayle, Chichester, Potts or Norment want anything to do with the Party? What has the party done for them? The only thing any of these guys can look forward to from the “party” is some whack-job, social-conservative (who gets full support from the party leadership to challenge a senior legislator), trying to beat them in a primary because they think they’re not “conservative” enough. Give me a break.

    You want these guys to act like they are in love with the “party” when it’s the “party” that’s the very thing which makes their life difficult.

    If I asked each person here what a “conservative” is, I would get a different answer from each one of you.

    Get new party leadership, get a coherent message, and quit bit#@&ng.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anon:

    In case you haven’t been keeping track, the “whack-job social conservatives” who make up the majority of the Virginia GOP have just elected the most conservative Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General ever to serve the commonwealth, and overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage. Sticks and stones may break our bones…

  4. Rtwng Extrmst Avatar
    Rtwng Extrmst

    Anon 9:25:

    You miss the point entirely. This has nothing to do with conservative vs. “moderate”. It has everythiung to do with a few good-ole-boys in the Senate who are grasping to hang on to power for power’s sake. If this was about issues, Potts wouldn’t have run for Senate as a pro-life, anti-tax, pro-family, anti-big-government-spender in 2003 only to turn around in 2005 and run as a pro-abortion, tax-hiking, pro-big-government liberal. It’s patently clear that this is everything about the ego’s of these four ingrates in the Senate and nothing about issues.

    For proof also look at the quote from Chichester after yesterday’s session “”I don’t believe in vendettas,” Chichester said as he left the chamber.”. This from the dailypress: http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-53734sy0jan12,0,4921886.story?coll=dp-news-local-final

    Chichester against vendettas? What a laugh! If this is so, why did he sue a Governor from his own party over a policy disagreement? If this is so, why did he vote for Potts who’s whole run for Governor last fall was a vendetta on Potts’ part against Jerry Kilgore (not the extremists in the party as he would have you think, but simply against Jerry himself) because Jerry decided to stay out of a primary battle Potts faced in 2003. Sorry anon, you are very misinformed.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Rtwng Extrmst:

    Anon. 9:25 here……You miss the point.

    I maintain:

    “In addition, why would Quayle, Chichester, Potts or Norment want anything to do with the Party? What has the party done for them? The only thing any of these guys can look forward to from the “party” is some whack-job, social-conservative (who gets full support from the party leadership to challenge a senior legislator), trying to beat them in a primary because they think they’re not “conservative” enough. Give me a break.

    You want these guys to act like they are in love with the “party” when it’s the “party” that’s the very thing which makes their life difficult.”

    You can’t have it both ways, i.e., going after your senior leadership in the primary and then expecting them to be all chummy with you when session starts.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Keep it up boys….Let me give you an example of what’s happening. When Speaker Howell decided to “discipline” Preston Bryant for trying to find a way out of the budget impasse by removing him from the Appropriations Committee, he made a big mistake.

    Most people look at these ideological struggles as “inside baseball”. They want the General Assembly to “get it done and get it over.” The posturing wears on the public patience.

    More to the point– the “disciplining” of Bryant was percieved by the good people of the Lynchburg-Amherst area as an attack on them.

    When the right wing tried to take Bryant out in a primary as a further “discipline” they got their heads handed to them. The Democrats nominated an attractive, well known candidate to replace Bryant and guess what? They won.

    Potts may not be everyone’s cup of tea but attacking him builds his credibility.

    You all keep it up… be sure to get even with each other. You’ll find your majorities in the General Assembly will disappear like mist in the morning.

  7. Rtwng Extrmst Avatar
    Rtwng Extrmst

    Sorry again anon. If the “leaders” you speak of truly represent their constituents, they will have no fear of intra-party challengers. If they stick by their campaign promises (something Potts certainly didn’t do) similarly they would have no worries. The issue here is character and honesty. An honest moderate who gets elected and stands by his principles has nothing to worry from the Party. However, people who lie to get elected only to switch around once they are in power do deserve to be primaried.

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    No sweat Rtwng Boy. I’m a Democrat and it don’t make no never mind to me. One man’s principle is another man’s “Poisson” if you catch my drift. Bye now…..

  9. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    That is so funny that this anonymous is a Dem. Cheerleading for the apostate Republicans. Duh. If the Senators are so troubled by the Party bubbas then why don’t they run as Dems or Independents or start their own new party – the Monarchists?

    Looking forward to 2007.

  10. NOVA Scout Avatar
    NOVA Scout

    JAB:

    I think the Dem is cheering for GOP intra-Party strife. He/She knows it’s enervating and entropic and will weaken us at the polls in 2007. And it will.

    Potts’s actions last year are indefensible. But that was last year. If we keep picking at this scab, we look like idiots to the electorate and will spend untold resources Three Stooges-like primary campaigns while the Democrats gain strength for the General Elections. Potts had little effect. He annoyed the hell out of a lot of us. That’s the size of it. Now move on.

  11. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    NoVa Scout: Does move on mean vote to keep Potts chairman of a committee as if he was a member of the majority party? Does move on mean support him in 07 or run a Conservative Republican for the seat?

  12. NOVA Scout Avatar
    NOVA Scout

    If the issue of his Chairmanship remains to be decided, I wouldn’t shed a tear over his losing that post should his colleagues so decide. If it has been decided, I wouldn’t re-visit it. What happens to him in 2007 depends on what the people of that district want. I feel certain he will get a primary challenge. I don’t live in that district. I don’t think it should become some sort of distracting cause for the statewide GOP as a whole. It’s up to those folks to evaluate whether his advantages to them outweigh his disadvantages.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Based on This Story it appears to be a dead issue.

    I am somewhat curious as to why so many of Potts’ opponents would support such a measure. A two-thirds majority, or super-majority, is a diffacult thing to achieve under any circumstance.

  14. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    Perhaps because, as the fog lifted and the sun shone this afternoon over my abode in Northern Virginia, something similar happened figuratively in Richmond, and 35 Senators decided they had better things to do than to flail away at this Republican family feud that adds little to the lives of the citizens of the Commonwealth.

    That’s just a theory, but I’m sticking with it until something better comes along.

  15. brotherman Avatar
    brotherman

    What is anon 9:59 smoking? That constitutional amendment to “protect the sanctity of marriage” means that the 60% of domestic violence victims in Virginia who are not married to their abusers would be ineligible for services. They would no longer be defined as “family or household members” under the law. Are you unaware of these ramifications of the poorly drafted language of the amendment, or do you just not care?

    If you are going to amend the constitution, at least take the time to get the language right so you don’t create a catastrophe in the process.

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