The Democrat Blitz in Virginia

In 2017 blog readers from around the country followed the Virginia elections, many seeking a ray of hope in an otherwise demoralized political world disgusted by the foul and corrupt individual in the White House.  Fortunately, Democrats created a political earthquake, won the governorship and both other state wide offices and came within a name drawing from taking control of the House of Delegates.  Next Tuesday, Democrats hope to finish the work left from 2017 and take control of both the Virginia Senate and Virginia House of Delegates.  Should this happen, not only would decades of Republican obstructionism and efforts at voter disenfranchisement fall away, but the Democrats would also control the 2020 redistricting maps. In addition, for LGBT Virginians we might at last see state law non-discrimination protections and see a statutory ban on voodoo like "conversion therapy" which should more properly be called a form of torture.  A piece in Politico looks at the Democrat effort in Virginia which many hope can be a precursor to a 2020 rout for self-prostituting Trump boot lickers.   Here are article excerpts:

National Democratic groups are spending unprecedented sums in the race for control of Virginia’s state legislature — the first test in a yearlong campaign to maximize the party’s influence in the states before the next round of redistricting begins in 2021.

After winning the governor's mansion in 2017, Democrats are shooting for total control in Richmond. And they see next week's elections as an early chance at redemption after a 2010 drubbing that left them boxed out of the map-making process in nearly every key state.

“I was in New York yesterday for a pitch to national donors — everybody wants to play in Virginia. They understand the significance,” former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a long-time national party power-broker, said last week. “Virginia’s future for the next decade is going to be determined this November.”

Cash-flush Democratic power players have flooded the commonwealth with upwards of $10 million, according to an analysis of outside spending. Among the top spenders: Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg-aligned group, with $2.5 million; the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the party's state-level campaign arm, with $1.3 million; the League of Conservation Voters with $1.5 million; and EMILY’s List with $2.1 million, its single largest investment ever in a state’s legislative races.

Virginia’s unique campaign-finance laws allow these groups, and major liberal donors like George Soros, to contribute unlimited amounts directly to individual campaigns, giving Democrats a formidable financial advantage.

Democratic candidates raised a collective $31.8 million by the end of last month, according to the analysis of financial filings by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. That's more than twice as much as they raised in 2015, the last time both chambers of the legislature were on the ballot.

In comparison, Republican candidates have raised a collective $21 million so far this cycle, trailing their Democratic counterparts by over $10 million.

Over the next 12 months, Democrats are seeking to make major inroads in state legislatures, which have the power to affect policy at the state level, in addition to election rules like district lines and ballot access. Republicans control the legislatures of 30 states, . . . 

In Virginia, Democrats have not had majorities in either chamber since before 2012, when Republicans took control of the map-drawing process — but they have a strong chance next week to flip both, particularly the state Senate. In 2017, control of the state House memorably came down to one race in Newport News when the Republican incumbent kept his seat after a tiebreaker in which his name was drawn from a bowl. The impact of the Democratic cash influx is abundantly clear in a northern Virginia state delegate district where Democrat Hala Ayala, a cybersecurity specialist who is one of the first two Hispanic women elected to the state’s lower chamber, faces a rematch with Rich Anderson, the Republican she beat in 2017.

Anderson pulled in over $280,000 by late October. Ayala, buoyed by a six-figure donation from EMILY’s List, has raised over $1.2 million so far. That investment has allowed her to spread her message wide.

Her ads have become so prominent on cable and digital platforms that Ayala said neighborhood children have referred to her as "that lady on my Twitter." Some approach her to recite the script of her spot that details her time working at a gas station while on Medicaid. "I'm ready to be a meme," she joked.

"Never before have Democrats had this kind of money," Ayala said. "Republicans have been well-funded, mostly by the NRA and all of these special interest groups that never served us any positive benefit."

Democratic presidential candidates have also shown interest in the Virginia elections. . . . And there's some indication that the grass-roots have also taken an increased interest in Virgina. ActBlue reported that donors in the third quarter of 2019 doubled their contributions compared to the third quarter of 2017.

Virginia is the only state with competitive off-year state legislative elections. Democratic strategists will have to likely work harder to keep a focus on down-ballot races in 2020, when the party will attempt to take the White House and Senate while defending its House majority.

In the past few years, some of the biggest names in Democratic politics have waged a nationwide campaign to prevent a 2010 redux.

Ahead of the post-2020 redistricting, Democrats are eager to break GOP trifectas in Florida, Texas, Ohio and Georgia. Another top target this cycle is North Carolina — where Republicans control both chambers, and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper would have no veto power over the map if he wins reelection next year.

Right Wing Extremist Challenges Delegate Danica Roem

Delegate Danica Roem.

In 2017 Danica Roem made history when she defeated long time incumbent, anti-gay zealot and overall Neanderthal Bob Marshal, a man who regularly brought Virginia ridicule and mocking on both a national and international scale through his the extremist bills that he introduce year after year. Roem also made history by being the first transgender candidate to win election to the Virginia General Assembly.  While I still have not forgotten Roem's precipitous rush to judgment last February when she recklessly threw Ralph Northam under the bus without doing her homework, she deserves re-election.  Especially when looks at her extremist Republican opponent, Kelly McGinn, who has an extensive history of anti-LGBT bigotry, opposition to public education and women's rights in general.   Her endorsement by Eagle Forum - which has endorsed another extremist in the race for the 91st District - speaks volumes about McGinn's extremism and the huge step backwards her election would constitute for Virginia.  A piece in The Advocate argues why it is important to re-elect Danica Roem.  Donations to Danica's campaign can be made here. Here are excerpts:

With the presidential primary campaigns in full swing — and the first openly LGBTQ major-party presidential candidate very much in the mix — it’s tempting to think the most momentous political fights of our lives lie ahead in 2020. But there is an enormously consequential off-year fight going on right now in Virginia, and it’s one we all need to get behind.

It’s happening in Virginia House District 13, where Danica Roem is fighting hard to hold on to her seat against a well-funded right wing challenger. Her race is one of the most competitive in the state this cycle. Danica made history and headlines in 2017 when she won her election to the Virginia House of Delegates and became the first openly transgender person to serve on any state legislature. She won by taking out an incumbent who described himself as Virginia’s “chief homophobe.” The right wing wants revenge and will spend what it takes to get it.

Danica’s 2017 campaign inspired the first rainbow wave in the 2018 midterms. Meanwhile at the state level, her win was part of a broader shift in political power in which full control of the legislature hinged upon a single vote. Republican control of the Virginia legislature is hanging by a thread this year. A win by Danica is not only a key element of flipping the Virginia House and the entire state legislature from red to blue, it’s a key part of setting the stage for 2020 — just like the victories of diverse and progressive candidates in Virginia two years ago were curtain-raisers for big wins in the historic 2018 election.

By any measure Danica has earned reelection. She is a dedicated public servant with a laser focus on serving her constituents. She has campaigned on a platform to fix the region’s infrastructure. She cares about her constituents and the things that matter in their lives; she played a major role in the Virginia Medicaid expansion that provides vital coverage to hundreds of thousands of residents. But none of this insulates her from the transphobic hostility that motivates her opponent and many of that opponent’s deep-pocketed financial backers. 

Danica’s opponent Kelly McGinn has a long record of anti-LGBTQ extremism. She has compared marriage equality to “morally repugnant practices” such as slavery, described LGBTQ parenthood as “absurd” and “harmful to children,” and even tried to justify her transphobia as a rationale for opposing the Equal Rights Amendment’s ratification in the state. Kelly McGinn is every bit the bigot that Marshall was. McGinn’s campaign website is slickly designed to appeal to voters who may not know much about her, describing her as a political moderate who is dedicated to family values. But she continues to accept financial contributions from far-right groups and donors that traffic either overtly or covertly in anti-LGBTQ hate . . . . Anti-LGBTQ forces in the state know exactly who McGinn is. And they are all in.  When a candidate like McGinn emerges and espouses similar views and rhetoric, it’s paramount that we do all we can to make sure such candidates are defeated. This is especially true when defeating that candidate will send a strong message beyond a single district and a single year — as the outcome of this race, in this critical run-up to 2020, most certainly will.

Our community rose to the occasion for her historic candidacy in 2017, and in this important election year, we can’t sit this one out. The organization I lead, People For the American Way, was deeply involved in supporting Danica two years ago, and we are doing it again because Danica is far more than a symbol, she is a proven progressive leader who is making Virginia a progressive state.

It’s an opportunity to make history once again and to rebuke hate in our politics, to stand up for Danica Roem at a pivotal moment for our community and our country. This is one we have to win.

Extremist Group Endorses GOP Candidates in 13th and 91st House Districts

It's Labor Day weekend and the traditional kickoff of the home stretch for political campaigns in Virginia.  As previously noted, with the entire Virginia General Assembly up for re-election, one would think at first blush that the Republican Party of Virginia would have worked diligently to field sane, somewhat mainstream candidates in order to improve its chance of clinging to control of House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate.  Yet at least two of the GOP's candidates are ultra-far right despite their campaign websites' efforts to depict them as moderates.  Indeed, they have both been endorsed by Eagle Forum - a far right group that is anything but mainstream. One of these candidates, Colleen Holcomb is running for the 91st District (i.e., parts of Hampton, Poquoson and York County), continues to be a part of Eagle Forum's Washington D.C., office. The other is Kelly McGinn who is running for the gerrymandered 13th District in the Prince William/Manassas area. 

I have followed Eagle Forum for over twenty years.  The organization is very extreme, and is pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-public education, pro-unregulated home schooling, and would siphon money from public schools to private religious schools, and opposes publicly funded day care and pre-kindergarten programs. Just as disturbing are Eagle Forum's opposition to immigration, support for restrictive voter ID laws, white supremacist overtones, an proposals to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts on civil rights issues, and support for a radical definition of "religious freedom" that would allow right wing Christians to exempt themselves from non-discrimination and public accommodation laws.  

Extremist endorsed Kelly McGinn. 

McGinn is an at home mother (not an issue in and of itself), but previously her work experience is quite troubling.  McGinn was on the staff of former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback – a far right extremist – whose subsequent policies as governor of Kansas slashed education spending and wreaked havoc on Kansas’ economy.  Brownback’s policies were in fact so destructive to Kansas, including its public schools and universities, that Kansas, a deep red state, elected Laura Kelly, a Democrat as governor in 2018.  Virginia does not need an extremist back individual who likely shares Brownback’s damaging views in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Extremist activist Colleen Holcomb.

As for Holcomb, she espouses Eagle Form's agenda everywhere except on her campaign website which seeks to dupe voters into falsely believing she is a moderate.  Not only is Holcomb tied to Eagle Forum, but she is a registered to lobbyist in Virginia for the anti-gay, anti-reproductive choice, anti-public education Family Foundation, which among other extreme positions supports requiring women to be given a forced ultrasound prior to having an abortion.  The Family Foundation also supports the “Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit,” which is essentially a voucher program to divert moneys from public schools. 

Back to Holcomb's Eagle Forum ties, Eagle Forum thinks “restricting gun laws devalues our freedoms.” It thinks people on the No Fly List should be allowed to buy guns and teachers should be allowed “to arm themselves while at school.”  Also of note is the fact that two months after failed GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed “in a TV interview …that victims of ‘legitimate rape’ very rarely get pregnant because their bodies prevent them from doing so,” Holcomb campaigned for him.

Eagle Forum supports anti-vaccine extremists.  It is realistic to believe that both McGinn and Holcomb also support this dangerous agenda. 

I urge readers in Virginia to carefully research the candidates running in their districts.  Do not allow yourself to be fooled by disingenuous campaign websites and candidates' hidden agendas. . If you live in the 13th District, vote for McGinn's opponent Danica Roem.  If you live in the 91st District, vote for Martha Mugler.  If your House and Senate districts are not competitive, consider making donations to or volunteering for Democrat candidates in competitive districts.  Virginia does not need more far right extremists in the General Assembly. 

SCOTUS Kills Off Virginia’s Racial Gerrymander

Earlier this week the United States Supreme Court rejected the appeal by House of Delegates Republicans to the judicial striking down of the Virginia GOP's carefully drawn voting districts.  These districts were aimed at minimizing the strength of minority voters and thereby protecting the Virginia GOP from the reality that increasingly Virginians do not want what the Virginia GOP is peddling, namely racism, homophobia, slavish prostitution to the gun lobby and a general opposition to anything progressive in nature. While SCOTUS used the issue of standing as a means to reject the appeal, the result is nonetheless the same and the odds of Democrats winning control of both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates has increased.  Many would argue that the Virginia GOP's solution is to update its agenda to reflect 21st century concerns, a task made impossible by the GOP's increasingly hideous base of racist, white supremacists, religious extremists and general misogynists.  One can only hope November, 2019, deals the Virginia GOP a blow that will send it into minority party status for years to come.  A piece in Slate looks at the SCOTUS ruling: 

The Virginia House of Delegates’ racial gerrymander is officially dead—killed off by a 5–4 Supreme Court ruling on Monday that seems to clear the way for a potential Democratic sweep of the Virginia Legislature in November.

Although Monday’s decision in Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill slays a gerrymander, it revolves around a more mundane issue: Who has the ability to defend that gerrymander in federal court? When Virginia voters first filed a lawsuit alleging that multiple House districts were drawn illegally along racial lines, the state attorney general defended the map. Eventually, a federal court found “overwhelming evidence” that the state had “sorted voters into districts based on the color of their skin,” violating “the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause.” It appointed a special master to redraw 11 House districts and adopted his proposals, ordering the House to adopt his new map for the 2019 election.

Throughout these proceedings, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, defended the House’s unconstitutional districts. He did so because a Virginia law tasks the attorney general, and him alone, with the job of defending the state’s interests in court. After the federal court struck down the old map, Herring decided his job was done: He had defended the gerrymander since 2014, when the case began, and didn’t want to appeal the latest ruling to SCOTUS. But the House (and, specifically, its Republican speaker) had intervened in the case and did want to appeal. So it asked SCOTUS to reverse the district court and restore its old map.

On Monday, the Supreme Court held that the House lacked standing to appeal the ruling against its gerrymandered districts. Practically speaking, that means the 2019 election will take place under the new maps—a relief, since Virginia just held primary elections under these maps last week. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg first cited the Virginia statute giving the state attorney general (and not the House) the ability to “represent the state’s interests.”

Ginsburg then wrote that the new maps inflict no concrete injury on the House, depriving it of the right to appeal the district court’s decision. The court-imposed plan, she wrote, merely changes the House’s composition. But House districts already “change frequently”—after each census, at a minimum—and any ensuing electoral difficulties “are suffered by individual legislators or candidates, not by the House as a body.”

[U]nder Virginia law, redistricting authority resides in the full General Assembly; the House and Senate must both vote to adopt any redistricting plan. Because the House “constitutes only a part” of the General Assembly, it does not have standing, on its own, to appeal the decision invalidating its districts. In other words, “a single House of a bicameral legislature lacks capacity to assert interests belonging to the legislature as a whole.”

Ginsburg’s opinion was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

All 11 districts invalidated by Monday’s decision were flagrantly gerrymandered to capture minority communities, trapping a huge number of black voters in a few non-competitive districts. The new map creates more diverse and competitive districts, handing Democrats a major victory. Right now, Republicans hold a 51–49 majority in the House; under the new, fairer map, Democrats seem likely to seize the chamber in November. They’re also favored to take the Senate—and since the state has a progressive . . . . governor, a legislative sweep would create a Democratic trifecta. That would give Virginia Democrats control over the 2020 redistricting process, preventing Republicans from drawing another round of gerrymanders to last another decade.

Virginians who want to move Virginia forward need to make sure they are registered to vote and go to the polls come November.  We have the potential for a new day in Virginia that we cannot afford to lose. 

Colorado To Become 16th State To Ban Ex-Gay Torture

Christofascists in Colorado are on the eve of losing their effort to keep fraudulent and quackery filled so-called conversion therapy available to (i) torment and torture LGBT youths, and (ii) back the lie that sexual orientation is a "choice."  Even Republican in the Colorado legislature are voting to ban the practice which is condemned by all legitimate medical and mental health associations.  Sadly, here in Virginia, Republicans in the House of Delegates cared more about the demands of the hate merchants at The Family Foundation and kissing Victoria Cobb's ring (Cobb is the head of the hate group group) than solid medical and mental health knowledge. Thankfully, regulatory changes will soon be the death knell to the practice in Virginia, although a legislative ban would have been far better.  A piece in Denverite looks at the looming Christofascist defeat in Colorado.  Here are excerpts:

A bill banning conversion therapy across Colorado is a step closer to becoming law after the Senate on Monday voted to pass the bill, which would ban licensed professional from the discredited practice of attempting to “cure” LGBTQ youth.

The bill is headed back to House, which already approved it in February, for approval after the bill was amended in the Senate. It’s expected to pass in that chamber before ending up on the desk of Gov. Jared Polis, who said during his gubernatorial campaign that he would seek to abolish the practice statewide. Polis is the country’s first out gay man elected governor.

The bill passed by a 21-13 vote in the Senate on Monday and had bipartisan support, including from Republican state Sens. Don Coram of Montrose, Kevin Priola of Henderson and Jack Tate of Centennial.

Republican support was critical, and similar bills failed in previous sessions after GOP lawmakers voted against it. Fenberg noted in a release from the LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado that conversion therapy is not backed by science and is harmful to LGBTQ youth.

“There is nothing to ‘fix,'” Fenberg said in the release. “They should not feel ashamed of who they are. After working for years to pass this bill, I am proud that we are finally going to protect our LGBT youth and ban the dangerous practice of conversion once in for all in Colorado.”

The Denver City Council in January unanimously approved a ban on conversion therapy, though officials aren’t aware of practitioners of this so-called therapy operating in the city and county.

Americans Broadly Support Nondiscrimination Protections for LGBT Individuals

click image to enlarge.

In what will hopefully become very bad news for Christofascists and Republican political whores who prostrate themselves to them, the House Democrats are introducing the LGBTQ Equality Act of 2019 - a counterpart bill will be introduced in the U.S. Senate.  Meanwhile, (i) a PPRI survey has found that across party lines, demographics, and geography, Americans broadly support nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, and (ii) more than 160 major American corporations are supportive of the Act's enactment.  Here in Virginia, the Republican controlled House of Delegates killed every bill that would have offered LGBT Virginians non-discrimination protections in what has become an annual event.  All that mattered to these Republicans was that the foul folks at The Family Foundation - to call them modern day Pharisees is far too kind - opposed the bills.  The fact that 68% of Virginians support such protections meant nothing to these political prostitutes. Now, with similar legislation in Congress we can expect to see similar disregard for public support on display among Congressional Republicans and, of course, at the White House.   Here are highlights on the PPRI findings:

Americans remain supportive of broad nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Nearly seven in ten (69%) Americans favor laws that would protect LGBT people from discrimination in the job market, public accommodations, and housing.

Younger Americans are 17 percentage points more likely than older Americans to say they support laws protecting LGBT people from various forms of discrimination. More than three-quarters (76%) of younger Americans (ages 18-29) favor such laws, compared to 59 percent of seniors (ages 65 and older).

Support for nondiscrimination protections enjoys broad support across the political spectrum. Majorities of Democrats (79%), independents (70%), and Republicans (56%) say they favor laws that would shield LGBT people from various kinds of discrimination. While support among Democrats and independents has remained relatively constant, Republican support for these provisions has fallen five percentage points over the past few years, down from 61 percent in 2015.

Majorities of liberals (81%), moderates (76%), and conservatives (55%) all favor nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people.

Ideological differences are more pronounced among Democrats and independents than among Republicans. The biggest intra-party divide is among Democrats: Liberal Democrats (87%) are likelier than moderate (76%) and conservative (61%) Democrats to favor nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBT people. Liberal (79%) and moderate (78%) independents are also likelier than conservative independents (58%) to support nondiscrimination protections.

Solid majorities of all major religious groups in the U.S. support laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, and the workplace. More than three-quarters of Americans who identify with New Age religions (86%), Jews (80%), Hindus (79%), religiously unaffiliated Americans (78%), and Buddhists (75%) support these protections. Similarly, robust majorities of Mormons (70%), Hispanic Catholics (72%), white mainline Protestants (71%), white Catholics (71%), other non-white Catholics (68%), and Americans who identify with other religions (67%) favor LGBT nondiscrimination protections, along with majorities of black Protestants (65%), other non-white Protestants (61%), Muslims (60%), Hispanic Protestants (60%), and Orthodox Christians (59%).

White evangelical Protestants (54%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (53%) are least likely to support LGBT nondiscrimination protections, but even among these groups support remains in majority territory.

Majorities of residents in all regions of the U.S. and all 50 states support non-discrimination protections for LGBT Americans. However, residents of New England states express the most robust support for laws designed to protect LGBT people from discrimination. At least three-quarters of the residents of New Hampshire (81%), Vermont (77%), Connecticut (76%), Massachusetts (75%), and Rhode Island (73%) favor nondiscrimination protections for LGBT Americans.

States in the West also demonstrate high levels of support for nondiscrimination protections for LGBT individuals. More than seven in ten residents of several Western states—including Washington (75%), California (73%), New Mexico (73%), Colorado (72%), and Oregon (72%)—favor laws that would protect LGBT Americans from discrimination.

Conversely, states with the lowest levels of support are primarily located in the South, where about six in ten residents of West Virginia (63%), Oklahoma (62%), Mississippi (59%), Kentucky (59%), Alabama (59%), South Carolina (58%), and Arkansas (56%) say LGBT people should be legally protected from discrimination.

 The question becomes, this: when are Republicans going to stop thwarting the will of the majority? 

Anti-Gay House of Delegates Speaker Cox to Be Targeted in November Elections

Anti-gay Speaker Kirkland Cox

The Washington Post is reporting that the, in my view, utterly toothless Equality Virginia ("EV"), is planning on targeting House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) and Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) for defeat in November after Virginia Republicans yet again killed all non-discrimination protections for LGBT Virginians.  Yes, Cox and Gilbert need to be defeated, but don't hold your breath waiting for EV to pull it off, especially if the Democrats do not field top quality candidates to oppose them.  Meanwhile, if EV had placed more focus on securing passage of these bills and less time attacking Governor Northam, the strongest ally EV has ever had in the governor's mansion, and riling up its own donor base in the process, perhaps the bills might have succeeded this legislative session. EV also needs to grasp that with Republicans, bipartisanship doesn't work.  They only understand the threat of electoral defeat,  

Democrats will be headed into the November elections suffering from self-inflicted wounds, thanks to national Democrats who butted into Virginia's affairs and self-aggrandizing organizations like the Human Rights Campaign which I suspect talked EV into attacking Northam.  Personally, I've had enough and I have stopped my monthly donations to EV and will likely end up going to the Commonwealth Dinner in April - we had already bought tickets before EV's attacks on Northam - solely so the husband and I can give the EV board members and Democrat elected officials in attendance a piece of our minds face to face.  Here are excerpts from the Post story:

Gay and transgender activists, fed up with four consecutive defeats in trying to ban discrimination in housing and government employment, say they will now turn to the ballot box, targeting GOP leaders who have failed to support them. “No one has taken a more bipartisan approach than we have,” said James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia, which lobbied for the bills that passed the Senate but died in a House subcommittee. . . . The only solution we see now is new leadership.”

State Republicans hold a two-seat majority in the Senate and a three-seat majority in the House, with one seat open for a special election in a district previously held by a Democrat. A federal court approved a new redistricting map Thursday that is expected to favor Democrats.

Equality Virginia says it will work to unseat House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) and Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) because it blames those leaders for blocking a full committee hearing of the bills.

The bills would have prohibited discrimination in all state and local government jobs on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and barred housing discrimination against people in those same groups, with exceptions for rentals in single-family homes, property owned by religious organizations or private clubs.

Advocates thought they had a better-than-average chance for passage this year given the Republicans’ determination to try to win back seats in November and attract suburban swing voters, who are more open to supporting gay and transgender people than some constituencies within the Republican Party.

“We don’t live in 1980 anymore, and it’s time for us to get past this and not discriminate against a community when most people don’t have a problem with this community,” Del. Roxann L. Robinson (R-Chesterfield), who sponsored the legislation, said earlier this year.

Conservative groups, including the Virginia Catholic Conference and the Family Foundation [Virginia's leading hate group], opposed the effort. . . . “Once again, the speaker and majority leader said ‘nope, under our watch this is not going to happen,’ ” Parrish said.

Cox “is only the speaker because his name was drawn out of a bowl,” he said, referring to how state officials broke a tied legislative race and handed control of the House of Delegates to Republicans. “He did not have a mandate . . . Now we will pivot, look at the new maps. Speaker Cox is in a very different district this year. That will be a priority of ours.”

Virginia Republican Leaders Foolishly Kill LGBTQ Rights Bills

Virginian Republicans again demonstrated that they are totally beholden to the Christofascists at The Family Foundation and other purveyors of anti-gay lies by killing all LGBT non-discrimination bills through rules games in a House of Delegates committee.  If Republicans were smart - a huge if - they should have allowed passage of the bills and have removed the largest reason the vast majority of  Virginians have for almost exclusively supporting Democrats. In addition, such a move might improve the Virginia GOP's position with younger voters, many of whom find the GOP's anti-gay agenda abhorrent and a prime motivator to vote Democrat, especially in the increasing crucial so-called urban crescent stretching from Northern Virginia down through Richmond and then to the cities of the Hampton Roads region.  With Virginia Democrats in a civil war over Ralph Northam, the timing would have been perfect to split off the LGBT vote from the Democrats.  Foolishly, the Virginia GOP opted to remain the political whore of Virginia's leading hate merchants.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this foolish and discriminatory move.  Here are excerpts: 

Legislation to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination in housing and public employment in Virginia has died for this session.

Republican leaders in the House of Delegates Thursday removed the two nondiscrimination bills from the agenda of the General Laws Committee. “The move prevents the pieces of legislation from getting past committee and squanders any hope that they may become law in this legislative session,” the Washington Blade reports.

The Senate had passed similar measures, one banning discrimination in housing and the other in public employment, January 18, the Human Rights Campaign notes. The chamber had also approved bills like this over each of the past several years, but they have always stalled in the House. Virginia does not include sexual orientation or gender identity in any of its civil rights laws.

“It’s shameful that Speaker [Kirk] Cox, Majority Caucus Chairman Tim Hugo and leaders in the House of Delegates continue to use every political trick in the book to kill these crucial, commonsense nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Virginians,” HRC national field director Marty Rouse said in a press release. “For several years in a row, bills that would protect LGBTQ Virginians from discrimination in housing and public employment have passed the state Senate, but House leadership continues to obfuscate the political process and obstruct this legislation. Let’s be clear: Cox is using LGBTQ people as political pawns. This fall, voters in Virginia will head to the polls to elect their state representatives. If current leaders cowardly refuse to protect all Virginians, then voters will elect lawmakers who will. We will remember this in November.”

Polling has shown bipartisan support among Virginians for legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the HRC notes. Business groups had lobbied for the legislation this year, including the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association and the Virginia Beach Resort Advisory Commission.

“Today’s anti-LGBTQ actions by Virginia House leadership are dramatically out of step with voters, lawmakers, and Americans from all walks of life,” said a statement issued by Freedom for All Americans CEO Masen Davis, according to the Blade. “Equality is not a partisan issue, but a human issue — and it’s a shame when legislators who don’t yet realize that fundamental truth have the power to thwart commonsense, bipartisan bills to protect their constituents.”

With thoughts of possibly challenging either my state senator of member of the House of Delegates (who is probably the more vulnerable), the GOP's anti-gay agenda makes it impossible for me to consider doing so as a Republican. 

Extremist Derailed the Equal Rights Amendment Yet Again

Victoria Cobb - A leading face of hate in Virginia.

During this current session of the Virginia General Assembly, Virginia had the opportunity to pass the federal Equal Rights Amendment and put it over the top in terms of the number of states that must ratify a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  True to form, Virginia Republicans in the House of Delegates killed passage.  What most outside observes do not realize is that one woman is largely to blame.  She holds no elected office.  Instead, she is the head of The Family Foundation ("TFF"), Virginia's leading hate group, to whom Virginia Republicans grovel like circus dogs before a cruel trainer or spineless men before a whip cracking dominatrix.  Her name is Victoria Cobb and her stock in trade is lies, untruths and hate.  While Cobb wraps herself in the cloak of being "pro-life," she and her minions oppose state and federal government programs that seek to aid the poor, the sick, the homeless and the less fortunate.  Indeed, once one passes out of their mother's birth canal, they become invisible and irrelevant to Cobb and TFF.

Cobb is also well known to LGBT Virginians whose lives she has worked to make a living hell for years through the dissemination of deliberate lies and duping the ignorant and uneducated.  She can also always be found opposing any progressive legislation in Virginia as she strives to roll back time to the 1950's when women were deeply subordinate to men and women resorted to back alley abortions. There's another reason Cobb longs for the 1950's - segregation still reigned supreme in Virginia in the 1950's - and it is no coincidence that TFF's ancestry traces back to those who supported Massive Resistance (for non-Virginians, that's when public schools were closed rather than integrate and private "Christian" academies sprung up in their place).  This is the woman and organization to whom Virginia Republicans prostitute themselves year after year.  If one wants to hold up a face that represents hate in Virginia, Cobb's would definitely be one of them.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the smug, self-satisfied Cobb who is clueless - and could care less - about the reality of the lives of so many women. Here are column highlights:

It’s 2019, a surge of women just won election to Congress and the Virginia legislature, and it looks like the Equal Rights Amendment may be stopped dead in its tracks again.

By a woman. Again.  Meet the new Phyllis Schlafly: Victoria Cobb, who says she achieved all her success before reaching her 40th birthday without help from any amendment, so the rest of American women don’t need it, either.

The ERA, first written 95 years ago, regained new momentum in this #MeToo era after years of dormancy. And Virginia was poised to become the 38th state to ratify it, filling in that three-quarters majority of states required for it to become official. In Richmond, the GOP-led Senate passed the ERA bill earlier this month. And celebrities, lawmakers and activists were touting its revival on Capitol Hill in Washington. But then a tiny subcommittee in Richmond — the House Privileges and Elections subcommittee — voted along party lines to block the amendment from reaching the House floor after heavy lobbying from Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia.

After that subcommittee quash last Tuesday, Del. Mark D. Sickles (D-Fairfax), one of the two men on that subcommittee to vote yes, tried to introduce it to the full House Privileges and Elections Committee anyhow on Friday. That was defeated by a 12-to-10 vote along party lines.

Cobb’s crusade was helped along by that subcommittee’s chair, the equally stunning and storybook-perfect Del. Margaret B. Ransone (R-Westmoreland).  Ransone also presents herself as the strong, capable “mother, wife, successful businesswoman” on her website who doesn’t need any darn amendment to protect her in the workplace or home or public space.

Except, of course, her powerful place in the world of business is her family’s oyster company, where she has worked most of her adult life. Good thing there’s no sexual harassment or gender discrimination there, right?

Cobb, the president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, is from a lovely suburb of Philadelphia, where she went to a private Christian school, played field hockey, learned to work against the ERA from her doting grandmother, and found her passion for fighting abortion rights when she was in sixth grade.

Her life has not included single motherhood while working the swing shift at a diner, the boss who grabs your butt and will cut your hours if you resist, a pregnancy that could kill you and leave your four children motherless, parents who kicked you out, or a husband who left and skipped child support.

Cobb pegs most of her anti-ERA crusade on abortion, convincing folks that somehow, if women were to finally be included in the constitution, it would mean all kinds of public money would be funding abortion.  Um, no. That’s not the goal of ERA.

We can consult a legendary conservative Supreme Court justice for the truth that women’s equality is not explicitly protected in the constitution or in the 14th Amendment.   “Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t,” the late justice Antonin Scalia said in a 2010 interview with California Lawyer magazine.

These women occupy a very privileged place in American society, and they hold up their very tidy lives as proof that the ERA is unnecessary.

But plenty of women don’t have her advantages, or the advantages that many white, middle-class women in stable families and marriages have.

Religion is a big part of conservative women’s politics and activism. When it comes to the protections that the Equal Rights Amendment would provide, perhaps they’d consider this perspective: There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Yes, the column was far too kind to Cobb.  In my opinion, she makes the Pharisees of the Bible look upstanding and hypocrisy free.

Poll: Majority of Virginia Republicans Back LGBT Protections

As the Washington Blade reports, a new poll indicates that a majority of Virginia Republicans support the enactment of LGBT non-discrimination protections.  Sadly, that does not guarantee passage at long last of such protections by the Virginia General Assembly.  Why? Because the Virginia GOP remains under the control of The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group, and Christofascist extremists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, Jr. Of course, at the national level, Trump has sold his soul - if he has one, which I doubt - to a who's who of Christofascists even as Mike and Karen Pence celebrate anti-LGBT discrimination as they play their false false Christian martyr roles.  Time will tell if the pending non-discrimination bills survive the GOP controlled House of Delegates.  The best solution long term is to flip control of both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates to Democrats come November 2019. Here are excerpts from the Blade article:

A new poll finds a majority of Virginia Republicans support efforts to ban anti-LGBT discrimination.

Mason-Dixon Polling between Jan. 7-9 asked Republicans voters in Virginia whether they supported protections for LGBT individuals in housing and public employment. The survey found 53 percent of Republicans would support “legislation at the General Assembly this year that would update Virginia’s nondiscrimination laws to protect gay and transgender people from discrimination in housing.” And 63 percent would support similar legislation in public employment.

These results come 11 months after The Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm, conducted a similar survey. The February 2018 survey found 55 percent of Republican voters believed discrimination against gay and transgender people in housing should be illegal and 59 percent believed similar discrimination in public employment should be forbidden.

The Republican Party of Virginia’s 2016 platform makes no mention of LGBT people or protections. It explicitly opposes same-sex marriage and “condemns” the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the Windsor and Obergefell cases that paved the way for same-sex marriage across the nation. And in its discussion of religious liberty, it implies that businesses should be able to discriminate against LGBT people.

The idea that a majority of Republican voters in any state would support nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people would be ludicrous based on this document alone, but many are saying they expected these survey results.

“This is a trend we’re seeing across the country. Voters simply have no appetite for discrimination and want to be sure that their friends and neighbors are protected the same way they are,” said Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof. “The ground really has shifted on these issues of discrimination against the LGBTQ community. There is much more support for these anti-discrimination efforts.”

Winterhof noted legislation in most states hasn’t caught up to this new level of public support.

Virginia is one of 31 states that lacks protections for LGBT people in housing and public employment. “The ground has shifted, but lawmakers … didn’t get that memo, and we’re certainly trying to educate and share more of that information,” said Winterhof.

[James] Parrish [of Equality Virginia] said Republican support for LGBT equality has lagged behind that of the general public but that “support for LGBT issues among all Americans has been inching up for decades.” In Virginia specifically, Parrish pointed to two instances from the past five years that he believes led to a shift in attitudes toward LGBT issues.

In Bostic v. Schaefer, a U.S. district court ruled the Marshall-Newman Amendment in Virginia’s Constitution that defines marriage as between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2014 decision, and in October of that same year, the Supreme Court refused to take up the case. Bostic v. Schaefer legalized same-sex marriage in Virginia before it was permitted in much of the rest of the country.

Danica Roem, the first openly transgender member of the state House of Delegates, in 2017 defeated consistently anti-LGBT Bob Marshall who Parrish noted introduced “quite a number of bills to harm our community.”

“That also brought change,” said Parrish. Equality Virginia has focused some of its recent efforts on gathering favor for LGBT protections among Republicans.

Trump has banned transgender individuals from serving in the military, and Vice President Pence recently defended his wife’s decision to take a job at a school that forbids LGBT employees and students. As an entity, the GOP remains staunchly opposed to any legislation that would advance LGBT equality. Individual politicians may be changing their tune, but the Republican Party’s official stance looks to be set in stone for at least the next two years and likely longer.

Virginia Could Soon Place the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Constitution

As the Washington Post is reporting, the Virginia Senate today voted to pass the federal Equal Rights Amendment with seven Republicans joining Democrats on a 26-to-14 vote.  Now the vote goes to the far more reactionary House of Delegates where Republicans hold a one vote majority - at least until the 2019 Virginia elections in November.   The Washington Post looks at the vote:

The GOP-led state Senate voted Tuesday to make Virginia the 38th and final state to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment.

The measure passed with bipartisan support, with seven Republicans joining Democrats on a 26-to-14 vote. The measure faces tougher odds in the House of Delegates and beyond, including hurdles related to long-expired deadlines for passage. . . . . The Senate resolution now heads to the House, where comparable House legislation remains in committee.

Advocates hope they have more momentum this year with Republican sponsorship of the Senate resolution. Sen. Glen H. Sturtevant Jr. (R-Chesterfield) sponsored the legislation and joined a bus tour promoting it last year.

A piece in New York Magazine looks at the bigger picture should the House of Delegates likewise pass the ERA amendment.  Here are article excerpts:

For those of us who came of age at a time when the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment seemed as inevitable as it was overdue, the ERA’s sudden revival in the Trump era has been a marvelous development. Today the Virginia Senate ratified the amendment, which means the Old Dominion is halfway through the process of becoming the crucial 38th state — three-fourths of the 50 states — to get onboard since Congress passed the ERA in 1972.

The amendment’s language is extremely simple:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Its practical implications may depend on what Congress does to implement it, but in effect, it would serve as a constitutional backdrop to more specific protections of gender equality, and as an ongoing basis for challenging discrimination in the courts.

The ERA was long thought to be comatose, if not dead, after only 35 states ratified it prior to the expiration of a 1982 ratification deadline set by Congress. But inspired by doubts about the constitutionality of ratification deadlines, and perhaps some defiance toward the manifest pigginess of the 45th president, momentum for the ERA resumed, with Nevada ratifying it in 2017 and Illinois in 2018.

Perhaps the big shift toward Democrats in 2017 House elections in Virginia, and the strong possibility that Democrats could take control of that chamber this November, could motivate Republicans to stop their obstruction of the ERA. It’s certainly a good sign that seven Republican senators joined all 19 Democrats in voting for the ratification in the upper chamber.

If Virginia does ratify the amendment, the legal maneuvering will begin, as the New York Times noted last year:

Expect a legal showdown, intense lobbying and constitutional fireworks …

[T]he debate would be interesting, and would offer the Grand Old Party yet another opportunity to recant its abandonment, under the influence of the conservative movement, of an ancient party tradition of supporting an ERA, as Katie Kilkenny observed in 2015:

Republicans installed the first woman in Congress and shepherded the 19th Amendment through a Republican-dominated Congress in 1919. . . . .

And Republicans began putting the ERA into party platforms in 1944, and didn’t definitively begin rejecting the amendment until Ronald Reagan’s ascent to the leadership of the party in 1980.

At a time when women are repudiating Republicans at the polls to a remarkable extent, it would be a good time for the GOP to wake up and embrace equality as sufficiently central to American principles to merit inclusion in the Constitution.

Who would lead the opposition?  Christofascists who want to be able to subordinate women and angry white men fearful of losing even more patriarchy based privilege. 

Virginia GOP Hit With Major Blow in Gerrymandering Case

One of the ways in which the Virginia Republican Party has managed to retain control of the Virginia House of Delegates is through deliberate gerrymandering of districts.  Now, in a case that has been pending for a few years, the courts appear poised to order the redrawing of up to 26 districts due to their illegal, racially motivated design.  With the entire General Assembly up for reelection in November, 2019, the outcome of the case could be devastating to Virginia Republicans if 26 gerrymandered districts are redrawn.  Rather than push policies that win a majority of voters' support, the Virginia GOP has increasingly tried to suppress minority votes and when all else fails, gerrymander districts to maintain control  As a piece in Think Progress notes, that game plan may be about to totally unravel.  Here are article highlights:

Virginia’s House of Delegates is one of the most gerrymandered bodies in the country. In 2017, Democrats won the statewide popular vote in Virginia’s legislative races by over nine percentage points. Nevertheless, Republicans still held a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates, thanks to gerrymandering.

But Virginia Democrats may actually get to compete in something approximating free and fair elections next year, thanks to a pair of documents handed down by a federal court on Friday.

Both documents arise from a case entitled Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections. This case, which was originally filed in 2014, alleges that 12 of the state’s House of Delegates districts are unlawful racial gerrymanders. . . . two members of a three-judge panel eventually concluded that 11 of the state’s districts are, indeed, illegal gerrymanders.

The case is currently pending before the Supreme Court, but the Court appears mostly interested in a tangential question regarding whether the Republican-controlled House of Delegates is allowed to appeal the case. Notably, the Supreme Court did not stay lower court proceedings that will redraw Virginia’s gerrymandered maps.

In the first of the two documents handed down on Friday, the three-judge panel considering Virginia’s gerrymander also refused to stay its map-drawing proceedings.

The second document is a report by Bernard Grofman, a University of California, Irvine political scientist that the court charged with devising plans to redraw Virginia’s maps. Grofman’s report is 131-pages long, goes into considerable detail about the state’s districts, and offers a few alternative plans. The punchline, however, is that Grofman anticipates that the court will need to redraw between 21 and 26 of the state’s House of Delegates districts.

So it appears likely that a significant chunk of Virginia’s maps will look quite different in 2019 than it did in 2017. That’s likely to be good news for Democrats. While it remains to be seen what the final maps will look like, the current maps are so egregiously gerrymandered than any alterations are likely to benefit the Democratic Party.

And that, in turn, raises the possibility that the increasingly blue state of Virginia could become a haven for progressive ideas. Virginia has a Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, but Northam has thus far been hobbled by a Republican legislature. If Democrats perform as well in 2019 as they did in 2017, but with slightly less gerrymandered maps, Northam could soon find up himself with a much friendlier state legislature.

LGBT Rights Held Captive By A Gerrymandered General Assembly

Recently at a post funeral reception for a long time friend I encountered someone I had known well back in my days of a Republican activist.  We spoke and the individual at one point asked what it would take to get me back in the Republican Party.  Not wanting to be disruptive, I said that for now I preferred no not be officially a member of either party - which is technically true even though all my efforts over the last 18+ years have been working for Democrats. Meanwhile, I thought to myself that short of extended torture or some unlikely total transformation of the GOP (which would at a minimum have to include a complete expulsion of the Christofascists and a total denunciation of all things Trump), I'd never be an active Republican again.  My former GOP colleague is not a bad person, but sadly is so immersed in the right wing news bubble and social activities centering on Republican women's' clubs that she is blind to what the GOP has become.  On Thursday, LBGT Virginians were dealt a vivid reminder that today's GOP is all about hate and bigotry.  A cabal of five Republicans - two from Hampton Roads: Barry Knight and Jason Miyares - killed every pro-LGBT bill in the Virginia General Assembly.  They were able to do so thanks to the gerrymandered districts that still dominate in Virginia. No Republican has won statewide office in Virginia in nearly a decade, yet Republicans continue to hold small majorities in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates which allows them to control committees and kill progressive legislation.  An op-ed in GayRVA looks at the disturbing reality and reminds us that LGBT Virginians and progressives need to be more organized and engaged than ever.  Here are highlights:

Remember all those pro-LGBTQ bills that got introduced back at the beginning of this year’s General Assembly session? Almost all of them are dead now. In the last 24 hours, no less than four bills were killed in House Of Delegates subcommittees. What the hell is going on here?

At the beginning of this session, we were all riding a wave of positive energy. Democrat Ralph Northam won a 9-point victory over his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, to take the office of Virginia Governor with a clear mandate. The huge swing in the General Assembly further underlined this mandate, with a 32-seat Republican advantage being erased as a dozen or so Republican incumbents were defeated by Democratic challengers. Suddenly, things were almost equal, with both houses of the Genera Assembly under Republican control by a one-vote margin in each.

So what happened? In as few words as possible: the House Of Delegates happened. In spite of all the potential progress we were poised to achieve as a community, bills intended to ensure several important facets of LGBTQ civil rights were defeated at the subcommittee level, with less than a fifth of the House shutting them down before anyone else ever got to vote on them.

These aren’t just minor things, either. Five different bills and resolutions intended to cover sexual orientation and gender identity under state hate crimes statutes. . . . . A variety of bills, including Del. Mark Levine’s very wide-ranging HB 401, attempted to finally prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and a variety of other situations. Even 30th District Senator Adam Ebbin’s SB 202, which strove merely to make a permanent law of the protections for LGBTQ state employees that have been enacted through Executive Orders by the last two governors, was shot down in subcommittee in the House of Delegates — after it had already passed through the entire Senate.

In the end, this all comes down to gerrymandering, which, it appears, might be the most important LGBTQ issue of all here in Virginia. Back at the beginning of the week, at Equality Virginia’s Day Of Action, we heard from 69th District Delegate Betsy Carr about how important an issue gerrymandering is to her, and the House Resolution she’d proposed to reduce gerrymandering. At the end of the week, with all three of the bills Equality Virginia was there to talk about dead, the fact that her anti-gerrymandering resolution is still alive as yet can offer us what might be a tiny scrap of hope.

But regardless, something needs to change — something big. After a Democratic governor swept into office on a 9-point victory mandate, and over a dozen seats in the House of Delegates flipped to Democratic control, the fact that LGBTQ rights are still treated as a non-issue by our state’s legislature is reason for the joy we felt at the beginning of this session to turn to righteous fury. Maybe it’s time for a lawsuit of our own against the Virginia State Board of Elections.

[A]ll of us have representatives who need to hear a whole lot more about this. It’s our responsibility to blow these people up, to make them listen to our needs and let them know that we won’t take this sort of injustice lying down. Call your US Senator, call your Congressperson, call the governor — call somebody. You can find contact info for your US representatives at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members. Do it. Give ‘em hell.

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