Virginia and the Color Purple

Virginians are facing some tough battles this year, and it didn’t have to be that way.

Republican leaders are getting heat for two votes taken on June 13 at the Republican Party of Virginia State Central Committee meeting. That’s not fair. They should take heat for the fact that neither of them should have been necessary.

The first was what to do with the accusations that the Lynchburg Republican Committee had violated the law, and the second was whether to issue a Resolution Opposing the three constitutional amendments on the ballot in November.

First, at the risk of challenging “watching grass grow” for your attention, I’m going to give you more background than the press (and social media posts) are putting out there about the Lynchburg situation and then show you why it should not have been necessary.

The State Central Committee voted to dissolve the Lynchburg Republican Committee and invalidate their firehouse primary for city council. Yes, that is an extreme measure.

It comes in the wake of Attorney General Jay Jones launching an investigation into the firehouse primary the unit held. The AG’s letter states that, “The OAG has reviewed allegations that the LRCC implemented an inadequate absentee ballot process for the primary and that certain protected voters were excluded from participating in the election.”

The AG is not looking into whether political parties can hold firehouse primaries, as some have suggested; they are looking into allegations by Republicans who were kept from participating in this one. City Councilor Chris Faraldi told WFXR-TV that some of the issues come down to establishing email ballots. “When you consider the implications of fraud, of cheating, just with that fact alone that was determined.” This is where the Republican State Central Committee comes in.

They voted 55-17 to declare the results invalid, disband the committee, and bar the leadership from returning for the rest of the term. The exception was Steven “Doc” Troxel, who was commended for trying to run a fair process.

So, how would this have been avoided? The blame lies with the “Convention Ban” that was passed during the COVID lockdowns. It was called HB2020 before it got its catchy name “The Convention Ban,” and the vote in the House of Delegates was 53-44, with all Republicans voting “nay.”

Here’s the avoidable part: in the 2019 general election, the GOP lost the majority in the House. Democrats flipped Districts 28, 40, 76, 83, 91, and 94, and only eight races saw higher than a 50% voter turnout.

Two of those flipped seats were open, and the other four Republican incumbents were ousted with most of the district voters sitting it out: Tim Hugo (HD-40, to Dan Helmer, turnout 49.5%), Chris Jones (HD-76, to Clint Jenkins, 44.3%), Christopher Stolle (HD-83, to Nancy Guy, 40.3%), and David Yancey (HD-94, to Shelly Simonds, 38.8%).

Because this was also the year that 12 Virginia Beach employees were killed by a co-worker, gun-control advocates like Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown for Gun Safety” sent $573,000 alone to flip these seats. (Doesn’t sound like much by today’s standards, but it was a lot then.) Democrats also knew that this would be the Assembly that would finally wrest political districts from partisan assembly members (ironic, huh?).

Regardless, there were lots of votes left uncast, and at least some of those might have been Republicans (sarcasm).

The other State Central vote Saturday was the one that established a party position against the three constitutional amendments—amendments that flew through the General Assembly because Democrats flipped 14 House seats. Yes, those elections had low turnouts, too.

House District 30: John McAuliff ousted Geary Higgins by 900 votes. Mark Downey defeated Chad Green by 1,300, and Bobby Orrock was sent home by 1,500. Much was made of the millions of dollars that were poured into them from outside Virginia on behalf of Democrats. Hearing of all those dollars coming in became a great way to get GOP voters to “self-suppress.”

Sure, the amendments can be stopped, but it would have been easier to stop them before they got started.

An EMS worker would tell you that if someone is turning purple, it means that they are being choked of oxygen. A state turns purple due to a lack of political oxygen getting to the “red” blood cells.

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