by James A. Bacon

On Friday the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee discussed Governor Glenn Youngkin’s slate of appointees to state boards and commissions listed in multiple bills. Senate Democrats had amended the bills to strike the names of nine nominees, including four to George Mason University, two to the Virginia Military Institute, and three others. (In my previous reporting I referred to only the six nominees mentioned in Senate Bill 275.)

Knowing that the Democrats would win narrowly in a straight party-line vote, Senate Republicans asked to delay the final vote until Monday in the hope of finding a way to salvage the nominees. They appealed to years of bipartisan Senate tradition, saying that their simple request would have been honored in the past — an assertion that no one disputed.

Although legislators maintained a civil tone — they referred to one another as “my friend the senator from Franklin County,” and the like — the answer was a hard no. The reason stated by Senator Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, had nothing to do with the intrinsic merits of the appointments. He blamed President Donald Trump.

Surovell’s reasoning, shown in video captured by The Cadet student newspaper at VMI, is worth quoting in its entirety. It is indicative how the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C., has spilled into Virginia. Politics in the Old Dominion has become totally subsumed by national passions, even though the issues at stake — appointments to state boards — are inherently local.

I appreciate the senator from Rockingham’s remarks and also the minority leader’s remarks about how things worked back last year and before, and I agree with him that that’s typically how things did work, and on most matters that don’t carry a lot of import, that’s not something that’s  uncommon.

I’ll note that the appointments are in front of you now involve some pretty significant boards. I know … several of [the appointees] relate to Boards of Visitors, which have control over policies and our institutions of learning. I know that one relates to the Board of Education, which sets education policy. I think there’s one that controls our airport, or two airports, actually in Virginia, that we share with other jurisdictions.

This country has changed, and I think that’s a lot of what you’re seeing. And it’s unfortunate, but I think the chickens are coming home to roost. — Scott Surovell

I just note that I think a lot of folks on this side feel that on Martin Luther King day something happened at Washington, D.C., which kind of changed the tone of this country, and there was a message that was sent across the river that norms are out the window. Laws are out the window. The Constitution’s out the window. There was an executive order that was signed that attempted to overturn language in our Constitution that was put in to overturn Dread Scott, the law that said a slave was not an American. Of course, it took a judge about 36 hours to say that’s stupid, illegal, and unconstitutional because it was. But yet, the leader of a certain party believes that it’s appropriate to take official actions like that.

There was another executive order that was dropped that night that overturned a 60-year-old order on hiring practices relating to diversity because he claimed that a 60-year-old order is illegal. [You] can tell the other side that a lot of the folks that we talk to feel a massive amount of anxiety right now. Massive. The fear that exists in the African-American community right now is palpable. The fear that exists amongst women is palpable. The fear that exists in the LGBT community is off the charts.

I can tell you how … I probably received five phone calls the last three days of people asking for immigration attorneys because it terrorized their families going be ripped apart — people that have been here for decades — because of what is going on in this country right now, and a lot of people feel like a lot of rules have changed in the last week, and some folks feel like we’re serving in a different environment. And, so, [former] Senator [Dick] Saslaw, [Senator George] Barker, [Delegate William] Howell, [Senator Steve] Newman, etc., all of them might have served at a time when people got along better.

The message we got on January 21st is not consistent with that, and I think you’re seeing the consequences of it, unfortunately, in this body, and it’s not because Congressman [Bobby] Scott’s sitting behind me. No offense, it’s because this country has changed, and I think that’s a lot of what you’re seeing. And it’s unfortunate, but I think the chickens are coming home to roost. 

I’m not arguing the rights or wrongs of Trump’s executive orders. I’m not arguing the rights and wrongs of Youngkin’s nominations to state boards. I’m asserting that one has absolutely nothing to do with the other and that Democrats’ detestation of Trump (whether justified or not) is now interfering with the conduct of the peoples’ business in Virginia.