Story by Chris Graham

Wondering what the new Democratic Party majority in the Virginia Senate means for rural Virginia?

The chair of the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee is from Alexandria.

You know, in Northern Virginia.

Extreme

Northern Virginia.

“That was really the power shift, much more than how everybody’s focused on Republican-Democrat. It’s really the power shift to Northern Virginia and the urban areas and away from rural areas that was the big thing,” said Augusta County Republican Sen. Emmett Hanger, who had been in line to assume the duties as chair of the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee had the GOP retained the majority in the Senate on Election Day in November.

Instead, Democrats realized a net gain of four seats to build a 21-19 majority in the Senate that gave them control of a chamber of the Virginia General Assembly for the first time this decade - and allowed them to begin the process of the transfer of power in leadership in the Senate .

“I think this election really was a big shift, a bigger shift than we’ve seen in the past, in power away from rural Virginia towards urban and suburban Virginia,” Christopher Newport University political-science professor Quentin Kidd said.

“The Senate is going to be controlled - most of the key committees in the Senate are going to be controlled - by people from Northern Virginia and some people from Hampton Roads. And then I expect the next redistricting after the next census will solidify the shift away from rural Virginia. So I think rural Virginians should be on the alert for a loss of power - and I think it’s going to continue if trends look like they’re going right now,” Kidd said.

In the eyes of Creigh Deeds, whose gerrymandered Senate district stretches from the western edge of the state in Bath County across two mountain ranges to Charlottesville and Albemarle County in the Piedmont, that shift of power has been slowly occurring dating back to his first term in the Virginia House of Delegates nearly 20 years ago.

“When I came to the House of Delegates in 1991, the population had already shifted to Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads - but rural Democrats ran the committees, because they had been there longer, they had the seniority,” Deeds said.

“Control of the committees, the chairmanships, are simply a matter of seniority. We just have to deal with it,” Deeds said.

Republicans are having to deal with the change as well, certainly. Harrisonburg Republican Sen. Mark Obenshain, for one, is worried about what will happen in the area of agricultural policy now that Alexandria Democratic Sen. Patsy Ticer is the chair of the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee.

“We’ve had an effective voice for agriculture chairing the ag committee for the better part of the past 10 years with Charles Hawkins. And I was looking forward to having Emmett Hanger step into that role - somebody who’s very well-equipped to represent the interests of agriculture. He’s from probably the number-two ag district in Virginia. I represent number one. I think Emmett and past leadership of that committee has really understood the needs and interests of agriculture in Virginia,” Obenshain said.

But Obenshain agrees with Deeds that the challenge that rural senators will face in the next General Assembly isn’t exactly anything new.

“That’s not a new challenge. That’s a challenge that has been growing over the past decade. This past election doesn’t change the fact that we still have the same number of rural and urban legislators in the Senate. The party affiliation of some of them has just flipped,” Obenshain said.
“The problem is, I think we’re certainly going to see in the next several years with redistricting a further erosion of the rural voice in the General Assembly. It just makes it all the more important for those of us who are there to be willing and able to stand up and be effective spokespeople for the interests of our constituents,” Obenshain said.

A lot of this responsibility will fall to rural legislators in the House of Delegates, which is still under GOP control - which, translated, means more influence for rural lawmakers.

“The Republican Party is heavily dominant in rural areas - so the House is going to protect the rural areas and the Republican base areas. The Senate might not want to go along, but the Senate can’t do anything without House approval,” James Madison University political-science professor Bob Roberts said.

“It’s a fact that urban representatives tend to have more liberal agendas than those from rural areas,” Rockingham County Del. Matt Lohr said. “For instance, delegates and senators that come from urban areas typically support higher taxes and more government regulations. They tend to be more pro-choice. They like more restrictions on guns and hunting. Certainly they tend not to have much strong support for agriculture.

“It’s very, very important that the rural agenda still stays in the forefront of the legislative agenda - especially here in the Valley. We have certain interests that need to be continually represented - certainly Interstate 81 is one of those that we want to maintain and make sure we keep on the frontburner there,” Lohr said.

State funding for improvements to the Interstate 81 corridor could be a litmus-test issue as far as judging how the urban-rural split in the General Assembly is playing out for the benefit of rural Virginians. As Quentin Kidd points out, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads residents have been frustrated for years over the transportation-funding formula that they have long felt has sent their tax dollars to rural areas while leaving them out in the cold when it comes to transportation needs in their own backyards - “and that’s probably going to change in the next few years, I’m going to imagine,” he said. But with I-81 improvements estimated to be in the $5 billion-plus range on the cheap side, “our work (as rural legislators) is really cut out for us,” Rockbridge County Republican Del. Ben Cline said.

“One of the things that I’ve been able to accomplish by working with the Senate is to get more troopers focused on 81, and more spending on third incline lanes on 81. But now, the people in charge in the Senate are those same people who want to rewrite the transportation formula to weight it more towards urban areas like Northern Virginia and Tidewater and shortchange areas like the Shenandoah Valley. So we have to resist efforts to rewrite the funding formula for transportation in the House. It’s just going to be all the more critical for rural members to stick together to make sure our interests are represented,” Cline said.

Creigh Deeds will be working toward that end from within the Senate Democratic Caucus.

“It certainly is something that I want to ensure that the part of Virginia that is outside the urban crescent - which is all of my district, frankly, where the people that I know about the best and care about the most live - I want to make sure that they have a seat at the table. And I constantly worry whether Democrats are in control or Republicans that this part of Virginia will be left out, and I think it’s going to take vigilance on the part of Democrats and Republicans who represent rural areas to ensure that we have a seat at the table,” Deeds said.

“I think it’s up to us in rural areas, whether we’re Democrat or Republican, to remain strong and remain focused on our mission - and our mission is bringing prosperity to all of Virginia, and all of Virginia includes us in the western part of the state,” Deeds said.

Filed under: 4-January 2008 Issue