House Democrats

Showing: 1 - 9 of 9 Articles
Featured News

House Democrats Refuse Bipartisan Hearing For Sexual Assault Survivors In Reconvened Session

During the Virginia General Assembly’s reconvened session on Wednesday, a Republican lawmaker in the House of Delegates made a final push to convince House Democrats to grant the two women accusing Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax (D) of sexual assault and rape a bipartisan legislative hearing. The move came just days after Dr. Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Wilson gave heart-wrenching accounts of their incidents with Fairfax in nationally-televised interviews.

Both women have repeatedly requested both sides of the aisle in the statehouse to simply listen to their stories. However, Democrats have blocked every single proposal.

House Republicans have worked since February towards a bipartisan plan of action to give the two accusers an opportunity for a hearing, which would also grant due process to Fairfax. House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) explained that the legislature was set to “establish a bipartisan subcommittee of the House Courts Committee with an equal number of members from both parties.”

Chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee Rob Bell (R-Albemarle) sent a letter to House Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax), which set specific parameters for the bipartisan hearing. In her letter back to Delegate Bell, Delegate Filler-Corn stated the Democratic Party is “concerned that enacting the plan that you [Delegate Bell] have proposed would establish an ill-defined precedent for the future, which could be abused,” deferring to pursue a “third party entity” to conduct the hearing.

In a statement, Speaker Cox said, “There should be no mistake about what has happened here: the alleged victims are seeking a bipartisan hearing; Republicans are seeking a bipartisan hearing; Democrats in the House of Delegates are refusing to allow that to happen.”

When the House met in Richmond on Wednesday, Delegate Bell offered to convene an emergency Courts of Justice Committee meeting to listen to any path forward proposed by Democrats.

“They want a chance to be heard,” Bell said of Tyson and Watson. “If there is anything you would say yes to, then let’s do it,” he added, offering for the committee to meet just minutes after a recess.

“Don’t let this day end. We can make this happen, just say yes,” he pleaded.

Regardless, House Democrats refused.

“This is good news for Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, but a bad day for sexual assault survivors who simply want their chance to be heard,” said Delegate Bell.

Featured News

House Democrat Slams Own Party’s Redistricting Plan As A Self-Serving Political Power Grab

This week, Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates rolled out their proposed changes to the boundary lines of 29 legislative districts after a federal court ruled that House districts in the Richmond metro area and in Hampton roads were “racially gerrymandered.” Following the release, Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Page) railed against the Democratic plan saying “it’s clear that this is [a] hypocritical partisan power grab that would fail to pass legal muster.”

On Thursday, Delegate Stephen Heretick (D-Portsmouth) took to the House floor during the special session in Richmond, not to fight against the claims of Republicans, but to uphold them.

“Over the past several weeks, too many backroom conversations about redistricting have been held, out of the public eye, and with no transparency whatsoever,” Heretick said.

The delegate said that situations surrounding the Democratic-led re-drawing of the state’s districts exudes the “time dishonored tradition of gerrymandering districts, that allows politicians to pick their constituents, not the other way around.”

People are “fed up with corrupt political culture,” he proclaimed.

Heretick explained that House legislators must “lead the commonwealth out of this gutter…as we approach our 400th anniversary as a legislature.”

Elected in 2015, Heretick was endorsed by OneVirginia2021, a non-profit organization advocating for a non-partisan redistricting in Virginia. Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) was also endorsed by the group.

Speaking on the necessity to put constituents ahead of politics, Heretick added that the statehouse must “act without more partisan rancor to demonstrate to this nation, to this Commonwealth, and to each citizen we serve – by our actions and not more mere empty words – what we actually mean by the ‘Virginia Way.'”

Heretick said: “We have the opportunity to carve out a legacy which will stand as a shining testimony to the power of what good men and women – on both sides of the aisle – can do when they put this Commonwealth ahead of petty, partisan politics.”

The Hampton Roads area representative then charged to Speaker of the House Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) that the redistricting plan forward by Democrats is, in fact, the “hypocritical partisan power grab” that Gilbert spoke of just days before.

“Mr. Speaker, the proposed redistricting map we’ve seen today goes well beyond anything that the federal court has directed us to do – it’s [a] self-serving, political power grab. It’s gerrymandering in response to gerrymandering. It’s tit-for-tat. It’s, in the immortal words of baseball great Yogi Berra, ‘it is deja vu all over again.'” 

He added, “It doesn’t settle any scores, it creates new ones.”

For Heretick, a “non-partisan, independent redistricting” plan is needed to better represent the legislative map that governs politics and policy in Virginia.

“The time has come to finally bury this dinosaur of political corruption we all know as gerrymandering,” he said.

Alluding to similar sentiment within the Democratic caucus, Heretick said that “there are many on my side that feel as I do and are ready to stand for this principal over politics.”

Ending his speech on the floor, the Portsmouth delegate said the state legislature needs to “finally, finally make the monumental patriotic act of looking gerrymandering squarely in the eye – calling it out for what it truly is – and establishing genuine redistricting reform, and drawing districts that actually serve the Commonwealths of the citizens of Virginia.”