by Paul Goldman

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, has done independent minded challengers to the political status quo like me a real “solid.” Inadvertently, of course, since I have been one of his leading critics.

I admire Don’s political skills. His daring takedown of the previous Democratic Speaker is textbook Machiavelli. The man is a stone gamer. He has exceptional political talent not to be underestimated. Presumptive governor-elect Abigail Spanberger just got a tutorial. She’s long claimed to be against super-partisan redistricting. But she dares not criticize the Speaker. Her staff says governors play no role in redistricting. That may true now. But not if he is successful in changing the Constitution. They know that. Even if the media doesn’t. 

John F. Kennedy said, “to whom much is given, much is asked.” Virginia gave Don a second chance. He could never have been Speaker in any other state.

He needs, therefore, to repay the debt by making sure the poor children in Virginia get at least one fair chance. This is a defining moment.

Here is why. In 2021, Democratic State Senator Jennifer McClellan finally became fed-up with broken promises to Black children. Like me, she had likely become a Democrat for reasons expressed in the 1964 Democratic Party’s national platform: the modern Democratic Party’s seminal document, the moment in Atlantic City when a new generation decided to finally kick out the segregationists. Democrats opted instead to embrace the American dream Dr. King had spoken about a year earlier.

The Party leadership chose Lyndon Baines Johnson, RFK, and HHH to show America who they really were. LBJ remembered teaching dirt poor kids from local Mexican families forced to learn under hugely unfair conditions. He had promised himself to seize the moment to help them if he had chance. Now he did. It is useful for Scott, Spanberger, President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and, yes, Governor Glenn Youngkin, to read those words from 1964. They inspired my generation and Jen’s. 

“There can be full freedom only when all of our people have opportunity for education to the full extent of their ability to learn… Our task is to make the national purpose serve the human purpose: that every person shall have the opportunity to become all that he or she is capable of becoming. … We believe that education is the surest and most profitable investment a nation can make.” (Emphasis added). 

The word “freedom” isn’t found in the Declaration of Independence. For good reason, since the signers aimed at freeing the colonies from British rule, not ending slavery. “Free at last, free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last” — I remember hearing those words from Dr. King as he spoke standing at the Lincoln Memorial. He proved Victor Hugo’s claim that no army on earth was stronger than an idea whose time had come. 

Individual freedom is a relatively modern concept. A few months before, I first heard Bob Dylan sing “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He asked, “how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” Dylan got the idea for the song from an old spiritual called “No More Auction Block.” I’m guessing you can figure out the spiritual’s subject. 

Getting elected is good for your personal freedom. General Assembly members have a lot of freedom. Governors do also. But it’s far harder to fight, not to mention achieve, the freedom discussed in 1964 for the poorest among us. But surely their time has finally come. 

In 1991, Democrats joined with Republicans at the General Assembly to throw me off the State Council of Higher Education. My hanging offense: I was the only member of the Council who publicly supported giving woman the right to be admitted to public colleges on an equal basis with men. They didn’t think this was a freedom women should enjoy. 

What a radical I was! Several years later, the US Supreme Court agreed with me in the seminal case of U.S. v Virginia. 518 U.S. 515 (1996). There were no dissenting votes to my 1991 position. The irony is I never wanted to be on the Council. Governor Wilder made me. He said I would learn something. 

In 2021, I naively thought my fight for educational equality at the K-12 level would finally succeed. Several decades before, I had shown how the Education Clause in the Constitution of Virginia — Article VIII — had been cleverly written to deny black children an enforceable state right to equal educational opportunities. Contrary to popular belief, the federal constitutional right to equal educational opportunities decreed by the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision is not self-executing. It requires a state legislature willing to take certain implementation steps. 

When Article VIII had been approved by the voters in 1970, they thought the new wording gave their kids equal educational rights. But they were mistaken, as the drafters knew the loophole in Brown. Thus, they wrote the education clause in aspirational language. Why? Lawsuits are based on suing to get your rights. But you can’t sue the government to hold it accountable for failing to reach a goal. Therefore, by not including an enforceable right, there could be no successful state lawsuit to hold the state government accountable for the General Assembly refusing to appropriate the funds to provide equal educational opportunities. 

In the 1990’s, the rural counties in Southwest Virginia realized the anti-black poison pill had cost them funding. They sued. But discovered my constitutional analysis was correct. Scott v Commonwealth, 443 S.E2nd 138 (1994).

By 2021 it became clear the rural white students in the Trump counties were being hurt as much if not more than urban black students in certain Democratic cities. Republican State Senator Bill Stanley asked me to help him educate the General Assembly. He got himself appointed to head a special subcommittee. He held hearings around the state. I was the unofficial legal advisor. He let me make presentations. I spoke some hard truths. Senator McClellan was on the subcommittee. I remember her attending a hearing at Virginia Tech.  She toured local schools. I remember one where the rain dripped through the roof. The county couldn’t afford the repairs. This led to school officials placing barrels where the rain leaked. Students nonchalantly walked around them. 

Jen got the message. Together, black and white, rural and urban, Democratic and Republican State Senator, one man, one woman, they put together a bipartisan majority to pass the needed constitutional amendment with only one dissenting Senate vote. The first-time ever in Virginia on this fundamental change to state education policy. A commitment to equality unmatched in any other state. 

Logically, equal educational opportunity would seem a slam dunk in the 2021 Democratically controlled House of Delegates. I assumed the constitutional amendment would easily pass. But the Democratic Speaker, along with liberal democratic allies from Northern Virginia, killed it by one vote. One senior Democratic legislator said the rural counties would have to pay for equality themselves. 

Let me cut to the chase: Real Democrats don’t punish kids because their parents might vote for Trump. You don’t build a state or country by punishing kids for what you might not like about their family. “Everyone matters or no one matters,” says Harry Bosch. Former President Obama supposedly couldn’t believe the vote. 

Now come Don Scott, Louise Lucas, Delegate Luke Torian, D-Prince William, Senator Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, and presumptive Gov-elect Abigail Spanberger. They will be running the state next year. 

Scott says we need to authorize super partisan redistricting to help save us from Trumpism. The Democratic Party from Spanberger on down is deferring to him. As indicated above, she seems resigned to an unprecedented April 2026 statewide referendum to remove to the current constitutional ban on partisan redistricting. The outcome may define her legacy as Governor. If she loses — it is on her watch — her state, indeed national image may not recover. 

But there is a larger truth: Trumpism will not be stopped by super-partisan redistricting. The rise of Trumpism corresponds to the decline in the moral credibility of our political system and the supportive national institutions.

The people are losing faith. Trumpism cynically benefits by helping to erode such confidence. 

As the 1964 Platform says, a country that fails to properly educate its children will fail to provide the necessary ability of the public to appreciate their loss of freedom. There’s a reason Donald Trump is the most anti-education president in American history.

He knows an independent educated mind is his kryptonite.

Sixty-one years ago, Democrats understood the fundamental role of equal educational opportunities in allowing all of us to be all we could be.

I ask: Why are Democrats putting Spanberger in a win-or-else position? This is another reason to put this second constitutional amendment on the April 2026 referendum.

I’m absolutely confident the people of Virginia want to be the first in the nation to enshrine equal educational opportunity into the state constitution.

Therefore, it makes no sense to put all your eggs in one risky super partisan basket.

The smart play is to give the state of Virginia a sure win next April. 

Don Scott should give himself and the new governor a legacy making constitutional amendment. Putting the children first is the smart, political move. It is also the long overdue necessary moral choice. 

Paul Goldman is former Chair of the VA Democratic Party, a former candidate for mayor of the City of Richmond, and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”