Moderate-ish campaigner turned tyrannical DeSantis-Abbott wannabe Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is seeing his agenda turn to shit with Mitch McConnell-eqsue obstruction by the narrow 21-19 Democratic majority in the Virginia state Senate blocking Youngkin’s agenda on guns, charter schools, and other contentious cultural issues, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
“We made generational progress over the last two years on a lot of issues, from access to health care, to education funding, to expanding voting, criminal justice reform, addressing climate change. And those are issues that are very important to us and are popular with Virginians. We expected the new administration and House Republicans to try to roll them back, but we’re standing firm to protect that progress,” said state Senator Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, the Senate Dem caucus secretary. “When it comes to bills that were priorities of the governor, bills that were priorities of the attorney general, they seem to draw the opposition of the Democrats pretty easily… A lot of the things that we’re putting forward are finding the same fate that they found last year and the year before,” said clearly butthurt Republican state Senate Minority Whip Bill Stanley.
Dems have blocked bills to outlaw teaching “inherently divisive concepts” in schools – leaving Youngkin to push it via executive order, halting to the pending minimum wage increase to $12/hour in 2023, allowing permit-less concealed-carry of handguns, and adding new policies for transgender students in schools, among other right wing initiatives. “I’m disappointed at the partisan politics that I see being played in the Senate. Virginians are tired of this. This is why I won – to actually get things done,” said a cranky Youngkin on Friday. Thoughts and prayers.