Anyway, let us be more specific. Do you oppose:

(1) Creating a board to promote the state’s sheep industry?

(2) Classifying pot-bellied pigs as “companion animals”?

(3) Making it a crime to interfere with a person who is lawfully fishing?

(4) Increasing the penalty for killing a fetus?

(5) Designating English as the official language of Virginia?

(6) Making illegal immigrants ineligible for state or local benefits?

(7) Making illegal immigrants ineligible for in-state college tuition rates?

(8) Allowing Virginians to carry concealed weapons into bars and restaurants?

Digging further, I see also that Moran was a Patron of the same redistricting bills as Deeds (just in the House, not the Senate).

I suspect one reason you favor Moran appears in today’s Washington Post:

[Deeds] voted to void contracts between members of the same sex that would have provided rights associated with marriage, such as hospital visits….

While I also oppose same-sex marriage, I am far, far more opposed to the government voiding contracts, no matter who makes them. (Upon that principle also rests my opposition to minimum-wage laws.)

To which bill are you referring?

If the bill did nothing, why did the House sub-committee kill it in an earlier am session?

It is also worth noting that a stronger version of redistricting reform passed the Senate the year before – and was also killed in the House.

The commission will prepare plans and submit them as bills to the General Assembly. The General Assembly shall then proceed to act on the bills in the usual manner.

In died in the in House Sub-Committee on Elections because it was not even worth voting on.

Yeah, right. The democrats campaigned on that issue, won, and then promptly forgot all about it.

The party in power never has any interest in reforming the redistricting process.

But the overall point is correct. To paraphrase Kipling, both triumph and disaster are impostors. These things are cyclical (I favor a 16-year cycle theory) and both sides assume their surges are trends rather than peaks of the pendulum.

Partisan redistricting is about the electeds choosing their constituents rather than the constituents choosing the electeds. It’s just wrong – regardless of who does it.

This strikes me as a rather ham-fisted complaint, Vivian. Might “constituent-minded Republicans” actually be serving their constituents best by attempting to maximize their presence in the HoD? And why didn’t Democrats insist on the fairness of bipartisan redistricting during their 100+ years of ruling the GA?

The trickle-down effect of this could be nasty. For example, a friend of mine is having his judicial investiture this afternoon. He was appointed to the court and will have to have his appointment approved by the GA. If Ds lose seats, his appointment is definitely in jeopardy.

I will admit that I always discounted the tradition that the party of the sitting President loses the Virginia Governor’s Mansion. I thought it was one of those odd coincidences that just pop up in history. But the argument that it’s because the first year of a new president is often so bumphy rings true. It’s also why, historically, the president’s party loses congressional seats in the midterm elections.

Thank you for pointing out all that is at stake in this year’s elections. It should serve as a wake up call to Democrats to choose wisely in our Primary. I also believe you are right on target that the candidate may find that by November he has to run away from the national party and his strength will have to be that he is a Virginia Democrat

Thanks again for a good analysis.