Tony Wilt, a MAGA Republican in the middle of a hotly contested re-election for his 34th House District seat, doesn’t want to have to go back to Richmond next week to do his job, which, fair.
Republicans in the U.S. House have been taking a taxpayer-funded vacation for the past two months to prevent a vote on a measure that would force the release of the Epstein files.
Doesn’t seem fair, that Ben Cline gets to binge-watch “Yellowstone” in his jammies at his home in Botetourt County, and Tony Wilt has to put on a suit and tie and go through the motions.
A preference for not wanting to do the job, that’s par for the course for folks on that side.
For some reason, Wilt’s office thought it wise to send me a press release to highlight how the delegate doesn’t want to go back to Richmond next week.
Maybe they’re used to news outlets just running their statements verbatim, with no pushback?
Quick check: just one news outlet, at this writing, has picked up on the Wilt PR.
And, not surprisingly, that outlet’s report repeated what he sent verbatim.
Wilt’s issue: House Speaker Don Scott is calling lawmakers back to Richmond on Monday because Dems want to take action on congressional redistricting.
After two decades of redistricting being controlled – and gerrymandered – by Republicans, Democrats, stupidly, agreed to a nonpartisan redistricting scheme that was ultimately approved by voters in a 2020 state referendum.
This new scheme has created districts that make no sense – to wit, I live in Waynesboro, and I’m represented by a state senator with a district office in friggin’ Roanoke, 95 miles away.
ICYMI
The guy’s office is literally a half-mile further from my house than the State Capitol is.
I don’t know how they did it, but the Rs used this “nonpartisan redistricting” scheme to continue their gerrymandering, which, again, fair.
Just like it’s fair that Texas decided to redo its districts to try to give Republicans five more seats in Congress.
And that Missouri is carving out another R seat. And that North Carolina, which is so one-sided to the R side that it has had two straight Democratic governors, is working up a plan to give them another MAGA seat or two.
But Virginia’s Ds want to fight gerrymandering fire with gerrymandering fire, and it’s a political sin.
I’m well into this column without having yet quoted Tony Wilt.
“Just a few years ago, both parties agreed to a transparent process that produced fair and reasonable legislative maps, by many independent accounts,” Wilt said in the statement. “Neither party was completely satisfied with the outcome, which likely means it was fair. Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved this process through the ballot initiative, by 65.7 percent.
“Now, Democrats are prepared to renege on that agreement in pursuit of their own political advantage, following the marching orders of Washington Democrats who continue to hold our federal government hostage, even refusing yesterday to allow pay for essential federal workers and our military amid the ongoing Democrat shutdown.”
OK, stop – fact check on the shutdown: pants on fire.
ICYMI
Democrats aren’t holding the government “hostage”; Republicans have the White House, the House and the Senate; if they really want to, they can bypass the filibuster and enact a continuing resolution funding the government without a single Senate Democrat crossing over.
They don’t want to because, that’s not the point of them forcing a shutdown.
Republicans want Democrats to have to sign on to the CR, because then, Democrats are signing on to the trillions in cuts to healthcare enacted in the Big Ugly Bill signed into law on July 4.
Rocktown Now won’t push back on Wilt on that, but I sure as hell will.
“Virginians should be clear-eyed: this isn’t about serving the people; it’s about protecting and increasing the power of the Democratic Party. If they proceed, this is a partisan power grab, plain and simple,” Wilt said, and, OK, again, stop – time for some more pushback.
I emailed the Wilt campaign for comment on the similar “partisan power grab”-type moves in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina.
They got back to me with a comment from Wilt:
“The reality is we can’t control what happens in Texas or anywhere else; we can only control what happens in Virginia. Texas still has a partisan redistricting process. Virginia moved on from that several years ago, with the overwhelming support of voters who approved a bipartisan approach. It’s a disservice to those voters for the party in power to make a knee-jerk power grab just because of something happening in another state.”
What is being left unsaid here: Virginia Democrats can’t just unilaterally enact a “knee-jerk power grab” to subvert the will of voters on the supposed bipartisan approach.
To undo the constitutional amendment, we’d need a resolution passed ahead of the 2025 election, then another resolution passed in the 2026 General Assembly session, and then a referendum in the spring, where the voters have their say, yea or nay.
The voters don’t have to go along with Dems in a spring referendum, you know – but they wouldn’t have a chance to weigh in one way or the other if Tony Wilt has his way.
Gotta wonder here: is Tony Wilt scared that the state’s voters would look at how this supposed “nonpartisan” redistricting played out, with oddly drawn districts connecting communities that have no contiguity in any way, shape or form, and also look at the partisan games being played in neighboring states by Republicans trying to game the system to keep their hands on the levers of power in DC, and say, we want a do-over?
The final thrust of the Wilt statement is comical.
“Beyond redistricting, it’s apparent Democrats are also using this special session to sideline the Republican nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, and Republican members in competitive House districts – pulling them off the campaign trail in the critical final days before the election,” Wilt said.
Ds want to sideline the Republican nominee who is losing by double-digits.
That’s the complaint.
“Finally, Democrats are desperate to change the narrative. They want to distract voters and deflect accountability from their attorney general candidate, who advocated violence against his colleagues’ children and is now under investigation by a special prosecutor,” Wilt said.
On the “special prosecutor” point: since Wilt issued his statement on Friday morning, it has emerged that the special prosecutor, James City Commonwealth’s Attorney Nathan Green, has announced that he is “unable” to take on the case, which doesn’t deal with the Todd Gilbert texts that you’ve no doubt heard about, but actually a 2022 reckless-driving case in which Jones was sentenced to community service.
If the whole “special prosecutor” thing here doesn’t feel politically motivated to you, you have no feeling.
Which leaves us with: Tony Wilt just doesn’t want to have to go to Richmond on Monday.
I’d prefer to sleep in on Monday myself.
Life don’t work that way.
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Chris Graham
