In addition to calling on Jay Jones to drop out, Democrats should also end the nonsense of a months-long ‘election season.’
he scandal whereby Jay Jones, the Democrat nominee in the Virginia attorney general race, sent graphic text messages describing his desire to assassinate a political opponent says much about our current political culture. Beyond how some describe “violent” policies to justify violent actions against their adversaries, it also reflects the practical realities of the way states administer elections.
The candidates at the top of Virginia’s Democrat ticket, gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger and lieutenant governor nominee Ghazala Hashmi, have, as of this writing, refused to demand that Jones remove himself from the ticket. One potential reason for their reluctance to do the obvious “right thing”: It would disenfranchise tens of thousands of Virginia voters.
Afraid of Losing?
On a practical — and cynical — level, Virginia Democrats might worry that calling for Jones to drop out would guarantee an electoral loss. But history, not to mention a sense of self-respect, suggests some things are more important than winning one election.
In September 1995, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., served as chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee that unanimously recommended the expulsion of Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore. The next day, Packwood resigned. A Democrat, Ron Wyden, won the special election to replace Packwood and has remained in the Senate for going on three decades since.
In acting to give Packwood the boot, McConnell and the Republican majority cost their party a Senate seat for decades. But some principles are more important than raw politics. (In reality, lawmakers should have expelled Packwood from the Senate for his lecherous behavior years, if not decades, before they finally did.) Likewise, the Commonwealth of Virginia should not have as its chief law enforcement official someone who talks in graphic detail about killing an elected official of the opposite political party.