Virginia’s Democrats show how to wreck a state in – Latest News
Political execs have a saying about how our two events deal with defeat and victory.
When Republicans lose, the pundits say, they concern they’ll by no means win again; when Democrats win, they govern as if they’ll by no means have to win again.
Virginia gives proof of the maxim.
As Virginia’s Republican lawyer basic from 2022 to 2026, I labored alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin to rebuild a state in disrepair.
When we took workplace, Virginia ranked forty sixth out of 50 in post-COVID job creation.
Our colleges had been among the many final in the nation to reopen.
The homicide price had reached a 20-year high, and fentanyl overdose deaths hit new data.
People and companies had been voting with their ft: For the primary time in a century, Virginia skilled eight consecutive years of web population loss.
Commonsense conservative concepts and management modified the trajectory.
Under Youngkin, Virginia climbed from the underside tier of job creation to the high 5.
Smart fiscal self-discipline produced finances surpluses yearly, even whereas delivering more than $9 billion in tax aid.
Over $156 billion in new business investment flowed into the commonwealth, more than beneath the earlier six governors mixed.
The homicide price fell, and Virginia led the nation in decreasing drug overdose deaths as a result of we selected to work with law enforcement reasonably than in opposition to it.
Some dubbed it the “Virginia Renaissance.”
Virginia Democrats have rejected that Renaissance.
In doing so, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has managed to grow to be one of the least standard governors in trendy state historical past after a little more than half a yr in workplace.
All it took was 5 straightforward steps.
Step 1: Drive companies away
Virginia Democrats have proposed more than $37 billion in new taxes in 2026, one evaluation discovered — regardless of the finances surplus that Youngkin’s insurance policies left them.
Democrats in Richmond have enacted a sweeping payroll tax and a carbon tax, and their new regulatory burdens have elevated the efficient value of hiring in Virginia by 22.5% , the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy estimates.
Under Spanberger, Boeing, Amazon and many different firms have introduced closures or layoffs in the commonwealth.
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Step 2: Impose an vitality tax
Virginia should double its baseload electrical energy capability over the subsequent decade to meet growing demand.
The rational response could be increasing natural fuel and nuclear vitality — confirmed, dependable and reasonably priced vitality sources.
Instead, Spanberger is pushing vitality suicide by advancing an excessive inexperienced agenda centered on intermittent wind and solar energy.
Democrats are forcing ratepayers to buy “renewable energy credits” that generate no precise electrical energy — a de facto carbon tax that’s costing Virginians a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} yearly, and can quickly add up to $1 billion or more a yr.
Step 3: Prioritize offenders over victims and tie law enforcement’s arms
Under the Democrats’ “Enhanced Earned Sentence Credits” program, more than 9,000 convicted felons have been launched early, some with a long time remaining on their sentences; almost half of them have already been re-arrested.
As a former prosecutor, I can affirm that justice means accountability — and accountability means serving the sentence imposed.
Moreover, one of Spanberger’s first official acts was ordering state law enforcement to stop cooperating with federal authorities to deport violent unlawful immigrants, even these convicted of rape and homicide, placing harmless Virginians at risk.
Step 4: Undermine staff’ rights and drive unions on native governments
Virginia’s right-to-work law has been key in attracting and retaining manufacturing jobs — however Spanberger, whereas in Congress, was a co-sponsor of the PRO Act, which might have abolished right-to-work protections in Virginia and 26 different states.
Now, as governor, she is poised to signal obligatory collective bargaining laws that forces all authorities workers into bargaining items, stripping native governments of flexibility and guaranteeing property-tax will increase throughout the board.
Chesterfield County alone estimates the price to its taxpayers at $200 million per yr. Extrapolated throughout Virginia, the fiscal harm will likely be devastating.
Step 5: Push partisan politics in defiance of the state structure
In 2020, Virginia voters amended their state structure — by a two-thirds supermajority — to enact a nonpartisan redistricting course of.
Yet Spanberger, who campaigned as a pragmatic chief who would transcend occasion politics, supported an egregious partisan gerrymander beneath which the 46% of Virginians who voted Republican in 2024 would have held roughly 9% of the state’s congressional seats.
And whereas our state Supreme Court struck down the ability grab, the harm to Spanberger’s credibility was achieved.
The Virginia Renaissance was the product of principled, disciplined governance targeted on the people reasonably than the political class.
What’s unfolding now in Richmond is its deliberate undoing by the hands of Spanberger and her Democrat allies.
Now, companies and households are making their own calculations about whether or not to keep or go.
History, and the voters, will render their verdict in time.
Jason Miyares, Virginia’s lawyer basic from 2022 to 2026, is a associate at Torridon Law PLCC. Adapted from City Journal.
