Suspend your imagination and come with me for a moment to another world, an alternate universe parallel to this one, where we won our Democratic campaign for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017. Let’s imagine all the things we could have accomplished in Virginia if our tied election hadn’t ended in my name not being picked out of a bowl in a bizarre drawing of lots in Richmond, Virginia.
(As an aside, I am running again this November).
If we had won, Democrats would have shared power in the General Assembly. They would have had equal say in the committee assignments that determine what laws get passed and which ones die in committee.
With Democrats sharing power, oh so many good ideas would have percolated up to the House floor and passed. Let’s begin with the Equal Rights Amendment which would have sailed through the General Assembly in 2018. Virginia would have made history and we would now proudly anticipate the inclusion of the ERA in the US Constitution.
Also, in this alternate universe, minimum wage would have been increased. Paid family medical leave would have passed. Payday loan protections would have been enacted. No one in the State of Virginia would be allowed to discriminate against our LGBTQ neighbors in housing or public employment.
We in Virginia would be safer from gun violence. Bump stocks, which allow guns to operate like machine guns, would be banned and Extreme Risk Protective Orders would be available for those who are dangerous to themselves or others. Hate crime legislation would have passed.
For the environment, the Solar Freedom bill would have passed and there would be funding for coastal communities to adjust to sea level rise with approval of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Finally, as for voting rights, we would have passed an Automatic Voter Registration bill to encourage more people to vote. We would have passed No-Excuse Early Voting, which our local hero Senator John Miller fought so hard for before his passing in 2016. Finally, we would have fixed some of the electoral problems revealed in our 2017 recount and draw. We would have passed a bill requiring a special election in the case of a tie.
But in the end these electoral problems didn’t get fixed and these laws didn’t get passed and common-sense solutions important to everyday Virginians didn’t get out of committee. These reforms didn’t get a fair hearing and innovative ideas to help people died quietly in the committees of the Virginia House.
But here’s the really crushing part, we could be living in this alternative universe if we Democrats had one more vote in Newport News, Virginia.
If you’re as mad about it as I am, please donate and help me win by more than one vote this time.
We can’t undo the past but we can work hard in this moment to change our future and make it look more like the alternate universe where my name is pulled out of the bowl at the drawing of lots.
And we need to work in this moment to remind people of this story and why it is so essential to vote in Virginia’s elections in 2019.