Virginia Lawmakers Approve Bill Forcing Universities To Fund Student Groups That Discriminate

By Zack Ford/Think Progress

The Virginia House of Delegates voted 80-19 today to approve HB1617, a bill that would invite any religious or political university student group to discriminate as they please and still require the campus to providing them funding and access to campus facilities. This would make LGBT students particularly vulnerable to discrimination because universities’ protections for sexual orientation are not enforceable under Virginia law. Under this bill, though, even a KKK chapter could hypothetically form, use campus resources, and openly discriminate against non-white and non-Christian students on campus.

Here’s the text of the bill:

To the extent allowed by state and federal law:

1. A religious or political student organization may determine that ordering the organization’s internal affairs, selecting the organization’s leaders and members, defining the organization’s doctrines, and resolving the organization’s disputes are in furtherance of the organization’s religious or political mission and that only persons committed to that mission should conduct such activities; and

2. No public institution of higher education that has granted recognition of and access to any student organization or group shall discriminate against any such student organization or group that exercises its rights pursuant to subdivision 1.

On most college campuses, student organizations must maintain a constitution that conforms to the university’s procedures, including its nondiscrimination policies. For example, James Madison University requires that all organizations obey the “policies, rules, regulations, and standards of the university,” such as its nondiscrimination policy, which includes sexual orientation. The College of William & Mary offers similar protections and requires student groups be open to all students.

Such policies are key because student organizations receive funding and use campus resources (like meeting spaces) that are funded by fees that all students pay; thus, all students deserve equal access to those campus clubs. Nondiscrimination policies have become a source of contention for conservative Christian student groups, like at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt Universityand New York’s University of Buffalo, who wish to exclude gay students from membership. In the 2010 case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly answeredthis question in favor of nondiscrimination policies, ruling that “all-comers” policies are viewpoint neutral, and thus are no more unfair to Christian groups than any other student groups.

Conservatives have argued, however that nondiscrimination policies allow for “hostile takeovers“ — in which students with opposing views infiltrate and assume power in the organization — but there’s no evidence to suggest that this is plausible, let alone that it ever happened. Members of an organization are still allowed to vote for their group’s leaders, even with discriminatory intent, if all students remain eligible. Any student group that can’t persist on its own merits probably doesn’t warrant use of student fees in the first place.

All 19 votes against the bill were cast by Democrats. It now advances to the Senate for committee consideration.

Virginia Senate Committee Overwhelmingly Kills Electoral Vote Rigging Scheme

By Josh Israel/Think Progress

ProgressVirginia reported Tuesday afternoon that the Virginia Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee killed Sen. Charles “Bill” Carrico Sr.’selectoral college-rigging bill, despite an offer by Carrico to amend the bill to award electors in proportion to the state’s popular vote. The vote was 11-4 against the bill, although it will not be official until the close of the committee meeting.

The bill, as written, would have awarded 11 of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes to the winner of each of the state’s 11 heavily gerrymandered Congressional Districts. The remaining two electors would have been awarded to whoever won the majority of Congressional Districts. Under this scheme, Mitt Romney would have received 9 Virginia electors to Obama’s 4, even though Barack Obama won the state by four points.

Maddow: Republicans now openly rigging elections in Virginia and other states

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

On Tuesday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow took aim at Virginia’s Republican party, which she said is using gerrymandered electoral maps to rig elections in its favor.

She began the segment by saying that as of Tuesday evening, people were still dancing in Washington, DC, in celebration of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. On Tuesday afternoon, President and Mrs. Obama greeted a tour group with Bo, the White House dog in tow. Hours later, they presided over the White House Staff Inaugural Ball, which Maddow described as “an office Christmas party if your office is the kind of office that can book Lady Gaga to entertain the guests.”

The inauguration of a president, whether for his first or second term, Maddow said, is a big deal. There were, by some estimates, a million people in Washington for the event. One of those people was Democratic state senator from Virginia named Henry Marsh. Marsh was a civil rights pioneer and now sits on Virginia’s board of state legislators.

That state senate, however, is an evenly divided chamber, 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. Republicans seized the opportunity presented by Marsh’s absence for the inauguration to redraw the state’s electoral districts, stacking the state’s population distribution in their party’s favor.

The gerrymandered map takes away one Democratic seat entirely. They could be left with only 16 winnable seats, which would potentially put them in a permanent minority on the state’s legislative board. Republicans argue that the move was justified because they created a new all-black district. The trouble is that they did it by carving a big chunk of out Marsh’s district while he was in Washington.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell decried the Machiavellian maneuvering of his party on Tuesday, but declined to say whether he would sign the redistricting bill into law should it reach his desk.

Meanwhile, Virginia Republicans are also trying to change the way the state elects presidents, using the new gerrymandered district maps to determine the state’s electoral vote distribution. Similar efforts are underway in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Florida, all states that went Democratic in 2012.

“This has very quietly and very quickly become one of the most important political stories in the country,” said Maddow. “Republicans are not in power in Washington. They control the House, but that’s it. Republicans didn’t win the last election. They don’t control the Senate and President Obama is going to serve a second term. That is the message this week in Washington.”

But away from Washington, she said, Republicans are working to use their power in the states to make it structurally impossible for Democrats to win.

She was then joined by Virginia state Sen. Donald McEachin (D), one of the Democrats who voted against the Republican redistricting plan. He said that the Republican maps are neither germane to their districts nor are they constitutionally sound.

“It’s our hope that the system will correct itself,” McEachin said, “and that cooler heads will prevail.” Should the decision reach the governor’s desk, Democrats in the state hope that he will veto it. He calls the redistricting measures “sore loser bills.”

Watch the video, embedded via MSNBC, below:

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Virginia Democrats blast ‘bigoted’ Republican delegates

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday morning blocked openly gay Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland from appointment as a District Court judge, according to the Associated Press.

Thorne-Begland received 33 yes votes and 31 no votes. All of the no votes came from Republican delegates. Ten delegates abstained and another 26 did not vote.

“In the final hours of a legislative session defined by right-wing reactionaries attempting to remake Virginia in their own radical image, Republicans in the General Assembly set a new and unthinkable standard for their backward agenda,” Democratic Party of Virginia Chairman Brian Moran said.

Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall (R) announced on Saturday that he would challenge Thorne-Begland’s nomination, calling him an “an aggressive activist for the pro-homosexual agenda.”

“After more than a week of pleading by some Republican Caucus members the House Republican leadership has so far declined to removed Mr. Thorne-Begland’s name from the block of nominees,” Marshall said in a statement. “If this situation remains unchanged, I will offer an amendment to remove his name.”

Marshall noted that Thorne-Begland has adopted two children with his male partner and has worked for LGBT rights organizations that support same sex marriage.

“As Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney for Richmond and a decorated veteran, Tracy Thorne-Begland is qualified to serve as a General District Court Judge by any conventional measure,” Moran added. “By rejecting him after a debate that centered almost exclusively on Mr. Thorne-Begland’s sexual orientation, Virginia Republicans proved that a person’s experience and qualifications are irrelevant to them if they object to whom that person is.”

“It is difficult to consider last night’s vote without using the word ‘bigoted,’ just as it’s difficult to consider this period of unified Republican government without using the word ‘disaster.’”

Virginia GOP emails zombie collage featuring Obama shot in head

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Virginia Republicans spent Monday in damage control after the state party was forced to condemn an email sent around to some of its supporters featuring a zombie collage that depicted President Barack Obama shot in the head.

In what’s clearly a Halloween-themed mailer, an image of a zombie hoard from The Walking Deadcomic books, several other pieces of zombie art including a photo of Obama supporters and a jack-o-lantern are spaced apart by the defaced portraits of President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Obama’s render, a modification of his campaign’s famous “Hope” poster by artist Shepard Fairey, is seen zombified, making him appear severely wounded. There’s a bullet hole in his forehead, and his brain is exposed.

Pelosi does not appear zombified, but her facial features are inexplicably deformed.

Both bizarre portraits were part of a mass email sent out by the Loudoun County GOP, which immediately became the subject of a post by the Republican blog Too Conservative.

“I am no fan of Barack Obama, but putting up a photo of him as a zombie with a bullet hole in his head????????????” the poster wrote. “Like him or not he is the legitimately elected the President of the United States and Commander in Chief of our armed services in a time of war. THIS IS DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL. Someone should send this to the US Secret Service.”

The email was intended to solicit attendance at a local fair. “We are going to vanquish the zombies with clear thinking conservative principles and a truckload of Republican candy,” it reads.

The Loudoun Republicans did not create either image, they simply pulled them off the Internet.

Responding to the controversy, the statewide GOP condemned Loudoun County’s actions in no uncertain terms.

“The disgusting image used today on a mass e-mail has no place in our politics. Ever,” Pat Mullins, chairman of Virginia’s Republican Party, told The Washington Post. “The Republican Party of Virginia condemns the image and its use in the strongest possible terms.”

Now, if only they could find some braaaaains.