FROM THE EDITOR: Bipartisanship Is a Winning Hand
Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger is taking the reins of government at a moment seemingly designed for her bipartisan style. Don't let redistricting spoil the moment.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger took to Fox News last week to bring her affordability message to the leading media outlet for political conservatives. Among her goals was this one:
We will also build on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s work to encourage companies to develop the next generation of energy technology, like the world’s first commercial fusion power plant being built right here in Virginia.
For the incoming governor to say something positive about an outgoing governor she has profound political disagreements with deserves a moment of reflection.
While politics has never been a place for thin-skinned people, and campaigns routinely move even the most-celebrated statesmen in the nation’s history to go low, there is tradition of politicians preserving respectful speech for their opposition in the public square.
Those days seem a distant memory.
Spanberger’s statement to FOX is a throwback to a better way of doing politics.
To be sure, her statement came with a healthy dose of political calculation. Having run her entire career as a staunch supporter of bipartisanship — routinely celebrating her record in Congress as the most-bipartisan member from Virginia and one of the most bipartisan on Capitol Hill — she has to convince those Republicans who didn’t support her that she intends to continue her bipartisan approach as Virginia’s governor.
Having covered Spanberger for five years now, however, that statement was more than simple political calculation. The Gov.-elect is genuinely concerned with the nature of political discourse and the negative impact it is having on our ability to govern ourselves in a truly bipartisan fashion.
Fortunately, she isn’t the only politician who understands the danger in governing like the current president of the United States, whose vile, dehumanizing verbiage is the very antithesis of the principles American democracy was founded upon.
Republicans See the Problem, Too
Following Sen. Bryce Reeves’ decision to end his run for the U.S. Senate, he spoke with the Advance about the challenges confronting his own party. First among them is finding a state leader who can put forward a more-productive message and help reorient the party’s base toward a better understanding of how government works.
“We need a leader who can go out and speak to the business community,” he told the Advance, “and [who] knows what needs to get done.” The base of the Republican Party, he said, “doesn’t understand how government really works. To govern you have to cover everything.”
In short, governing is about finding ways to work with those you disagree to find the solutions to the pragmatic problems we all face.
At least in the Viriginia Senate, that tradition seems to be holding.
At a candidates’ forum held last May in Fredericksburg, three State Senators — Tara Durant (R), Jeremy McPike (D), and Reeves — reacted strongly to Bobby Orrock, the most-senior member of the House of Delegates, when he complained that the just-completed session was “the most partisan I’ve ever been a part of” because Democrats didn’t docket every bill.
As the Advance reported, the three: “spoke as a group to say that on the Senate side the story is quite different. They noted that the Senate hears every bill, and a great deal of trust has been built up between the members. As such, Reeves said that he trusts his colleagues — even Democrats — to cast proxy votes for them. A sentiment echoed by Durant and McPike.
“We … try to [identify the] partisan issues, and take them out of the bill,” Reeves said. “I always view partisan issues as mold.” If you “don’t kill it with bleach,” it’ll kill everything.
While Orrock was unhappy with the partisan nature of the most-recent House session, he nonetheless understands the negative trajectory Trump’s nativism and dehumanizing speech has put the Republican Party on.
“Absent Trump,” Orrock said in an interview with Cardinal News, “I think we might have lost three to five seats,” as opposed to the 13 seats the party lost.
Outside Virginia, Republicans are similarly pushing back against the uncivil discourse and unnecessary cruelty evident on the national stage, and the aggressive push to poison state politics with similar rhetoric and tactics.
An excellent example of this is found in the Indiana State House which has refused to be bullied and re-district the Hoosier State mid-decade simply because Trump demands that they do so.
Do the Right Thing
Gov.-elect Spanberger has four years to prove that bipartisanship can work here in Virginia. There is ample reason to believe that she will. Her first two runs for Congress were in the 7th District that Republicans Eric Cantor and then David Brat held easily from 2000 until Spanberger first won it in 2018.
She held that seat for six years owing to a pragmatic approach to governing that placed solving problems over winning ideological battles.
For many, an early measure of Spanberger’s willingness to govern in a bipartisan manner will be how she handles the current push to redistrict Virginia mid-decade. The move is in reaction to Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri bending to Trump’s demands to force through mid-decade re-districtings aimed at stripping Democrats of congressional seats.
Of that push, Reeves told the Advance: “Nobody wants to play by the rules anymore …. We went through all of this [redistricting] with leveler heads early on, and that’s why we have the commission we have. And voters voted on it.”
For now, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger has not voiced support for mid-decade redistricting, but Congressional representative Rob Wittman (Va. - 1) recently called her out on the move, and the two engaged in a tense verbal exchange.
According to reports, Spanberger said it is something that the voters will decide.
A similar stunt was attempted in 2013 when “Republicans in the Virginia Senate broke tradition by trying to force through a mid-decade redistricting of their own in an effort to win an outright majority in the chamber, which at the time was locked in a 20-20 partisan tie,” according to a piece by David Poole earlier this month for the Virginia Mercury.
Then, according to Poole, “House Speaker Bill Howell — resisting tremendous pressure from fellow Republicans — ruled the Senate action out of order,” bringing an end to the effort.
Howell’s stance is one to admire, and Spanberger would do well to study that moment and weigh seriously the short-term benefits of re-districting vs. the long-term damage that could ensue from letting the zero-sum, nihilistic politics that Trump and Republicans in states like Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri are engaging in dictate how Virginia will conduct itself.
With majorities in both houses of the General Assembly and riding a lopsided election victory in November, Spanberger is sure to get through many of the progressive agenda items Democrats have long sought. Voters made it clear this is what they want.
Further, two of the three districts that Virginia Democrats are targeting for redistricting — Wittman’s, Jen Kiggan’s (Va. - 2), and John McGuire (V. - 5) — are well within reach without redistricting.
According to VPAP, Spanberger carried both Wittman’s and Kiggan’s districts in November. Republican Winsome Earle-Sears carried McGuire’s.
Running Democrats who, like Spanberger, campaign on constructive ideas for addressing voters’ challenges is a winning strategy.
Remember What Happened to Youngkin
While Gov. Glenn Youngkin will leave office with positive favorability ratings, his administration will be remembered as one of lost opportunities.
Rather than playing to his natural strengths — business development — Youngkin from Day One leaned into right-wing culture war issues that dogged him all four years of his administration.
While his anti-public-school rhetoric and attacks on transgendered people played well with the base, they alienated more-moderate voters. And that alienation is likely the reason Republicans never controlled the General Assembly during his tenure.
Gov.-elect Spanberger will take the oath of office on January 17 having won in a landslide. She will also have the General Assembly firmly behind her and a president in the White House who knows no bottom when it comes to insulting anyone he disagrees with, which will continue to energize Democratic voters.
The wind is at her back.
Redistricting is a headwind she, and the Commonwealth, don’t need.
For all that is going right, there are more-challenging headwinds on the horizon.
Trump’s disastrous health care policies are going to cost Virginia hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars in 2026. Thousands of Virginians are going to lose health care. New federal priorities on housing are likely to put many more Virginians on the street. And cuts to SNAP and other federal feeding programs will shift more costs to the Commonwealth.
It will take a Virginia government working in a bipartisan fashion to face these challenges.
It’s a moment made for a leader like Spanberger.
Virginia needs Spanberger to govern from her strength — the ability to lead in a truly bipartisan fashion.
Redistricting is a war that neither the Old Dominion, nor Spanberger, needs.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”