Virginia Capitol Connections, 2025 Annual Magazine 25 Is the Virginia Way Over? Let’s look at the numbers By JESSE RICHMAN, DORIS ANDERSON, AND RADHA BASNET Virginia’s General Assembly has long been among the most polarized legislatures in the South, based on measures of the ideological distance between Democrats and Republicans.1 Until recently, however, that polarization had not translated into many instances of minority party “rolls” or “party votes” in the chambers. Critics had charged that this Virginia way of bipartisanship reflected “Senator Harry Byrd’s machine turned bipartisan,”2 with both parties aligned with powerful economic interests. In this article, we discuss how the historic patterns of bipartisanship changed beginning in 2020 for the House of Delegates, as the new Democratic majority pushed through major policy changes—such as a minimum wage increase and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—despite opposition from Republicans. In our analysis, we use roll call votes from the General Assembly from 1996 through 2024 to measure “party votes” and “roll rates” over time. A “party vote” has at least 90 percent of Republicans vote against at least 90 percent of Democrats. A party “roll” occurs when a majority of the party votes nay against a measure that nonetheless obtains majority support in the chamber. As Figure 1 shows, until 2020 most sessions of both chambers had few party votes—it was rare to see most members of one party opposing most members of the other party. And in every year, Virginia’s legislature had fewer party votes than the national average. That changed after Democrats regained control of both chambers and began two years of “trifecta” unified government in the 2020 session. The portion of party votes in the House climbed rapidly, followed to a lesser degree by the Senate. The change endured across shifts in party leadership. With Republicans back in control of the House from 2022-2023, the rate remained elevated compared to previous years. The same pattern was obtained when it came to roll rates, as shown in Figure 2. Prior to 2020, roll rates in the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate were low for both the majority and the minority party. The minority Figure 1: Party Votes by Chamber party was rolled less than 5 percent of the time on average (well below the nationwide average). From 2020 onward, however, roll rates for the minority party rose sharply in both chambers, indicating an agenda focused more on issues where the majority and minority parties disagreed. The move towards higher roll rates and more party reflects a shift toward the norm in legislatures—an ending of the exceptionalism of the “Virginia Way.” More partisanship and open party conflict have accompanied this shift. In 2024, Virginia had a Republican governor and Democratic majorities in both chambers, and the governor vetoed almost one-fifth of bills that reached his desk. In 1994, with the same partisan composition, the governor vetoed approximately one in thirty bills. What happened after 2020 in Virginia could mark the end of a rather extraordinary era of bipartisan accommodation. This “Virginia Way” has historically been marked by norms of gentility and bipartisanship, serving as a model of cross-party cooperation and political civility. Is the “Virginia Way” now over? Its future depends upon the choices made by political leaders and voters. 1Boris Shor and Nolan McCarty. 2022. “Two Decades of Polarization in American State Legislatures.” Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy. Volume 3, p. 356. Shor and McCarthy’s data collection effort also forms the basis for our data analyses. 2Thomas, Jeff. 2019. The Virginia Way: Democracy and Power after 2016. History Press. P. 18 Jesse Richman is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Old Dominion University. Dr. Richman's research has been published in many journals including the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, and Legislative Studies. Doris Anderson is pursuing her PhD in International Studies with concentrations in U.S. Foreign Policy and, Comparative Politics and Cultural Studies. Her work reflects a broad curiosity about how politics and culture shape international dynamics. Anuradha Basnet is an International Baccalaureate student at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, where she has served in various leadership roles, including Human Rights Commissioner for the city, Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Page, and political intern for several local campaigns. RICHMAN ANDERSON BASNET 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Party Votes in House of Delegates Party Votes in Virginia Senate National Party Votes Average 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% V
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