r/politics • u/slaysia • Dec 19 '17
Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa3.7k
u/icedino Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 20 '17
Hey so this is my state and and I've worked in this legislature so this is interesting. Just a heads up: there is no tiebreaking vote for a tied House of Delegates. The Lt. Gov casts a tiebreaking vote in the state senate which is currently 21-19.
There is no written process for how to tiebreak in the VA House of Delegates. The last time a 50-50 split occurred was in 1998 and that was dealt with through a bipartisan power sharing agreement. Therefore, we have no idea who the next speaker will be. No clue which party either.
If y'all have any questions feel free to ask.
EDIT: Hey so this has gotten a lot of attention. I love my state government, so I'll definitely keep answering all the questions y'all have. However, I just got PMed a Star Wars spoiler approximately 4 and a half hours before I was going to see it, so any further answers shall wait until after that.
EDIT 2: While y'all are here, I recommend you look into the current governor of VA: Terry McAuliffe. Quite frankly, after living in this state all my life, he's who I want to run for president in 2020. He's led the state through great economic success. He's ardently protected civil rights, vetoing the most legislation of any VA governor and prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation on his first day as governor. The Virginia constitution takes away the right to vote from felons. Governor McAuliffe attempted to restore many nonviolent ex-felon's rights through an executive order, but was told no by the VA supreme court. So instead he's restored the rights of 13,000 people individually. He's pretty great.
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u/ssldvr I voted Dec 19 '17
How do you think the Republicans are feeling about now? They went from a huge majority to a tied House! That's insane. Also, is there any legislation that could be immediately impacted by this change, for better or worse?
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
Republicans are incredibly demoralized. They had a meeting before this trying to strategize in panic solely because of the Gillespie loss, so this certainly makes them feel worse. This could destroy the party.
One major way this may way change legislation is redistricting reform. Virginia has terrible gerrymandering which is part of why the GOP held a supermajority beforehand. Many of these new democratic legislators ran on redistricting reform, and there were members of the GOP before that were willing to cross the aisle on the issue. This brings this back into the realm of possibility.
The budget will be major. Our outgoing governor, Terry McAuliffe, placed medicaid expansion in his proposed budget recently. Virginia's constitution has a balanced budget amendment, so the 50/50 split will make this much more contentious and actually makes medicaid expansion a possibility for the state.
The GOP have held the majority for 18 years. That's longer than I can remember. It's hard for me to describe the change that may occur since this is the first time we haven't had Republican control in the 21st century.
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Dec 19 '17
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17
Oops! Fixed. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm hoping Northam offers to promote a Republican from a competitive district to a cabinet position, opening the seat up to a special election that dems can flip.
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Dec 19 '17
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17
It's not for the party, but for the individual. We've had it happen before to flip the Senate. It can be seen as a career boost to a candidate that narrowly won who doesn't want to deal with reelection.
Northam will likely attempt the same with the state senate. There are Republican incumbents in districts won by Clinton and Northam that could accept a promotion. The Senate also needs only one additional democrat to flip.
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u/thatgeekinit Colorado Dec 19 '17
Also it's a real job with a real salary because Delegated are only paid $17640 which is a big part of why political office is effectively closed to people who have to work to pay their bills.
The legislative session isn't all year like Congress but who can get their employer to let them furlough 90 days a year and campaign for 60 days every 2 years.
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Dec 19 '17
Virginia needs to get on the legal weed train and bask in the tax revenue.
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u/Rvrsurfer Dec 19 '17
“Oregon collected a total of $108.6 million in state and local taxes between Jan. 4, 2016, and Aug. 31, 2017.”
“Between 2014 and May 31 of this year, cumulative cannabis sales have generated $506 million in tax revenue,” Colorado
“In 2016, Washington generated $256 million in pot tax revenue.”
Schools are the biggest recipients.
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u/gooby_the_shooby Dec 20 '17
And teen use is down!
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u/RevengingInMyName America Dec 20 '17
Because they have better schools?
Also, Fuck Ajit Pai
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u/gooby_the_shooby Dec 20 '17
I'd say the use went down too early/fast to be attributed to better schools or school budgets, but I don't know of any research on the full causes. It's just clearly coincident with the legalization.
Unlike southern/midwest red states, where they decided to cut the school budgets so far schools can only afford to be open 4 days a week. I love the poorly educated! Sounds like they need some weed though.
Edit: GNU Fuck Ajit Pai
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u/Califia1 Dec 19 '17
Not only tax revenue, but forcing Republicans to continue fighting pot legalization in broad daylight will only ensure their continued collapse.
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Dec 19 '17
How did the power sharing agreement come to pass last time? Is it a standing policy or does it have to be renegotiated?
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
So what happened last time was the incumbent speaker, Democrat Tom Moss, stayed in power as speaker for those two years. Republicans then received a share of committee chairmanships and most committees were divided equally on party lines. However, due to the lack of a majority party, the House was extremely chaotic throughout that time.
What we have here in VA right now is different for two major reasons. First, the state is much more polarized now. Virginia has been a relatively moderate state for its history, and that late 90s early 00s period was probably where we were the most bipartisan. No way this happens as cleanly again.
Second, we have no incumbent speaker. Republican Bill Howell retired and didn't run for re-election. His chosen successor Kirk Cox will likely be backed by the Republicans, but a new face backed by the former incumbent part is fundamentally different from an incumbent speaker. So we have no incumbent and no clear guide for leadership. This will make the negotiations that much more difficult.
TL;DR: Power sharing agreement last time was decided between the two parties at that time. No standing policy, so it must be renegotiated, but it'll be way more chaotic this time.
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Dec 19 '17
Thank you so much! Really interesting. Sounds like it has the potential to be a total shit show this time around.
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17
Yeah, the Republicans will rally behind Kirk Cox as he was their choice for the next speaker. Meanwhile, Democrats will go for minority leader Toscano. Neither has been speaker before, so I have no idea how this will be decided.
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u/farmtownsuit Maine Dec 19 '17
What would be more valuable, committee chairs or the Speaker? I'm thinking maybe a compromise with one party holding all or the majority of the committee chairs, the other getting the speakership. That sounds like fair compromise.
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u/icedino Dec 19 '17
That's what is likely going to happen.
It's hard to say which is more valuable, since both have strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I would prefer committee chairs. Being able to decide what order legislation is presented isn't really useful is none of your legislative agenda makes it out of committee. At the same time, anything you pass out of committee can simply be pushed to the bottom of the agenda by the speaker.
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u/Lazy_Genius Dec 19 '17
Who the fuck PMs spoilers?? That’s some next level pathetic shit right there. What a fucking loser.
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u/yolo-tomassi Dec 19 '17
Holy fucking shit.
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Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
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Dec 19 '17 edited Jul 14 '18
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u/hell2pay California Dec 19 '17
Yeah it wouldn't have been possible without the other 16,XXX voters.
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u/Digitalburn Dec 19 '17
Nope just Chad, HE DID IT REDDIT!
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u/DummyMcStupid Dec 19 '17
I guess I can finally forgive Chad for just hanging around during the 2000 presidential election.
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Dec 19 '17
Super majority to nothing, f u gop.
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u/Coolthulu Dec 19 '17
Uh. So. I don't mean to rain on parades, but Virginia is gerrymandered enough that it took a historic wave to bring it back to even. How are we not fucked next election? Their whole house is up and we can't bank on historic waves every time.
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u/workshardanddies Dec 19 '17
Which is why it's so critical that the governorship went D as well. So even if it flips back, and the state Senate stays red (it might not), there will still be a veto of partisan redistricting in 2021.
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Dec 19 '17
I think they can undo the gerrymandering as long as the GOP couldn’t block them in the House.
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Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 20 '17
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Dec 19 '17
Especially in local elections when only a thousand or so people are voting. It boggles my mind that some people are dutiful in their votes for president, but don't bother to show up for the local elections where their vote carries so much more weight.
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u/MRiley84 Dec 19 '17
That's because it's a pain in the neck to find out who is running and what the election actually is. Whenever I get the card in the mail it just says where to go and "General Election". To date I've found nothing about local candidates or what it is about at all, online. As someone with social anxiety, I'm not going to walk into a building with that many unknowns.
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u/CatBecameHungry Dec 19 '17
You don't receive a voter's guide?
I know it's apples to oranges since Oregon does vote-by-mail, but we also get mailed a voter's guide which gives information about all candidates and ballot measures, along with statements of support for each and who has endorsed them. If you know which groups you agree with, this makes it really easy to figure out your position.
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u/TbonerT I voted Dec 20 '17
In my state, you’re on your own learning about the candidates. One had a website where he listed his issues. They included things like the economy, police, taxes, the military, but no position on any of these issues. It was utterly useless.
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u/sonyka Dec 20 '17
In my state, you’re on your own learning about the candidates.
Wait what? But what do you… how are you supposed to…
What the fuck?
I'm legit stunned. We get a fairly thick voter guide for every state election. Candidate statements, independent analysis of proposed ballot measures, the whole shebang. I had no idea there was variation in this. Never even considered it.Wow. What the fuck.
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u/19Kilo Texas Dec 20 '17
You don't receive a voter's guide?
These are surprisingly unpopular with the powers that be in a lot of states.
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u/Grenshen4px Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 20 '17
Motto for the future:
EVERY VOTE FUCKING COUNTS
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Dec 19 '17
Yup, because of a single vote, the GOP lost control of the House of Delegates for the whole state. I'm going to have to look up how they're going to function with no majority. Odd numbers people! Use them.
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u/Grenshen4px Dec 19 '17
I'm going to have to look up how they're going to function with no majority.
They still have the senate had the senate been up this year it would probably had flipped blue. Since they last had elections in 2015 for the state senate its going to be two years until then.
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Dec 19 '17
Right, but the House of Delegates has no provision for breaking ties. So it's possible they'll deadlock a lot and be unable to pass things at all.
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u/SuperCool101 Dec 19 '17
Or maybe they'll be forced to work in, gasp, a bipartisan manner!
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Dec 19 '17
That's theoretically why we've allowed the Filibusterer for so long in the Senate. It's not exactly been working out for us :(.
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u/socialistbob Dec 19 '17
Only if everything is straight party line votes. There will probably be a lot of people crossing party lines to get better deals. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are probably making lists right now and trying to get members of the other party to switch caucuses. Ralph Northam was actually targeted by the Republicans when he was in the VA Senate trying to get him to switch parties.
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u/bluejams Dec 19 '17
By negotiation, also known as "the way it was supposed to be"
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Dec 19 '17
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u/FirstSonOfGwyn Dec 19 '17
thanks southpark
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Dec 19 '17
VOTE or DIE!
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u/Evil_Skip_Bayless Dec 19 '17
I can see the dems bring this out in 2018 but in a very real way. Can't hurt.
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u/MaximumEffort433 Maryland Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 20 '17
thanks southpark
Rant
One of the most frustrating things I kept running into during the election was the both sides argument.
"Both sides are the same, we're just choosing between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich!"
For years I've heard that shit, and goddamn if it doesn't piss me off every time. I love South Park, and while I don't always agree with them, I have to admit that the show does a decent job of exploring current events and politics through a satirical lens. Yeah, I'm liberal as fuck, and they're libertarian as fuck, but by and large Stone and Parker are good about presenting both sides of an issue.
So imagine what folks who feel similarly about South Park think when they see this show that they like, created by writers that they respect, runs an entire episode about how voting doesn't matter because nothing ever changes. The viewers take that seriously, as a thoughtful criticism of our political system, an accurate reflection of reality seen through a funhouse mirror.
(And yes, I've heard many times that: "But they said that the Giant Douche was the good one, because douches are useful and Turd Sandwiches aren't!" If that was the moral that viewers had taken away from the episode we wouldn't be having this discussion, but that's not the moral they took away.)
I love Jon Stewart, I respect his opinion and his thoughtfulness, if he came out and told me that Democrats and Republicans were identical, were the same, I probably would have reevaluated how I think about politics. But there's a reason Stewart never did that, because he knows it's bullshit.
"Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich" I feel has done real harm to our political discussion. It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.
I love South Park, it's funny, it's smart, it's thoughtful. If one could be said to respect a cartoon show that started off with an alien shoving an entire spy satellite up Cartman's ass, then I respect the show; and the show has a responsibility to its audience to live up to that respect. Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich are so far divorced from modern politics that we might as well be talking about the whigs and the bull moose party. Douche and Turd is like having this great girlfriend, she's funny and smart, but there was that one time she wrote an op-ed about how we should burn the homeless as fuel that just never sat right with me.
Edit: Objections.
I'm seeing two main objections in the comments, and I'd like to address them.
"The episode was written in 2004, it was a different time, the parties were the same back then!"
No. Al Gore and George Bush are not the same. John Kerry and George Bush are not the same."But it's true, South Park was right, the parties are the same!"
No, the party that just let Net Neutrality die is not the same as the party trying to save it.
No, the party that has been trying to privatize Medicare for the past half decade is not the same as the party flirting with Medicare For All.
No, the party that immediately set to detoothing and neutering the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Bill is not the same as the party that passed it.
No, the party that held the middle class hostage to defend Bush era tax cuts is not the same as the party that begged to raise taxes on the top 1%.
No, the party that included a provision in tax reform to raise taxes on college students is not the same as the party trying to make college debt free.
No, the party that is trying to pass a $1,500,000,000,000.00 ($1.5tn) tax cut for millionaires and billionaires is not the same as the party opposing it.
No, the party that has spent the past eight years doing everything in their power to destroy the Affordable Care Act is not the same as the party protecting it.
No, the party that regularly and loudly speak out against the very existence of a minimum wage is not the same as the party trying to raise it to $12-$15 per hour.
No, the party that fear mongered about "What happens if a woman gets her period during a firefight!?" is not the same as the party working to give women equal roles in combat.
No, the party passing trap laws and requiring Doctors to perform medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds is not the same as the party fighting for a woman's right to choose.
No, the party that wants to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman is not the same as the party fighting to protect gay rights.
No, the party that is going out of their way at the state and federal level to make voting harder to do is not the same as the party fighting for more polling places and longer early voting.
No, the party that believes "Climate change is a Chinese hoax" and "God promised Noah he would never flood the earth again" and "Look, I have a snowball" is not the same as the party that believes in science.Still don't believe me that the parties aren't the same? Okay, riddle me this, do you know which party is which in the examples I listed above? Because unless you think that Democrats have been fighting to overturn Roe vs Wade, and Republicans are trying to raise the minimum wage, then you have no excuse for believing the "they're the same!" talking point. I didn't mention one single party name in that list, but you, dear reader, you knew exactly who I was talking about.
Yeah, there is some shit that the parties line up on, policies that both parties support like CHIP (Until this year, when Republicans let it die) or the Violence Against Women Act (Until Republicans almost let it lapse during the Obama years), or raising the debt ceiling (Until tea party Republicans almost didn't raise it), but those commonalities are father and father between, and hardly reflect the reality of modern American politics. No, the parties aren't the same.
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u/YNot1989 Dec 19 '17
No one ever stopped and said, "Wait a minute, Matt and Trey are both libertarians, no wonder they think there's no point to voting, nobody likes candidate preaching their social-Darwinist beliefs."
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u/ruffus4life Dec 19 '17
rich libertarians. they didn't have any political views for a long time.
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u/puckerings Dec 19 '17
It's easy to be libertarian when you don't have to worry about whether you'll be able to feed your family next week.
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u/Cultjam Dec 20 '17
It’s easy to be libertarian if you don’t know what lack of government regulation is like. Look into why savings & loan institutions don’t exist anymore.
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u/Occamslaser Dec 19 '17
It is amazing how many wealthy people suddenly become libertarian.
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Dec 19 '17
I’ve honestly turned on South Park for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest was their tendency to rely on the middle ground. When I was younger I thought it was brilliant until I realized that acting like both sides are the same is bullshit. Just because neither side is perfect doesn’t mean that one side is not objectively worse.
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u/pheliam Dec 19 '17
I feel the exact same way about George Carlin's old standup bits, esp. his one about "the owners" of this country and that you have no choice.
I love Carlin's work but telling millions of fans "don't vote" and "fuck hope" and all that is damaging to citizen participation on the side who generally does not want war or misogyny.
His dystopic vision has almost come to be realized, however it's not here yet. We still have the vote. It is everything.
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u/IMAVINCEMCMAHONGUY Dec 19 '17
I didn’t agree with Carlin either. Especially when he use to say that people who don’t vote have the right to bitch because they didn’t elect these politicians. One of the very few things I disagreed with him on.
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u/kilar277 Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 20 '17
This honestly speaks to a much larger issue with the show. So much of my generation (mid twenties and younger) has been inundated with this cynical "if you have an opinion you're morally compromised" bullshit from South Park since birth.
The show is funny, and smart, and has a lot of very complex ways of getting issues across, along with very not-so-complex ways.
But in terms of indoctrinating people into horrifying hiveminds of cynicism, it's right up there with Rick and Morty. It's just that South Park predates the sort of internet discourse needed to dissect something like this, so it's just a sort of constant variable for most people. South Park, imo, is innately harmful to our culture and political climate.
It's the attitudes like these that gave birth to /b/ and /pol/, and eventually the alt-right, however much it pains me to admit. I do genuinely think that shows like South Park played at least some role in creating literal 21st century nazis.
My generation is not perfect, and instead of the just usual fight upward (that is, the fight of the younger generation against their parents), it seems to be a lateral challenge as well. We're fight ourselves as well as our parents and it's becoming increasingly difficult to do either one.
Edit: spelling
Edit 2: There's actually more I want to say.
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u/dotmatrixhero Dec 19 '17
I appreciate this write up. It's important to look critically at the shows that we admire. A show can be amazing, but not perfect. And that doesn't mean we have to flip out and hate it, but it doesn't mean we should be complicit and accept everything about it either.
I think satire, by nature, will always fall short. It's much easier to find the flaws in something than it is to suggest improvements.
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Dec 19 '17
But many don't see the deficiency. The see criticism and satire as the ANSWER to the problem. Let's hope there are enough of us out there
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u/sezit Dec 19 '17
Dems don't always do good..
Repubs don't EVER do good.
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u/Dudesan Dec 19 '17
There's a difference between "trying to do good, and occasionally failing", and "trying to do evil, and occasionally succeeding".
Anybody who can't tell the difference between these two approaches has no business voting.
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u/sezit Dec 19 '17
well, I don't think Dems are always pure of heart. But I do think Repubs are 100% selfish, and any suffering caused by their cruelty is unimportant to them.
I saw a tweet the other day that sums it up: "I don't know how to convince you that other people matter."
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u/Spartanfox California Dec 20 '17
I think that's just it though.
The "both sides" crowd takes a binary look at politics. So the Republicans are definitely selfish, and the Democrats are sometimes selfish, so both sides are selfish. Same with corruption (point to the current corruption re: the GOP, someone else points to Chicago for the Democrats..."both sides"), or donors (Koch Brothers for the GOP, Soros for the Democrats, both wealthy billionaires donating to political parties? "Both sides").
It's incredibly simplistic logic that nags at another fault that seems to be pretty prominent, the inability to understand nuance.
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u/yankeesyes New York Dec 19 '17
"Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich" I feel has done real harm to our political discussion. It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.
I agree. And its smug. It's for people who don't want to take any responsibility for their vote. They just want to appear above those who do.
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u/Pyryara Dec 20 '17
Yup. Basically their stance is "let's laugh about all those people who deeply care about any kind of issue".
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u/nope-absolutely-not Massachusetts Dec 20 '17
"Both parties are the same" is the ultimate thought-terminating cliché.
The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.[17] Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis".
No point in critical analysis, as you have done, if you can end it with "both parties are the same!" I'm no psychologist, but I'm willing to bet it's a defense mechanism against having to think about harsh or uncomfortable realities. It's mental hand-waving and dismissal.
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Dec 19 '17
by and large Stone and Parker are good about presenting both sides of an issue.
They really, really aren't. They despise environmentalism and they endlessly and relentlessly mock climate change.
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u/asminaut California Dec 19 '17
South Park tends to take a dim view on most people that seriously care about an issue, no matter how legitimate/illegitimate it is. Which is one of the reasons I feel like I've grown out of it.
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u/Pyryara Dec 20 '17
Yes, this. The political stance of the show has been "lol @ anyone who deeply cares about anything" for a very long time now and it is something that makes sense when you're a rebellious teenager or adolescent, but not as an adult.
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Dec 20 '17
South Park tends to take a dim view on most people that seriously care about an issue, no matter how legitimate/illegitimate it is. Which is one of the reasons I feel like I've grown out of it.
South Park's ideology: you'll never care about the wrong thing to care about, and never care about something for wrong and stupid reasons, if you never care about anything.
It's actually vaguely nihilistic. And, for all the praise South Park gets for being "edgy", quite a cowardly attitude to have.
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u/OverlordQuasar Dec 20 '17
I used to like it, then I just kinda realized that the message of every episode is either "shut up and accept it, you can't do anything and if you do you'll make it worse" or "caring is for idiots." You can satirize political issues without telling everyone that they're all pointless.
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u/Spaceman2901 Texas Dec 19 '17
Can we set that into a tune from Monty Python? "Every vote is needed in your neighborhood!"
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Dec 19 '17 edited Jan 09 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheoryOfSomething Dec 19 '17
Christmas I like you and imma let you finish, but its the 7th day of Hanukkah and Christmas ain't even damn started yet.
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u/PoliticalScienceGrad Kentucky Dec 19 '17
Let this be a lesson to anyone who says voting doesn't matter.
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Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
11,608 to 11,607
As always, EVERY VOTE COUNTS
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u/throwaway_ghast California Dec 19 '17
My anus has puckered into singularity.
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Dec 19 '17 edited May 12 '20
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Dec 19 '17
There will have to be a power sharing agreement.
But, there is still one district in question, district 28. The Republican leads by 82 votes, there is a recount on Thursday, and there is a hearing on January 5 to decide whether there should be a special election because 350 voters were misaligned in a different district and 147 cast ballots they shouldn't have, thanks to a clerical error by a now-deceased city clerk.
If there is a special election, Democrats will start the legislative session with a 50-49 lead, which should allow them to elect a Democratic leadership for the entire session. Even if there turns out to be a tie, any effort to remove a Speaker would need majority support, which the Republicans will not have. The election will decide whether Democrats have a 51-49 lead or a tie.
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u/Eldurislol Dec 19 '17
That's given that the Dems are actually assertive with this advantage and don't let it waste away in the name of "fairness". You know the Repubs wouldn't think twice about using this small advantage.
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u/amlybon Dec 19 '17
Dems already got like 53% of the votes, the fact that it's split like that is solely because gerrymandering.
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u/emptycagenowcorroded Dec 19 '17
All sorts of archaic, long-forgotten rules can kick in..
In Canada in 2015 an election resulted in a tie and was solved by a COIN TOSS!
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Dec 19 '17
To be fair that rule isn't common up here. Most jurisdictions and the federal government call a by-election if there is an exact tie.
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u/_Reliten_ Dec 19 '17
A little-known colonial tie-breaker kicks in: pistols at dawn.
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Dec 19 '17
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u/Chance4e Dec 19 '17
We’re talking about Virginia. A state so gerrymandered Republicans typically have 3:2 voting power. This is incredible.
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u/HillarysHotSauce Dec 19 '17
I am a Republican living in a blue state (NY), in a blue city (NYC), but I still vote every election. Part of me wonders how many Hillary voters thought she had it in the bag and didn't show up to the polls last election.. could it have been enough to sway the election? Maybe.
Everyone should educate themselves on the issues that matter most to them and show up to vote every time. Don't let the media or polling convince you that your vote doesn't matter.
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u/teenitinijenni Michigan Dec 19 '17
I've seen you in a few threads in this sub, and while our beliefs certainly do not align based on your comment history, I appreciate your ability to come into a heavily liberal-leaning sub and keep the conversation civil. (Going both ways, you seem to manage to keep other users calm as much as not instigating). Pretty much a talent nowadays.
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u/HillarysHotSauce Dec 19 '17
Sincerely appreciate your comment. Would love to see more civil dialogue. Thank you.
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u/pedantic_cheesewheel Dec 19 '17
As you should. Truly HRC lost by around 100,000 votes spread across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin so yeah, I'm sure the overconfidence that she would win coupled with the feeling that so many didn't want to vote Clinton because of a hate for establishment is what did her in. Third prong to that is she pretty much ignored the Rust Belt as a whole for reasons I'll never understand.
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u/flamecircle Dec 19 '17
Well, any strategy is gunna look odd when you lose.
I don't know enough about it, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't just twiddling thumbs.
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u/crunchynutter Dec 19 '17
I look at it the way I as a brit looked at the brexit vote, people wanting change in a constant will make sure and go vote, in our case it was leave. Your case it was democrats in power so trump supporters went out made sure they voted. Where as democrats thought no way will trump win etc. Always vote.
Also remember the look on the face of friends and family who didn't vote when they realised what had happened with brexit was crazy. Now they vote in even the smallest elections held lol.
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u/VStarffin Dec 19 '17
According to Wikipedia, this is the largest election in the US to be decided by one vote since a 1910 New York assembly race, which had 41K voters. Third biggest election in US history to be decided by 1 vote, as in 1839 the MA governor's race was decided by 1 vote with 102,066 voters.
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u/Kuckucksuhr Dec 19 '17
Merry Christmas, Democrats. I will never let anyone tell me their vote doesn't matter ever fucking again.
You can probably credit this to NextGen America's get-out-the-vote effort at Christopher Newport University.
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Dec 19 '17
Everyone should vote. We should strive for 100%, or as close as possible.
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Dec 19 '17
People literally died to get universal suffrage, and people take it for granted. It's a sign of how good things were, but the cumulative erosion that was allowed by voter apathy has taken a toll. Now is the time to fix ourselves, and people, we need your votes to do it.
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u/Spaceman2901 Texas Dec 19 '17
If my chosen candidate loses in an election with 100% turnout, I will be satisfied, for the People will have spoken.
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u/balloot Dec 19 '17
You can credit this to any single person who voted in the district.
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u/Trump_Impeached_May Dec 19 '17
Power sharing in the House of Delegates is an awkward exercise. Committee chairs have to be negotiated as does the person who will serve as Speaker. With the parties split 50-50, there is no mechanism to break ties and any legislation short of 51 votes does not advance. Republicans hold a slight 21-19 edge in the state senate but with a Democratic lieutenant governor to break ties, and a Democratic governor with veto power, Republicans may be forced to advance a more bipartisan agenda.
Everything about this is so interesting to me. You don't often see any legislature (state or otherwise) split exactly down the middle.
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u/ssldvr I voted Dec 19 '17
Republicans may be forced to advance a more bipartisan agenda
Oh, poor things. Being forced to negotiate and compromise.
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u/TinfoilTricorne New York Dec 20 '17
They'll just obstruct then claim it's Democrats getting in the way.
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u/cloud9ineteen Dec 20 '17
Or with a Democratic governor, they can decide to advance no agenda and just obstruct. See Obama, Barack
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u/TheCavis Dec 19 '17
Fun fact: the same Republican incumbent beat this same Democratic challenger 57-42 in 2015.
There was also a huge uptick in turnout for both sides (6,002 to 8,140 versus 11,608 to 11,607).
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u/elmohoo Dec 19 '17
This is my district! My vote counted! I canvassed for Shelley, and everyone I talked to, their vote counted, too!
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u/socialistbob Dec 19 '17
This election was won on the doors. I imagine there was a point when you were canvassing where you considered quitting or where you considered slowing down. If you hadn't of knocked on those extra couple doors then Shelley may have lost. Good work.
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u/JadeBad Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
This is the hypothetical scenario your middle school civics teacher dreamed about when they tried to tell you why it's important to vote
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Dec 19 '17
Would've been nice if they gained a majority, but oh well. We're one more Republican sex scandal away from a blue house.
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u/VStarffin Dec 19 '17
The entire state legislature flipped on ONE VOTE. Not one legislator's vote. One constituent's vote.
One fucking vote. Has that ever happened before?
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Dec 19 '17
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u/VStarffin Dec 19 '17
Interesting. While it may be strong to say that the house "flipped", it is important that unilateral power over it was taken away from the GOP at least.
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Dec 19 '17
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u/john_doe_jersey New Jersey Dec 19 '17
GOP just went from a supermajority to a tied house and anyone that was even somewhat moderate was basically replaced by a Democrat.
It's probably gonna be a shitshow.
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u/cespinar Colorado Dec 19 '17
anyone that was even somewhat moderate was basically replaced by a Democrat.
no, we replaced the most bigoted anti-lgbt statesman with a trans woman who ran on the traffic problem.
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u/Timthos Dec 19 '17
Republicans play nice in a state that's gradually becoming more and more liberal? That would be surprising.
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u/schneidro Colorado Dec 19 '17
Last time this happened, it was pretty chaotic. Northam will have to use his leadership skills and connection with GOP lawmakers to manage this, establishing the speakership and committee chairs.
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u/appmanga Dec 19 '17
Election ties are more common than most people believe, and many times the election is then decided....by a coin toss:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-2014-elections-that-ended-in-a-tie/
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u/ShortFuse Dec 19 '17
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u/dbbk United Kingdom Dec 19 '17
I love this one from the UK's Horwich Church Ward By-Election;
Labour candidate Richard Silvester and Lib Dem candidate Gordon Stone each had 384 votes (after two recounts). The returning officer then ruled the contest would be decided on the turn of a card.
Stone's queen of clubs beat Silvester's jack of spades. (A total of 1,191 votes were cast including the final vote cast by the draw of the card. Two were spoilt or unmarked.)
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u/VStarffin Dec 19 '17
To be clear, I wasn't asking if any election has ever been decided by one vote. I was asking if a full legislative chamber has ever been tipped by one vote.
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u/Thalesian Dec 19 '17
Huge. VA hasn’t expanded Medicaid yet. If they do, 400,000 or so people could gain health care coverage & access. A split delegation could approve it.
One vote may have determined health care for half a million people
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u/MechMeister Dec 19 '17
We REALLY need Medicaid expansion. Our marketplace plans are garbage and most people cannot afford to drop 30% of their income on deductibles every year (imagine that).
IT shouldn't matter what your income is, you should be able to buy medicaid they are the only ones capable of negotiating (almost) decent fees with providers.
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u/ssldvr I voted Dec 19 '17
Today is a bad day because of the tax bill. This helps.
Say it with me: Every single goddamn fucking vote counts.
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u/Ownerjfa Dec 19 '17
Every single goddamn fucking vote counts.
Needs to be said over and over.
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Dec 19 '17
Let's hope we see some indictments this week. It would be funny if the two people who benefited from this, Ivanka and Kushner, were indicted this week
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u/harryhartounian California Dec 19 '17
Oh Lordy, I hope there are christmas indictments.
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Dec 19 '17
There needs to be before Trump tires to fire Mueller friday
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Dec 19 '17
Trump tires
Probably the one item he's never slapped his name on for a buck.
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u/kab2818 Dec 19 '17
Shout out to my elementary school Spanish teacher winning a VA house seat by one vote
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Dec 19 '17
I posted this over on the thread on /r/BlueMidterm2018 but I feel like I need to repost it here because I'm seriously at a loss for how to feel right now. This is just so insane feeling, it seems like I'm in a dream because, like, there's no way that actual political events come down to joking about being annoyed by spam...
I go to school in this district, and my roommate lives here natively. David Yancey sent us like two pieces of mail every day for a month and a half leading up to the election, and I managed to convince my roommate to vote against him just based on how annoying all the mail was.
It feels a little surreal to think that he would almost certainly have voted for Yancey if it wasn’t for both of us being annoyed by spam, and that if so it would have turned the election the other way and the Republicans would have the majority in the House of Delegates. I mean I’m sure a few hundred other people here in Newport News have a similar feeling of like “holy crap this made such a huge difference” but like... I don’t even really know how to put into words how strange this seems.
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u/Krilion Dec 19 '17
I have several friends that live in this district. Several didn't know about the election, and only voted because me and my SO told them it mattered.
I'm glad we could help make this happen.
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u/shahooster Dec 19 '17
Not all heroes wear capes. Not saying you don’t wear a cape, however.
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u/NewStallion Dec 19 '17
Hey guys, next time people argue that most people have a voter ID or can afford transportation to the polls, remember that political control of a state of 8.4 million people was just determined by a single vote.
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u/_space_monkey_mafia_ America Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
A single vote causing the State House to be 50R-50D, with the State Senate already being 21R-19D, and having a D Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
Holy purple politics, Virginia...
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u/BrokenGlepnir Dec 19 '17
I voted in this one. It's an amazing feeling to know that your vote made a difference.
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Dec 19 '17 edited Dec 19 '17
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BasicHuganomics Dec 19 '17
This should be the mantra of the Democrats going forward. Hit this message again and again and again. Where are the bumper stickers? I want a bumper sticker.
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u/Matt01123 Dec 19 '17
The Democrats need to create the largest voter registration drive in history and they need to do it yesterday. The hard counter to Republican voter ID laws is to just register voters now. Starting 2 or 3 months out from the election isn't enough, there need to be a small army going door to door in every low income neighborhood and every neighborhood with a high proportion of young people in the US from now until midterms offering to help people get ID and register.
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u/Twiek Dec 20 '17
Actually Democrats got 53,17% of the vote and Republicans only got 43,76% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates_elections,_2017) but because of gerrymandering it seems close.
Democrats got not one but more than 200,000 votes more than Republicans.
The US election system is fucked...
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u/Asmallfly Dec 19 '17
Fry, the first robot president won by exactly just one vote.
Ah, yes, John Quincy Adding Machine. He struck a chord with the voters when he pledged not to go on a killing spree.
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u/drshuffhausen Dec 19 '17
This is what you get Republicans. 2018 is going to be a bloodbath. GET OUT AND VOTE!
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u/Blue-eyed-lightning Dec 19 '17
To every person in Virginia who voted democrat: You saved the the day and are badass. You literally changed history and if you hadn't voted today, America would be in a different place. EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
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u/NFunspoiler Dec 20 '17
To those who live outside of VA its hard to emphasize how big of a deal this is. Even tho VA has been trending blue and has two Democratic senators the legislature has been dominated by Republicans since 2013. They had nearly enough to override the governor's veto. The fact that we made such a huge comeback to win the House, despite gerrymandering, is a big fucking deal.
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u/pablo95 California Dec 19 '17
No fucking way. Brace for incoming voter fraud accusations
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u/sixbluntsdeep Dec 19 '17
They lost by 12.5k in Alabama and were already claiming it. This is red meat to those dipshits
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u/CheekyRafiki Dec 19 '17
When more people vote, republicans don't get elected. 🙂
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u/MonsieurGideon Dec 19 '17
Stories like these need to be posted to anyone who ever claims they are powerless, or that voting doesn't matter. Every vote, every voice, every small act can lead to enormous change.
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u/ninemiletree Dec 19 '17
Get the fuck out and vote people.
Make your friends and family vote. Drive people to vote.
It always matters. But sometimes, more than others.