The This was one of the hottest topics on many blogs for the sweltering days of summer. It appeared in a number Washington Post articles, not to mention almost all other Virginia newspapers, and even made national news for a short time. Very little of the coverage was positive, although there were a few defenders.
Most of you will recall the online petition by Bryan Ault that eventually gathered around 175,000 signatures. A very big number by any accounting, but even more so when compared with the number of total voters in the last off-off year election (1,296,955). The number of petition signatures was well beyond 10% of the total number of votes cast four years ago. And these signers were angry and vowed to vote out those legislators responsible for the new law.
Despite the problem that a few Democrats supported these fees, the fees were (and are still) mostly a Republican issue pushed through by a Republican majority.
From a Democratic perspective, this looked verrry promising: over 10% of the total votes are angry at the bill's supporters who are primarily (but not all) Republicans. This alone had to be good enough to remove at least 6-7 House incumbents, right????
No.
Despite all the frothing at the mouth, the bark was much worse than the bite. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to call it a bite. More like a gumming. Oh, who am I kidding, there was a bunch of barking and then this dog ran off with it's tail between its legs.
How about some numbers to back that up...
All 100 House seats were up this year. Of those, 92 incumbents sought re-election and 8 chose a different path. Since those 8 removed themselves from the races and voters could not hold them accountable (or re-affirm support) I'll leave them out of this breakdown.
Of the remaining 92, a total 58 were unopposed. 58!!!! Instead of teeing off on this factoid and introducing a major tangent I'll simply say this: we absolutely need non-partisan redistricting. Of these 58 here's how they won:
1 Won with less than 90% of the vote
0 Won with 90% to 92.5% of the vote
5 Won with 92.5% to 95% of the vote
17 Won with 95% to 97.5% of the vote
35 Won with 97.5% to 100% of the vote
With one major exception (Albo almost losing to "write in"), these numbers indicate strong SUPPORT for the incumbents. Running unopposed means the candidate is up against "write in" - so they will certainly win but the percentage by which they win is an indicator of voter dissatisfaction. The vast majority of the incumbents won with a very high percentage (over 97.5%), meaning there isn't a high degree of outrage with these incumbents.
How about those incumbents who actually had challengers? Surely those 175,000+ outraged voters, who didn't want to be bothered with all that messy write-in stuff, could go to the trouble of voting for a challenger. Here's what happened to these 34 incumbents:
2 Lost
6 Won with less than 55%
7 Won with 55% to 60%
19 Won with more than 60%
If that isn't voter anger in action then I don't know what is. Yeah, right.
I'm not going to bother with going into the details on the Senate side. There were 40 seats up for grabs, 6 incumbents didn't run, and only 3 incumbents lost. Better, but certainly far from the major overhaul that appeared to be in the works.
The big question here is obviously: what happened? Where did all that outrage go? Did the issue peak too early and people have short memories? Maybe no one was actually angry about the abusive fees - all those signatures were from three or four teenagers sitting in a basement? Were these masses angry enough to click around an online petition but too apathetic to say it in the voting booths? Did the Democratic party (and candidates) fail to capitalize on this momentum? Did the Republicans sap the energy out of this issue by distracting everyone with the illegal immigrant issue?
This sure seems like one that got away. We hooked it and it wiggled free. In the interest of continuing our winning trend, I for one (I'm probably not alone), would love to figure out just what happened so we can make sure the next sure thing doesn't get away.
Maybe some of you have some ideas about what happened. I'm at a loss.
Rob voted for Abuser Fees and seemingly everything else that Republicans suggested (can anyone say, "Rubber Stamp"?).
Rage on December 11th. Anger management on December 12th.
The GOP did a good job of pivoting on the immigration issue in an attempt to change the subject and to give the base a reason to turn out. My surmise is that the GOP kept the House because of the diversion.
As a side note, I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that the Democratic gains came in areas of the state -- Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia -- where transportation, and the abuser fees matter in particular -- were front and center issues. Probably transportation isn't as big a get-the-vote-out issue in other parts of the state.
Some guesses anyways. In the end, not enough media exposure in the weeks before the election. Perhaps not enough coordination on the issue by the state party and local candidates. End result a good, but not great result for the Virginia Democratic party.
So, for many, it may have been that it wasn't the fees themselves--if someone breaks the law, they deserve to be punished, but that the law was not being applied uniformly to everyone. That's why I think the issue had a short shelf life.
But what happened to all those people who didn't buy that argument and were dead set against the fees? They were screaming for political blood and vowing revenge. I see very little evidence of all that energy in the outcome. I don't think they were counter balanced by the supporters (although a more detailed check of turnout rates would probably shed a little light on that matter).
Of course, it DOES affect them, just not yet.
It's kinda like people who rail against defense attorneys until they're arrested.
What's that old saying, "A liberal is a conservative who loses his job."
Many people also told me that people were talking about it at the doors.
Your point is well taken. But even saying that O'Brien lost due to the abuser fees, that makes 1 out of 126 (discounting the Did Not Runs). Perhaps we could add JMDD to this list, but that race covered a lot of ground - hard to tell how much the abuser fees impacted it.
After all the sound and fury of the summer, the fact that only 5 incumbents lost their jobs still speaks volumes about how little impact this issue had on the final outcome - despite the appearances a few months ago that it would have a strong impact.
Failure to stop at stop signs, not using your turn signal, and other minor stuff should not be subject to these high fines.
The serious flaw lies in the fact that out of state drivers and illegal aliens are not subject to the abuser fees. Come on legislators, the "fees" or "taxes" should apply to ALL drivers who break Virginia's traffic laws. If one speeds MD, that person gets a ticket, period!
If you don't trust judges or juries you impose mandatory minimums. I trust judges and juries. I don't trust politicians.
Beyond that, this is a miserable way to raise money for roads - absolutely horrible.
You're talking apples and oranges.
Based on comments on the blogs and in the petition there was a lot of confusion - and blame simply being attributed to the "other" party rather than those who deserved blame.
But I still think there is a bit of a disconnect - that the anger in July was not properly tapped. With that many angry people there should be more visible signs, either incumbents being thrown out or at least fighting tighter battles. There wasn't much evidence of that - at least in these numbers.
Which also gets back to the other point - too many uncontested battles. We really do need that redistricting and it needs to be fair for all.