By: Delegate Steve Shannon

A fair amount of press coverage this past week focused on a heated debate that occurred on the floor of the House of Delegates.  The debate began over a request of a legislator to have one of his bills withdrawn from consideration by the House.  This fairly routine request was denied along political party lines, and the debate quickly shifted to a greater discussion of changes to the Rules of the House that include no longer having recorded votes in subcommittees, allowing as few as three legislators to prevent a bill from going forward, and limiting the number of bills a legislator can introduce.  The following is an excerpt of my remarks on the floor of the House last week encouraging greater civility in public life.   

“In its rich history, the Virginia General Assembly has experienced both highs and lows.  Our members have gone on to do great things.  They are responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence and for a major contribution to the United States Constitution.  This Legislature took great steps to promote religious freedom, as demonstrated by the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, patroned by Thomas Jefferson when he was a member of our House.  This Legislature played a major role in teaching America that politics is not designed to invite public participation one day out of every two years, but rather that government requires citizen participating every day.

The late 1700’s and early 1800’s arguably was the low point of civility in public life.  That was a time in which America’s permanent two party structure was forming—a departure from the previous ad hoc majorities that tended to rule.  It was a time in which elected officials would deal with slights to their reputation by challenging other elected officials to fight to the death through the infamous duels.  It was a time in which dissenters of the party in power had to fear prosecution under the Alien and Sedition Act for speaking out against the government.  It was a time in which judges were the subject of impeachment not due to malfeasance but rather due to the party that put them in power.  I am sure that many elected officials at the time must have thought that the unabated political warfare would never end.

It is important to remain conscious of the fact that political parties and the political party caucus structure at times can have the effect of inciting passions to the point in which the most amiable of people are at each others throats.  We have to be conscious of that because of the importance of today’s issues and the recognition that these issues can only be solved if we are capable of working together.   

We are in a time of war.  Our economy is volatile.  We have parts of Virginia that experience prosperity and other parts of the Commonwealth where people struggle to find a job.  We realize that the world is more competitive than ever before, and we see other states making major investments in their higher education systems in order to compete for jobs.  Most importantly, we come to the General Assembly this year following a trail of tears left by the loved ones of the children who senselessly were murdered at one of our finest institutions of higher learning.  We recognize that at worst our mental health system is broken, and at best it is in dire need of repair.

There are two paths we can take.  We can let the political parties, so focused on what happens every two years rather than what happens in between, direct our attention to who can gain an upper hand on a daily basis.  Alternatively, we can commit ourselves to exercise restraint, not as a sign of political weakness, but rather as a reflection of wisdom and a recognition that the issues of today require that politics not operate as “business as usual.” 

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I have often heard it said in the course of discussions about arguably heavy-handed tactics by the party in power that Democrats treated Republicans unfairly when the Democrats controlled the House of Delegates.  My own view is that history will not look favorably upon our predecessors who focused on daily political gamesmanship at the expense of addressing the important issues of the day.  In fact, I do not think history will view these individuals at all.

When historians look back over the past fifteen years, I think they will observe a few things.  First, in the late 1990’s, Republicans took control of both the House of Delegates and the State Senate for the first time since Reconstruction.  Second, we lived in a time of uncertainty.  Third, a mass murder occurred at Virginia Tech.  The rest of our story remains to be written, as it will focus on how we responded to the challenges of today. 

No matter what we do, every person privileged to serve in the Virginia General Assembly can say that they served in a great legislative body.  Whether we are able to say that we served in a great legislative body during a great period in this Legislature’s history depends upon whether we can collaborate to meet the needs of our citizens, and our ability to do so rests upon how we choose to treat one another.”