‘A slap in the face’: Va. House GOP forced to reject own member’s anti-abortion bill - WTOP News
wtop.com
Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates forced their Republican colleagues to take an up-or-down vote Monday on a sweeping anti-abortion bill one lawmaker called “a slap in the face” to women who have been raped or suffer life-threatening complications from a pregnancy.

So for those not following VA politics, I’ll do up a bit of a TL;DR:

Pre-Nov-2023:

  • Governor: Republican
  • Legislature: 1 house was Dem, 1 house was Republican
  • Abortion was used to try to drum up support to make both legislative houses Republican in the Nov 2023 elections (among other things)

Nov 2023 elections happen.

  • Plan backfires. Dems get both legislative houses, but Gov seat is still Republican.

New Legislative session starts for 2024.

  • Republican filed a bill to remove funding for abortions
  • Dems were like “lol no”, wanted to bring a floor vote on the bill to get votes recorded on where everyone stands on it
  • Republicans tried to revoke and water down bill, Dems were like “lol no”
  • Dems forced the bill to floor vote
  • Almost every single Republican decided to vote “no” on bill, so it failed by 97 votes (out of 100).
  • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
    41·
    5 months ago

    The Democratic majority didn’t allow Griffin to cancel his own legislation. That prompted a warning from Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, who said the body was breaking with its longstanding tradition of letting members retake control of bills that have gone “totally awry.”

    “Understand the consequences that may come home to roost for all the rest of us,” Orrock said, adding that in his 35 years of House service he was aware of just one instance that Republicans had done the same thing to a Democrat.

    I suppose this was a trade-off, then. Wonder if it will come back to bite in a future session or not.

    • cheesebag@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      Facing The Consequences of the Bill You Yourself Proposed is good actually, and should apply to both parties, yes.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        5 months ago

        You know how bugs are expected in computer programming? I wonder why this was a long-standing tradition for lawmakers - maybe there’s something I don’t understand.

        On the surface it definitely sounds whack to me, I definitely agree.