April 21: Not Really What Virginia Needs Now
by Gordon C. Morse
Want a political version of blunt force trauma? Then welcome to Virginia’s April 21 referendum on congressional redistricting. Look at the map and behold the winners. No one has to be fair about “fairness.”
It’s “temporary,” they keep saying. Temporary — as in, it won’t last long.
You could say as much about the vaunted redistricting commission. Installed via a constitutional amendment but five years ago, it proved very temporary.
Appointed to a college or university board by the governor? That’s temporary, too.
Such appointments were previously tantamount to service. There was no pause in between or abrupt removal. You even got a certificate, suitable for framing: “To All To Whom These Presents Shall Come — Greeting. Know Ye, that from special trust and confidence reposed in his fidelity, our Governor by virtue of authority vested in him by law, hath appointed and hereby commissions …”
I pulled that language right off a certificate in the hallway, which names moi to the Board of Visitors of Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009. It’s signed by Gov. Tim Kaine.
Republican Speaker Bill Howell, with his party’s majority in the House of Delegates then, could have killed that appointment dead to rights. He did not. Why? Because Speaker Howell was an honorable public servant who respected Virginia’s governing traditions.
Or maybe Speaker Howell just shrugged and said to himself, “Jeez, that twit,” and let my appointment go with no more thought.
That was the habit. There was even a time (not recently) when board appointments became reappointments though the parties in power may have shifted in the meantime. Continuity was often valued, based on this, that or the other thing.
“This, that or the other thing” was factored in at the front end. It was an executive branch function, for all intents, and there were thousands of appointments made in the course of a governor’s four‑year term. Boards. Commissions. Councils. Authorities. On and on.
The Virginia Code has board appointments “subject to” confirmation by the General Assembly — and that means, of course, there’s a process of some kind, right? Someone checks your résumé and looks at your financial condition. Have you ever robbed a bank? That would be good to know before you get the appointment.
None of that occurred. None of that occurs now. There is no institutional legislative confirmation “process” and there never has been. Congress has such a thing; the Virginia General Assembly does not.
Let me be absolutely clear on this: If lawmakers step in (it doesn’t have to be this way in Virginia, but has been) they may do so on an arbitrary basis and rely on no more guidance than what they had for breakfast that morning. The role of the General Assembly, when it comes to gubernatorial appointments, combines legal authority with capriciousness.
As a practical matter, the General Assembly invests faith in the executive branch, based on the very reasonable notion that the sitting governor would not saddle the commonwealth with (or risk the political embarrassment of) an inadequately vetted appointment.
Many of these appointments demand technical, professional or administrative expertise. Who gets that part right? The executive branch.
Does politics enter the mix? Yes. Governors seldom appoint political opponents.
It has been just noticed, for instance, that Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s college and university board appointments — the ones she made upon showing up — align with her campaign contributions. That’s very traditional, too. Nothing new about that at all.
So what’s new? The wild idea of Senate Democrats appearing in Richmond last June to blow the whole system up. This act was performed by the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee (once infamous for bottling up Virginia’s ratification of the ERA) and, beyond a couple of spoken references to “Trump,” no one explained why.
No one had the nerve to try. It was completely and totally impulsive. The Democrats have continued this work of political larceny, denying many of former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointments, and picked up a willing accomplice in the form of Gov. Spanberger.
Gov. Spanberger did not flinch. While reveling in her standing as Virginia’s first female governor, Spanberger declined to notice that she was also the first governor in modern history to make a wide range of collegiate board appointments immediately upon taking office.
Did anyone around Spanberger put their hand up and point out the significance of making appointments based on purloined board seats? Apparently not.
The appointments made by Gov. Spanberger, by the way, are outstanding. She named solid, capable people.
But so were the people they illegitimately replaced.
When I say “illegitimate,” I don’t mean in a legal sense. I measure this only against past practice and the indisputable fact that the process, in the main, served Virginia well.
It’s all gone now. Next year, should the Democrats lose control of the Virginia Senate, Gov. Spanberger, in her last two years in office, will be lucky to get an appointment through for the Potato Board.
What’s fixed in our political system? It’s all words on paper and the words may be changed. Tradition and institutional continuity get you something, but without political commitment, we spiral, sputter and spaz along.
That brings us back to April 21. “We’re fighting fire with fire,” they say.
Money will be spent. Bunches. But to what end? For those advocating “Yes,” seeing Trump tripped up would be joy enough. They started it.
“They started it.” I think that’s what the Austrians said about the Serbs in August 1914.
You have to hand it to the “Yes” vote for getting “fairness” into the mix. “Hey, no, really,” someone said. “We’ll stick the word ‘fairness’ in there.” Give that person a raise.
Unfairness, remember, was Job’s complaint to God.
God, in turn, answers Job out of the “whirlwind” and says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
This, of course, is a variation on what Hamlet says to Horatio, that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
So, O.K., what may be only fair for some will be fairness for all. So say the Democrats, and who are we to judge the moral and cosmic order of things?
And yet, we know it’s utter nonsense, because all the Democrats want is some payback. This is their promise and the best argument for the April 21 referendum: Let Virginia protect itself against aggressive mid‑decade gerrymanders in other states and update its own map to keep representation “fair” through 2030.
What’s the best “No” argument?
It reopens the door to exactly the kind of partisan, self‑interested, self‑aggrandizing, self‑serving map‑drawing that Virginians thought they had curtailed with the 2020 redistricting reforms.
In short, it’s a short‑term power grab by the Democrats, who now hold up a middle index finger to every Virginia voter and chortle.
Did I say it was also stupid? Probably not loud enough. Let me raise my voice just a smidgeon.
Virginia’s economy heavily relies upon federal funding, mostly through defense‑related procurement and employment. On a per‑capita basis, Virginia, among all U.S. states, has been either at the top or near to it for decades.
That could end up temporary, too, if we’re not — how should I say this? — prudent.
Advantageously, we have two smart, capable senior Democrats in the U.S. Senate — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — to look after Virginia’s interests in that vitally important chamber.
In this situation, however, it’s better to have seniority in both parties in both chambers. Majorities are, after all, a sometime thing.
The key Virginia Republican: Rob Wittman, Virginia’s First District congressman. There’s no guarantee that he will become chair of the House Armed Services Committee, but Vice Chair Wittman is well‑positioned.
Wittman already chairs the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, which handles the committee’s largest modernization portfolio. He has served on Armed Services since entering Congress in 2007 and has already chaired or served as ranking member on multiple subcommittees (Readiness, Oversight & Investigations, Tactical Air & Land Forces).
In sum, Virginia needs Wittman right where he is and not lying prostrate in a ditch with Democrats pumping their fists and yelling, “They started it.”
Doesn’t Third District Rep. Bobby Scott play an important role in tending to Virginia’s fiscal well‑being?
Does he ever. Rep. Scott has been in Congress since 1993 and, in my book, constitutes a national treasure. Want to model yourself after someone in public life? You cannot do better than Scott. He’s as true as they come.
Scott does not serve on the House Armed Services Committee or the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, so he does not “run” the defense budget in committee terms.
He stays vigorously active, attentive and alert, however, on defense issues and knows shipbuilding as if it sat in his backyard — which it does.
Virginia needs these people. All of them. Ergo, do not create conditions (via the April 21 referendum) that jeopardize their status and standing.
Here’s the funny, reliable thing about redistricting schemes: They almost never work out well.
Once upon a time, in the early 1990s, the highly sophisticated, highly skilled, highly astute Democratic leadership of the General Assembly did a number on newly elected Rep. George Allen.
What followed was instructional.
Allen had won a 1991 special election in the old Seventh District, which ran from exurban Northern Virginia through parts of the Shenandoah Valley to Charlottesville. But after the 1990 census, Virginia gained an 11th seat and, under Voting Rights Act pressure, the Democratic‑controlled General Assembly drew a new Black‑majority Third District to shore up party advantages.
The legislature did this by dismantling the Seventh District and parceling it out among neighboring districts. Allen found himself in a reconfigured Richmond‑area district with veteran Republican Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., a well‑entrenched incumbent.
I remember this well because about this time I ended up at a Washington dinner with Allen — whom I’d known since he first ran in 1979 for a House of Delegates seat in Charlottesville — and, in the middle of the main course, he leaned over to me to say, “I have a plan.”
Oh, really.
“Yeah, I’m going to run for governor.”
“Well, good luck with that,” I said, demonstrating absolutely no foresight at all. Allen won the 1993 governor’s race going away. It wasn’t even close.
So, the General Assembly may go on with this redistricting business, and good luck with that.
Gordon C. Morse has been writing commentary and speeches in Virginia since 1983. This column his republished with permission from his Substack account Heart’s Desire and Bacon’s Rebellion.
