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21-51: Why It's Important |
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Last year about this time, we saw a lot of bumper stickers and other materials that proclaimed "majority matters."
As we're now finding out, it does (though not always as much as we might like). Without Democrats in the majority, would we know what Alberto Gonzales has been up to? Or Lurita Doan at GSA? or a dozen other scandals?
This year, you will hear a lot of talk about 21-51.
What does that mean?
Those are magic numbers. What Democrats need to win majorities in the
Virginia legislature. 21 seats in the Senate. 51 seats in the House.
And it matters.
A Democratic majority in Richmond will
revitalize a toxic legislative environment where little can be
accomplshed, even as solvable problems grow into intractable dilemmas.
Delegate Ken Plum, a solid veteran legislator with a normally kind and
mild temperament, gets positively irate when he recites the litany of
abuses routinely committed in the capitol building designed by Thomas
Jefferson.Today in Richmond, if a majority of the Republican caucus doesn't
approve a bill, any Republicans who break ranks to support it will lose
chairmanships and other posts from which they serve their constiuents.
Bills can be killed by two legislators in a subcommittee with no record
of the vote. The Republican idea of compromise is for House Republicans
to force consessions from Senate Republicans. No Democrats can
participate. The list goes on.
In Northern Virginia (Hunter Mill included) there are some "moderate" Republicans who have continued to win reelection because they can distance themselves from the radical right wing, at least when they're campaigning. But they drive down to Richmond and vote for House and Senate leaders who continue violate every principal of good government and force the moderates to come along or be rendered worse than ineffective.
It's time for a Democratic majority in Richmond!
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