Virginia Republicans Channel George Bush in Power Grab

When George W. Bush won the presidency despite losing the popular vote back in 2000, he declared that he had a mandate and moved forward with implementing many of the policies that eventually caused an economic disaster we’re still trying to recover from. It looks like the Senate Republicans have teamed up with Lt. Governor Bill Bolling to take a lesson from the former president. Despite the fact that the Senate is evenly split 20-20 and opinion polls that show a majority of Virginians wanted a power-sharing agreement, the GOP used a move of questionable legality to gain control of the Virginia Senate.

In case you aren’t aware of the questionable move that the Republicans made, it was allowing Bill Bolling to cast a tie breaking vote when the Senate was organizing for its new session. This is not just the subject of recent court cases, but also goes directly against recent precedent. In the mid-1990's, for instance, there was an even split in the Senate. But instead of having then Democratic Lt. Governor Don Beyer break the tie in favor of the Democrats, the Senate decided to honor the will of the people and come to a power-sharing agreement.

While Bolling and the GOP had already made it perfectly clear the wanted to break tradition and move forward with their power grab, Sen. Don McEachin (D-Henrico) offered a floor substitute to the GOP proposed rules. McEachin’s substitute would have resulted in each committee having an equal split of Democrats and Republicans. Not a single Republican showed any interest in bipartisanship, however, as the motion failed on party lines (with Bolling injecting himself into the organizational matter by casting the tie-breaking vote).

What’s very interesting to me is that the Republicans don’t seem to understand how they directly contradicted the will of the general public with this power grab. The Democrats, however, did their part to make that clear. Sen. Mark Herring (D-Loudoun, for instance, warned that Republicans were turning the Senate of Virginia into the current Republican led US House of Representatives – a partisan mess.

"When I knocked on the doors of voters this past fall, they would often tell me they weren't interested, they hated Congress, and I would explain that I understood, but I wasn't in Congress, I their State Senator and we do things differently in Virginia and they would say "yes we do," Senator Herring said, but he warned that these rules are closer to the "Washington way."

As Sen. McEachin said while referencing a Public Policy Poll conducted in December, "bear in mind that 55% of Virginians believe we should have powersharing." It should be noted that the same poll showed that only 31% of Virginians believe the Republicans should have full control of the Senate, a sentiment that seems to be reflected in the results of the 2011 elections. In other words, the Republicans have very clearly thwarted the will of the people of Virginia and channeled former President Bush with their assertion of a false majority.