In 2017, I offered a Christopher Wren Class called “To Be A Virginian. . .” because I recognized that a lot of my friends in Williamsburg were not originally from Virginia and had little understanding or appreciation of the history, politics, and culture of their new home. I wanted people who lived in my community to be part of my community, and I felt that I could help achieve that goal by providing a broad introduction to my home state. I have taught this class two more times since then, and I have used parts of it in presentations to several local civic organizations.
Every state has its quirks and oddities, and I spent the first few minutes of the first session identifying some of these for Virginia. Here’s what I said:
Virginia is a Commonwealth (as are Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky)
This was significant historically to the Virginians who declared independence in 1776 – probably looking at the “commonwealth” (no king) during the English Civil War of the 1640s – 1650s.
It has no current significance
Voters do not register to vote by political party – so we have “open” primaries
Elections are held in odd-numbered years
House of Delegates every two years (in the year BEFORE and AFTER a Presidential election)
State Senate—every four years (in the year BEFORE a Presidential election)
State-wide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general) —every four years (in the year AFTER a Presidential election)
Virginia is a “Dillon Rule” state – that means cities and counties can enact policies only within the specific authority delegated to them by the state legislature. This means that cities or counties in Virginia can’t enact things like plastic bag regulations or sanctuary city policies unless they are authorized to do so by the state legislature. The opposite of a “Dillon Rule” state is a “Home Rule State.”
Virginia is a “Right to Work” state. This isn’t as positive as it sounds – it means that workers cannot be required to join a union, so unions are weak in Virginia, which contributes to a less-than-stellar environment for workers (see below).
Independent Cities: In addition to Virginia’s 95 counties, there are 38 independent cities in the state. Counties and cities are considered co-equal levels of government; towns are part of counties but cities are not. I live in James City County, not Williamsburg City (although my mailing address says “Williamsburg,” which is confusing). Williamsburg has a City Council, voter registrar, treasurer, and so forth; James City County has a Board of Supervisors, voter registrar, treasurer, and so forth. This map shows you what this looks like:
There are no campaign finance limitations in Virginia. Donations and expenditures for state elections are unregulated, although they must be reported. Not surprisingly, this leads to significant corruption in the state.
I then talked about the ranking of Virginia according to various criteria (I have italicized parts of this list to indicate comments I’ve added in this essay but did not make during my class):
#1 state for business (CNBC). When the current GOP governor, Glenn Youngkin, was running for office in 2021, part of his platform was to make Virginia a better place for business. It made a good campaign slogan but it was divorced from reality.
#12 state for Education (US News and World Report). Youngkin also ran on a platform to improve what he called Virginia’s failing public schools. Again, it worked – he won – but didn’t accord with reality
#23 for workers (although it is #1 in the Southeast region). It’s that “right to work” thing, which increases business profitability (see the first bullet, above) but reduces workers’ rights.
#12 in voting rights (before the Democrats took control of both houses of the state legislature in 2019, Virginia ranked #48 in voting rights). In the last session of the state legislature, Youngkin and the GOP-controlled House of Delegates tried to take Virginia back to something closer to its previous ranking. It didn’t work because the Democrats with a slim 21-19 majority in the Senate held the line.
I spent a great deal of time talking about the political evolution in Virginia. Like most of the South, it was deeply Democratic from the end of the Civil War until the 1960s or so; the “Solid South” was a major voting base for the Democratic Party until Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” focused on peeling white southerners away from this bloc. By the middle of the 1980s, Virginia was pretty “red” – Republican. But also like some other parts of the South, Virginia has become “purple” over the years. Democrats tend to win statewide races (President, Governor and Lt. Governor, United States Senators) but Republicans tend to dominate district races within the state (largely due to partisan gerrymandering).
This was a three-session (6-hour) class, so I talked about a lot of other issues as well. But I think this will do for now.
I liked that class. It was one of my first Osher classes. Well, Christopher Wren then.