Day one of the General Assembly and the Democrats wasted no time leaving their mark, with the House of Delegates approving four constitutional amendments touching on big issues: same sex marriage, abortion rights, voting rights and redrawing congressional districts.
Dr. Eric Claville, a political analyst from Norfolk State University is not surprised, "Democrats are wasting no time flexing their new supermajority. As we know,it was a historic election in November, not just for the executive offices,but also for the House of Delegates. Right now, the Democrats can move any piece of legislation Just down party lines with little if not any opposition from the Republican side, so with these four constitutional amendments that were advanced, it shows that they are moving forward with their agenda."
Another local political analyst, Dr. Jesse Richman from Old Dominion University agrees, "Well, this is a democratic trifecta, and so what the Democrats want to do, they’ll probably be able to do if they're unified. And so on these issues, Democrats were unified."
Including Dr. Richman says, on the issue of redistricting, "So the redistricting is going to have a dramatic political impact in the state potentially, depending on how aggressive the redistricting process is. So that's Important in terms of what district will you be in, what will the congressional elections look like in the fall."
Dr. Claville says this issue was driven by national politics, "Now of course we know that this wasn't an issue before the president started to pressure Republican state legislators to change their district lines in order to protect the majorities in the House of Congress. We know that right now there's a slim majority in the House of Representatives."
Another amendment, Dr. Richman believes is designed to protect same sex marriage because of what's written in Virginia's constitution, "This would undo that constitutional provision in Virginia so that if something happened to the U-S Supreme Court judgment on gay marriage, Virginia would not automatically revert to a ban on gay marriage." And while same sex marriage has been the law since that 2015 Supreme Court decision, Richman points out, "It's been legal in Virginia for more than 10 years. But, you know, think back to the example with the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Lots of states that had.....abortion had been legal in those states for decades because of Roe versus Wade, suddenly, when Roe versus Wade was overturned, the previous state laws, the previous state provisions went back into effect. And some, so some states immediately had abortion bans or almost immediately had abortion bans that came into effect."
And on the subject, Dr. Claville says that's right Virginia Democrats are pushing for a constitutional amendent to protect abortion access, "Well ,Virginia is the only state in the traditional South that doesn't have an extensive ban on a lot of abortion procedures, so therefore they see this as an opportunity to further protect these individual rights that are that they already have here in the Commonwealth."
And the fourth amendment deals with restoring the voting rights of felons who have served their time. Dr. Richman explains what's behind this effort by Virginia Democrats, "The state of Virginia is one of the most difficult states in the country for people who have had a felony conviction to get their voting rights back. A lot of states, you serve your time— once that time's done, you get your voting rights back automatically. Virginia, you serve your time, you don't get your voting rights back. The only way you get those back is if the governor specifically decides to restore your voting rights, and the governor has to specifically decide that. So this is moving Virginia practice to be more in line with where a lot of other states are."
The next steps—-these amendments head to the state senate where Democrats don't hold the same sizeable majority, but analysts believe they will still pass and if they do—then these amendments go to the voters on ballots in elections down the road.
