Virginia's Hard Right Turn Towards Its Jim Crow Past

The insanity that is transpiring in Richmond is frightening and, as I've noted in a number of posts, Virginia seems headed to a level of backwardness and intolerance most often seen in states like Alabama and Mississippi. It's a case study in what can happen when voters are lazy and indifferent with the result that zealots and extremists turn out and elect lunatics and fanatics to office. The Washington Post looks at the reactionary and down right bigoted measures sweeping through the GOP controlled Virginia General Assembly. Rational, thinking citizens ought to be frightened and one can only hope that they will mobilize their friends and families in November to vote against GOP candidates. Otherwise, God knows what further horrors will visit Virginia a year from now. Here are some highlights on Virginia's lurch to the extreme right and the danger of allowing Christianists and their puppets to gain elected office:

Republicans promised voters last year that if they got full control of the General Assembly, they’d pass conservative aims that had failed before under both parties. At Tuesday’s procedural midpoint of the 2012 General Assembly, the GOP had passed unprecedented restrictions on abortions, illegal immigrants and gay people seeking to adopt, liberalized protections for gun owners, homeowners and home-schoolers, and put new requirements on voters and welfare recipients.

Republican legislation made historically right-to-work Virginia even more hostile to unions, and bills remain alive that could provide new tax breaks for corporations.

“This isn’t just a hard right turn. It’s been a U turn to the right,” said Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico and chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. “Just look at what they’ve done: Drug-testing welfare recipients, clearly something that’s got no basis in fact but meant to reinforce a stereotype. And those voter suppression bills, and the personhood amendment.”

[Democrats] likened it to Jim Crow era tactics to deter black voters and said it would disproportionately harm elderly, disabled and minority voters.

One bill that has won both House and Senate passage and is already on its way to a warm welcome by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell is a repeal of a law that limits individual handgun purchases in Virginia to one a month. It was a major legislative legacy of former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, passed 19 years ago when Virginia was a haven for gun runners who supplied criminals in the Northeast.

Yesterday speaking with my son who moved from Virginia because of its reactionary social and political climate he asked me when I was going to stop complaining and move. It's a question that I am asking myself more and more. If things continue to move back to the Middle Ages in this state, I don't see where I will have much choice but to leave. And then the boyfriend may have to decide if he wants to go with me or not. I hate this state and it's only getting worse.