The 19th-century German chancellor Otto von Bismarck is reputed to have said something to the effect that “the man who wishes to keep his respect for sausages and laws should not see how either is made.”
As with many famous quotes, this one may be wrongly attributed, but no matter: We all got to see a little of the sausage-making in politics this week, and the old quote is certainly correct, no matter who said it.
We’ve seen the political sausage-making two ways, from the confusion over whether Virginia had accidentally repealed all cannabis laws to the ugly drama in Maine over the Democrats’ Senate candidate there, Graham Platner, who is now out following several allegations of sexual assault (which he denied, but many believe).
These are two very different situations, to be sure, but they both let us peek behind the curtain — and, well, here’s what we learn.
Laws are often made in haste
Let’s review how the cannabis confusion arose. The General Assembly passed a bill legalizing retail sales; Gov. Abigail Spanberger sent it back with amendments, the legislature rejected those, so she vetoed the bill, saying she had concerns about some of the details. After that, she and the two legislative sponsors met (maybe something that should have happened before), they worked out a compromise and the bill was then absorbed into the state budget, which was still being worked on. That’s a practice known as “legislating through the budget,” which is frowned upon but still practiced by both sides when it’s convenient.
As we all know, the budget ran late and wasn’t approved until just days before the new fiscal year began on July 1. When some prosecutors around the state started looking at the cannabis language this week, it appeared to some that, the way the section was set up, the budget inadvertently repealed all cannabis laws starting July 1, 2026, but didn’t institute new ones until July 1, 2027 — thus creating a one-year gap where anything goes. Want to truck in a ton of ganja and distribute it to all the kids in your neighborhood — what’s to stop you? Others did not read the language that way at all.
However, there was obvious confusion. Behind the scenes, there were calls for Attorney General Jay Jones to issue a formal opinion clarifying the law. Instead, there was another fix: On Wednesday, the Code Commission simply tidied up the language to make it clear that, yes, we do have cannabis laws.
This shines a light on a part of lawmaking that we rarely see: the clean-up. Writers routinely expect an editor to review their work and point out all the grammatical mistakes or confusing passages. The Code Commission functions as the copy editors for the General Assembly, going through bills to make sure the laws really say what they’re meant to say. In this case, it was clear what the legislature intended; it was simply unclear in the language it used, so the Code Commission — much like an editor — straightened that out.
The general public usually doesn’t see this because these reviews generally happen after the governor signs bills in April and before those new laws take effect July 1. This was different because the budget wasn’t passed until June 29 and included the new cannabis law — so by the time the confusion was discovered, the law was already in effect. What might have been a routine and unnoticed grammatical fix became a statewide news story.
It also will now become a Republican talking point. Former Attorney General Jason Miyares, who would love to be the Republican candidate for governor in 2029, issued a long statement about the “debacle” — his word. “This is not a minor technical glitch,” Miyares wrote. “This is what happens when ideology outruns competence. Governor Spanberger and legislative Democrats were so determined to deliver a marijuana retail market that they didn’t take the time to make sure basic child-protection statutes stayed on the books in the meantime.” A lot of political outrage is opportunistic; some unclear language the Democrats wrote, which has now been fixed, has handed Republicans an opportunity to rail against “a government that can’t be bothered to get the details right.”
There is no vetting
We turn now from marijuana to Maine. The details of the Platner saga don’t particularly matter for our purposes today. You can read plenty about those elsewhere. One question that arises which does pertain to us is why didn’t the vetting of Platner turn up these sordid allegations? That brings us to this important point, which applies to Virginia and everywhere else: There is no vetting of candidates.
The days of a handful of party leaders sitting in the proverbial smoke-filled room weighing the pros and cons of prospective candidates are gone. Candidates who want to run do. And if voters like them, they win. Opponents may conduct “oppo research” and find ways to get any unflattering details out. Journalists may research candidates and present their findings. But there is no formal party vetting.
Often the only vetting comes from a candidate’s own consultants, who might typically ask at the beginning: Is there anything we need to be prepared for? Not many candidates, heady with the prospect of a campaign, are going to blurt out every unsavory thing they’ve done. They may not think those things will come out; they might have even rationalized themselves into believing they did nothing wrong.
Relying on opposition research and the news media is also risky because both may be insufficient. The number of candidates today is great, or greater, than ever, but the number of journalists is much smaller. At one time in Virginia, there would have been dozens of journalists covering state politics. Now the number is about a half-dozen, at best, which means there are fewer people around to ask questions. (Yes, this leads me to point out that Cardinal has a reporter based in Richmond, but as a nonprofit and a site without a paywall, we depend entirely on donations. If you want to support independent journalism, here’s your chance.)
At the risk of reopening old wounds, let’s revisit the case of former Gov. Ralph Northam and his infamous medical school yearbook. Northam ran twice for the state Senate, then once for lieutenant governor and finally for governor. That’s four elections in all (six if you want to count Democratic primaries for those two statewide offices). During all that time, apparently nobody bothered to go look at the medical school yearbook. (Who even knew medical schools had yearbooks?) You can bet that Ed Gillespie’s team is kicking themselves for not going to look at it during the 2017 gubernatorial campaign. As for my own profession, do we bear any culpability for not looking for it? Sure. However, see what I said earlier about there being fewer journalists. At some point, you do less with less. I can’t tell you that anyone would have thought to go look for Northam’s yearbook, but we were more likely to simply because there were many more of us.
Few things happen without money
Whenever I write about campaign finance reports (and we have a new round of federal reports coming next week), I always make the case that money in politics is overrated. However, I also always point out that candidates do have to have enough to compete. As long as they have that, it doesn’t really matter if they have more than the other side. What happened with Platner is that donors threatened to cut off funding. Without that, he realistically couldn’t continue.
I do take issue with Platner’s complaint that: “We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.” Platner’s trying to make it sound as if he was forced out because of his political positions. Bosh. He was doing quite well with his positions, be they right, wrong or whatever. What did him in were multiple allegations of very bad personal conduct. Parties have no way to force an unwanted candidate off the ticket, other than starving them out, which is what happened here. Of note: A self-funded candidate couldn’t be forced out so quickly. That’s both the upside and downside of self-funded candidates. They can rightly claim they are beholden to no one, which is appealing to some — but that freedom of action cuts both ways. Had Platner been a billionaire, he’d have had no incentive to leave the race other than the prospect of getting embarrassed in November and being blamed for losing a seat that Democrats think they should be able to win. Of course, if Platner had been a billionaire, he wouldn’t have been the populist symbol he became, but the point is a self-funded candidate may not always have the interest of the party at heart, regardless of which party it is.
That means Platner does ultimately make a point: Candidates without money have no realistic chance.
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