The Patriot Post® · Virginia Lurches Hard Left Under Dems and Gov. Northam
On Sunday — Easter Sunday, no less — Virginia’s Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law several pieces of leftist legislation. He and the commonwealth’s legislative Democrat majority (thanks to northern Virginia’s DC suburbs) are clearly determined to turn the once-red Virginia into a leftist cesspool a la California and New York.
Included among the leftist bilge were laws eroding voter and election protections, laws lowering criminal-justice standards, laws targeting energy production in favor of ecofascism, laws aimed at inculcating social-justice sentiments at the expense of freedom of conscience and history, and laws repealing protections for the preborn. It’s clear that Northam and the Democrats are working to get as much of their extremist, individual-liberty-robbing agenda enshrined into law before voters have an opportunity to remove them from office.
On voting and elections, Northam signed into law bills that repeal the commonwealth’s voter-ID law, extend early voting to 45 days, and institute election day as a holiday at the expense of Lee-Jackson Day, a holiday established in Virginia over a hundred years ago.
With criminal justice, Northam signed legislation that decriminalizes simple possession of marijuana, and another law increases the threshold for a charge of felony larceny from $500 to $1,000. Virginia also becomes the first southern state to enact comprehensive protections for the “LGBTQ community,” banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Pushing forward the Left’s ecofascist agenda, Northam signed a bill requiring that Virginia’s power supply become 100% renewable energy (solar or wind) by the year 2050. Tellingly, there is nothing in the legislation promoting the growth and development of nuclear power. Further environmental legislation establishes a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program that will fine companies that fail to comply.
While the Democrats pulled back somewhat from their aggressive anti-Second Amendment agenda and did not pass an “assault” weapons ban after tens of thousands of pro-Second Amendment Virginians assembled in Richmond, they still passed laws further restricting Virginians’ firearms rights. As The Resurgent reports, “These new restrictions include reinstalling the one-handgun-a month ban (Senate Bill 69& House Bill 812), an extreme risk protection order/red flag law (Senate Bill 240/ House Bill 674), a duplicitous universal background check law on gun sales (Senate Bill 70 & House Bill 2), a 48-hour period to report stolen firearms (House Bill 9), and preventing those under 14 from accessing firearms on their own (House Bill 1083).”
Northam also signed a law removing protections for the preborn, which comes as no surprise given his infamous defense of infanticide.
Finally, pressing forward with the Left’s historically inaccurate and dubious social-justice agenda, Northam signed a law that gives local communities the ability to remove or alter Confederate monuments. Northam, who was exposed last year for having posed in a photo dressed in either blackface or in a KKK outfit years ago, bloviated, “Racial discrimination is rooted in many of the choices we have made about who and what to honor, and in many of the laws that have historically governed this Commonwealth.” Well, there better be no monuments erected or roads named in Northam’s honor. And here’s hoping that his name is quickly forgotten and erased from the annals of Virginia history.