This essay is part of an op-ed project, Cardinal Way: Civility Rules. The project is to encourage constructive dialogue on difficult issues. You can participate by offering your thoughts on this installment.
At a time when coarseness and incivility have become accepted behavior, can any institution resist this trend? With a combined 76 years of service in the Senate of Virginia, we think it is possible and required.
Our memories of the Senate chamber when we entered — and throughout most of our tenures — recall that civility was not merely expected, but required. Parliamentary standards were strictly enforced. To preclude debates from becoming personal, the use of either first or last names was prohibited, with members always being referred to as “the senator from” the locality they represented.
There were consequences for those who dared to ignore these boundaries. Senate titans like Sen. Hunter Andrews would discreetly dispose of a piece of your legislation or a budget amendment you submitted. While that might seem harsh, it ultimately ensured civil and respectful conduct among senators.
During the course of this century, the boundaries of civility have been stretched, to put it mildly. One former member of the chamber read an obscenity-laced passage during debate. Another applied a disparaging epithet to the Senate clerk while cursing out a Capitol Police officer. In the process of tirade, one senator told a citizen he “would rip his [expletive deleted] heart out.” We have even had a senator make a thinly veiled promotion for his own law practice on the floor of the Senate.
It is inconceivable to us that these serious lapses in civility, decorum, and respect would have been tolerated a mere generation ago. While it could easily be argued that those elected to serve in the Senate of Virginia are representative of our cultural tenor at this point in time, that cannot be a justification or excuse for “bad behavior” in a body entrusted with such responsibilities. Citizens should expect and demand better from those they entrust to serve.
“This ain’t the House,” Sen. Saslaw publicly pronounces when a new senator joins our chamber from the more numerous body in the Capitol’s east wing. The point is not made to disparage the House nor to reinforce the senator is now one of 40 instead of one of 100. It is instead a reminder that the atmosphere of the Senate values collaboration above combativeness and consensus over partisanship.
That culture and those values neither preclude nor prevent serious and sometimes pitched debates over legislation and policy. But regardless of the passions held by both sides in any debate, practicing civility ensures the points made are made solely on the merits.
With nearly half its members entering the Senate for the first time, the 2024 session represents a unique opportunity to restore civility in the General Assembly’s upper chamber. With the leaders of both party caucuses and the lieutenant governor representing a new generation of leaders, there may never be a better time to return to the standards that once characterized the Senate.
To achieve this goal, senators of both parties must first embrace a once commonplace practice that has fallen away: getting to know one another. Fortunately, with only forty members in our legislative body, familiarity is easily achievable. Members of the Senate used to meet and interact outside the chamber after the long legislative days had concluded. Crucially, those casual interactions were not segregated by party.
Gaining the knowledge that senators who sit across the chamber’s center aisle have spouses, families, occupations, and interests that lie beyond Capitol Square generates an appreciation and understanding of one another’s perspectives. It is much less likely you will hurl personal invectives at someone whose family you have met.
The second prescription for restoring civility may prove more elusive: restraining partisanship. While partisan instincts will always play a leading role in how a senator votes, they should not be the centerpiece around which legislators operate. The constituencies that elect the General Assembly have concerns that often cross or even transcend partisanship. Their legislators should reflect those regional priorities that often have little to do with partisan dogma.
Can the Senate be the Senate again? We think so. The debates and issues that dominated the last thirty years are no more or less contentious than those considered when we entered the chamber late in the last century. While our culture may be more coarse and less mannered, its leaders can choose to reflect our best characteristics instead of our worst.
Though elusive, civility is far from unachievable. With its long-standing traditions of decorum and mutual respect, with a record number of new senators, and with a new generation of leaders, the Senate of Virginia is ideally situated to lead by example.
Richard Saslaw is the outgoing Senate Majority Leader in the Virginia General Assembly. He is a Democrat from Fairfax County. Thomas Norment is the outgoing Senate Minority Leader. He is a Republican from James City County.
