Somewhere, Eva Scott is smiling.
In 1979, she became the first woman elected to the Virginia Senate, after eight years in the House of Delegates. She didn’t come from one of the places you might expect — progressive-minded Northern Virginia, for instance. Instead, she came out of Southside, one of the most conservative parts of the state. She was also a Republican and certainly didn’t fit the model of what one might expect. Scott was a strong opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, for instance. Still, the fact remains, the Amelia County pharmacist was the first woman to serve in Virginia’s Senate.
Scott retired after the 1983 election (and passed away in 2019). Now, 44 years after Scott first took her seat in the chamber, the Virginia Senate will see a record number of women. That number currently stands at 14 senators in the 40-member body. On Tuesday, that number will rise to 15, when either Republican Tammy Mulchi or Democrat Tina Wyatt-Younger is elected in a special election in Southside to fill the seat of state Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, who is leaving for health reasons.
The House of Delegates that takes office next week will likely see the number of women fall from 38 to 34, but that lower number is still the second biggest on record. That number could rise to 35 in the event that Democrat Melody Cartwright wins another special election next week against Republican Eric Phillips, but that district — formerly held by Del. Les Adams, R-Pittsylvania County, who also resigned — is a strongly Republican one.
At first glance, the state Senate race is notable because it will add a woman to the Senate from rural Virginia, a part of the state which historically has sent few women to Richmond. On closer inspection, what I notice is how many localities in eastern Southside have been, or will be, represented by women in the state Senate. Historically speaking, the women in the state Senate have come from the urban crescent — the House of Delegates has been more geographically diverse. Scott was an exception. She represented a district that took in all or parts of Amelia County, Brunswick County, Chesterfield County, Cumberland County, Lunenburg County, Mecklenburg County, Nottoway County and Powhatan County, an expanse of territory that stretches from Richmond’s southern suburbs to the North Carolina line.
The November election (with some help from last June’s primaries) resulted in two women winning election to Senate districts that cover eastern Southside: Republican Emily Brewer of Suffolk and Democrat Laschrecse Aird of Petersburg. With Ruff’s departure, and two women running to succeed him, you can see how much more of Southside will be represented by a woman. Soon, you’ll be able to travel from Virginia Beach to the Pittsylvania County-Henry County line and not leave a Senate district represented by a woman. If Mulchi wins, that distance will be represented entirely by Republican women.
Yes, I realize geography doesn’t vote, so this is partly a function of how big some rural districts need to be to get the right population. Still, that geography seems quite notable. Historically, Southside was the political seat of power of Virginia in the days when the Byrd Machine ruled the state. Harry Byrd Sr. may have lived in the apple country of the northern Shenandoah Valley, but Southside was where many of his lieutenants came from. Five of Virginia’s seven governors from the 1940s to the 1960s — a tumultuous era that saw the state’s Massive Resistance to integration — claimed some kind of tie to Southside. Colgate Darden grew up in Southampton County, William Tuck was from Halifax County, Thomas Stanley was from Henry County, Albertis Harrison was from Brunswick County, Mills Godwin was from what is today Suffolk (then was Nansemond County). Today, all those counties, with the exception of Henry, are about to be represented by women in the state Senate. Some of those senators will be conservative (Brewer and Mulchi, if she wins), some won’t (Aird), but either way I suspect all those Byrd-era pols would be amazed, if not aghast. Remember that the Virginia General Assembly originally voted against ratifying the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, and didn’t get around to changing its mind until 1952. Even then, one-fourth of the state Senate didn’t vote. We can only speculate why. (The 1952 vote in the House was 88-1. I’d love to know more about that one dissenter.)
The definition of Southside is quite fungible, but if we take it to mean everything east of the Blue Ridge, south of the James River and west of the Great Dismal Swamp, then, well, that’s a little misleading culturally these days because that would bring in a big chunk of the Richmond suburbs that probably don’t think of themselves as Southside at all. Indeed, some parts of Southside prefer the phrase “Southern Virginia.” If we drop out those Richmond suburbs but stick with everything else, then I count six Senate districts, three of which will be represented by women: Aird, Brewer and Tuesday’s winner in the race between Mulchi and Wyatt-Younger. The other three are seats held by John McGuire, R-Goochland County; Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg; and Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County. That’s on a par with Northern Virginia, where half of its dozen senators are women, and just behind Hampton Roads, where a slight majority of the senators (four of seven) are women.
What does all this mean? Well, honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. The actual numbers may be too small from which to draw sweeping conclusions. On the other hand, what’s pretty obvious from these maps is the absence of women in the state Senate from Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.
You’ll see from the maps that there’s more geographical diversity when it comes to women in the House of Delegates. In fact, in the previous session, there was actually more geographical diversity in the House than there will be in the coming one, with Del. Kathy Byron, R-Bedford County, representing a district in the Lynchburg area, and Del. Marie March, R-Floyd County, representing one in Southwest Virginia. Byron retired, March was defeated in a primary.
A historical irony: Most of the first women elected to the General Assembly came from the western part of the state. The first two women elected, in 1921, were Helen Henderson of Buchanan County and Sarah Fain of Norfolk. 1925 saw Helen Ruth Henderson (Helen Henderson’s daughter) of Buchanan County and Sallie Cook Booker of Martinsville elected, followed by Nancy Melvina “Vinnie” Caldwell of Galax in 1927. After those elections, the western part of the state has gone on to send fewer women to Richmond than anywhere else.
The western part of the state has not lacked for women running for the General Assembly; what it’s lacked have been women running in competitive races — but then those regions have also lacked competitive races, as well.
Most districts in those parts of the state — indeed, most districts anywhere in the state — are essentially one-party districts. That means the real contest is for a party nomination — when there’s one open, which is infrequently.
Most of these rural seats are Republican ones, so let’s look there first:
Mulchi won a party nomination that was unexpected; state Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, resigned for health reasons. Of the six candidates seeking the nomination in a hastily called mass meeting, she was the only woman.
The most contested Republican nomination last year, at least in sheer number of candidates, was in Senate District 1 in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Eight candidates sought the Republican nomination last June. All eight were men.
Four candidates sought the Republican nomination in Senate District 10, a strongly Republican district that runs from Hanover County to Appomattox County. Once again, all were men.
Only one candidate wound up seeking the Republican nomination in Senate District 3, which runs from Staunton and Waynesboro down to parts of Roanoke County and Craig County: Del. Chris Head, R-Botetourt County.
We see much the same in the open Republican nominations for House seats across Southwest and Southside.
Last year, there were open House seats in House District 41 (parts of Montgomery and Roanoke counties), House District 39 (Franklin County and parts of Roanoke County) and House District 56 (from Goochland County to Appomattox County). And then District 48 (parts of Pittsylvania and Henry counties, plus Martinsville) once Adams resigned. One of the three candidates seeking the nomination in District 56 was a woman; all the other candidates in the other districts were men.
We have been more likely to see women running for Democratic nominations. Three of the four candidates seeking the nomination for Ruff’s seat were women. The Democratic nominee for Adams’ seat is a woman. Democrats nominated Trish White-Boyd for a Senate seat in the Roanoke Valley. Del. Sally Hudson of Charlottesville lost her challenge to state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville. We could fill a long list with other names. Still, the reality is that most of the seats outside the urban crescent are reliably Republican. If we want to see more women hold those seats, then we need to see more women running for Republican nominations.
