State Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, took a hard blow when he learned of his cancer diagnosis, but all of Southside Virginia took another one when he chose to resign from the legislature to focus on what he called “aggressive and ongoing” treatment.
After last month’s election, I wrote that Southwest and Southside were likely in their weakest position ever in the General Assembly. Ruff’s departure — completely understandable given the unfortunate circumstances — will weaken the region’s standing further.
Ruff was set to be second in seniority in the state Senate — only Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has more. Furthermore, he was set to be the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles the budget. That kind of well-positioned influence is hard to replace.
Ruff’s untimely exit from Richmond comes amid an unprecedented wave of turnovers, many of them induced by new redistricting maps that went into effect this year. The new state Senate will have 18 new members — nearly half of the 40-member body. Some of them won’t be completely new — for instance, Chris Head, R-Botetourt County, and John McGuire, R-Goochland County, are among those who have previously served in the House of Delegates. Still, these are 18 new senators in new positions of some sort. Plus, the Senate will be under new management. Both party leaders have retired (Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax County, and Tommy Norment, R-James City County). They’re being succeeded by Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, and Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover County.
Perhaps nowhere will all this turnover be more evident than on the Finance Committee. Of the 15 members currently on the roster, only five will be back — all Democrats (Lucas, Creigh Deeds of Charlottesville, Mamie Locke of Newport News, David Marsden of Fairfax County and Adam Ebbin of Alexandria). Ruff would have been the only returning Republican.
With the retirement of Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke (one of those departing Senate Finance members), there are no Democrats in the Senate from west of Charlottesville, or anywhere in Southside. We’ll have to wait until January to find out who fills out the Senate Finance Committee but whoever it is, consider this: The previous lineup included four members from the western part of the state, and all held powerful seniority: Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta County, and Steve Newman, R-Bedford County, plus Edwards and Ruff. Now all of those will be gone. Deeds may still count as a fifth member from the western part of the state — his new district runs south to Amherst County, but the political weight of his district is in Charlottesville. No matter how skilled their replacements may be, it will be a long time before those successors accumulate the kind of seniority their predecessors had, although the large number of new members may mitigate some of that.
The turnover in the House isn’t quite as extreme, but still historic: With the recent resignation of Del. Les Adams, R-Pittsylvania County, to seek other opportunities, we’ll have 35 new delegates in a 100-member House — so nearly half of one chamber and a little more than one-third of the other will be new in some way. Many of the people asking for directions around Capitol Square in January may not be tourists.
The back-to-back resignations of Adams and Ruff, for two very different reasons, focuses political attention on Southside in a way that it normally doesn’t get — and also highlights how few people will take part in the selection of their successors.
Adams announced his resignation on a Tuesday; by Thursday, Republicans had already picked their nominee — and, given the strong rightward tilt of that district, likely the next delegate from that district.
Ruff announced his resignation on a Friday; both parties will pick their nominees on Tuesday. Republicans, at least, knew on Friday that they’d have multiple candidates and knew on Saturday how a nominee would be selected. Democrats didn’t find out until Monday that they’d be voting in a “firehouse primary” the next day. Countries with parliamentary systems often have snap elections when the prime minister thinks it advantageous to call one, but those take longer amounts of time compared to these. The Canadian “snap election” of 2021 resulted in a campaign of slightly more than a month; here we’re talking about just days to win a party nomination in what effectively are one-party districts.
Let’s take a look at why this is.
We begin with the death of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell County, due to complications from COVID-19 on New Year’s Day 2021. Chafin represented a strongly Republican district. Then-Gov. Ralph Northam waited until March before calling a special election, which meant Republicans were short-handed during that year’s legislative session — it also meant that people in that district went unrepresented. The session ended Feb. 22; not until March 27 was a special election held.
In response, state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, introduced a bill to prevent this kind of delay, by requiring speedier special elections. For most of the year, the governor is required to issue a writ for a special election within 30 days of learning of the vacancy. However, if the vacancy occurs in the run-up to the General Assembly session or during the actual session, the governor is required to hold the election itself within 30 days.
That positioned the elections for the Adams and Ruff vacancies for Jan. 9, conveniently the day before the session gavels in. These districts will not go unrepresented the way Chafin’s district once did.
Next come State Board of Elections rules on when candidates must qualify for the ballot — that date for Adams’ House district was Monday; for Ruff’s Senate district, it’s Wednesday. From there on out, party rules govern the selection of nominees. A new law, sponsored by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, takes effect January 1 that, for all practical purposes, requires parties use primaries rather than conventions or other means to nominate their candidates. However, that law specifically exempts situations involving special elections, so would not apply here even if it were in effect.
In Adams’ district, there was some political chicanery. The Pittsylvania County representative on the district committee had the power to outvote the Henry County-Martinsville representative (because their votes were weighted by population and Republican voting strength) to set a mass meeting just two days later — in the one candidate’s hometown, and at 5:30 p.m., a time that disadvantaged supporters of Eric Phillips of Henry County. It’s about a 40-minute drive from Martinsville to Chatham — pushing an hour for some people in other parts of Henry County — meaning they’d have to get off work early to get to the meeting place. Apparently enough did because Phillips won the hastily called event.
Democrats have since come up with a candidate, Melody Cartwright of Martinsville. However, this is a district that voted 68.2% Republican in the 2022 congressional midterms and 67.8% Republican in the 2021 governor’s race, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The odds are that the district’s next legislator was picked last Thursday by the 198 people who showed up at the Old Dominion Agricultural Center.
Likewise, the odds are that the next senator from the 9th Senate District will be picked Tuesday night by whoever shows up at the Drake’s Branch Fire Department in Charlotte County, the site of the Republican mass meeting. This is a district that voted 65.17% Republican in the 2022 congressional midterms and 65.29% Republican in the 2021 governor’s race, according to VPAP.
There’s no obvious political trickery in the location — it’s more or less centrally located in the district. However, its location is more advantageous to some candidates than others. For instance, Kade Gravitt lives in Mecklenburg County, the county next door, and has been a legislative aide to Del. Tommy Wright, R-Lunenburg County, whose district includes the meeting site in Charlotte County. Likewise, the other candidates from Mecklenburg — Tammy Brankley Mulchi, Ruff’s former legislative aide, and former school board member Dale Sturdifen — and the two candidates from Halifax County — Del. Jim Edmunds and businessman/pastor Andy Ferguson — need to drive just one county over. The candidate most geographically out of luck is Danville city councilman Lee Vogler. His geographic base of Danville and Pittsylvania County is home to about 48% of the district’s voters but he’s got the furthest distance to go to get them there — it’s about an hour and 15 minutes from Danville to Drake’s Branch, further if he’s bringing people from, say Berry Hill or Dry Fork. This is a hazard unique to rural districts, which are often sprawling cartographical inventions. It’s about a two-hour drive from one end of the district to the other.
Democrats have gone with a firehouse primary, a party-run process that resembles a state-run primary in that there are multiple voting places across the district, just not the ones voters normally go to. They will have four candidates — longtime party activist Trudy Berry of Mecklenburg County and Danville Vice Mayor Gary Miller, who said Monday he’ll file his paperwork on Tuesday, the day of the vote. Later on Monday, two more candidates emerged — Brenda Rather-Holman and Tina Wyatt-Younger.
These party nominations are not explorations of policy positions; they are purely exercises in popularity and logistics — who can mobilize the most number of supporters to get to a certain place at a certain time (and then stay there through the hours of procedure and balloting). In Tuesday’s Republican mass meeting in Drake’s Branch, this might be a case where the candidate with access to the most number of church buses will win. I’m reminded of the 2016 firehouse primary in Roanoke that picked Sherman Lea as the Democratic nominee for mayor. Lea bused in many of his supporters to the Berglund Center. Even though it took hours for some people to get through all the lines to vote, his people were stuck there. By contrast, some of his opponent’s supporters left before voting because they had other obligations that day (including, it seems, an important University of Virginia basketball game to watch). The Republican event in Drake’s Branch, no matter how long, will take hours. Whoever wants to win first has to get their people there — and then make sure they don’t leave when the night goes on beyond some people’s normal bedtime.
Cardinal News will be there on the scene, so we’ll be posting results as soon as we have them, even though it might be later than our preferred bedtime, too.
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