Virginia is for takeovers: Three cheers for the Washington Post!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2013

The Post denounces a putsch: As Digby said a bit earlier, “You have undoubtedly heard about the Virginia legislature's off-year redistricting scheme which they waited to pass until one of the State Senators was attending the inaugural.

“Yes, they actually did that. They have taken a tied legislature and gerrymandered a new one with potentially a seven vote GOP majority. They're not even pretending to follow the rules anymore.”

Last night, Rachel Maddow described these events quite clearly; Big Ed did so in murky fashion. But we say, Three cheers for the Washington Post for describing this remarkable action for what it is.

Disregarding the modern rules which forbid such allusions, the Post has called this a sneak attack—and the Post has called it “a putsch:”

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (1/23/13): In a sneak attack notable more for its deviousness than its strategic acuity, Virginia Republicans engineered a bald-faced power grab Monday that would radically redraw the state’s electoral map without so much as a “yea,” “nay” or “maybe” from anything so trivial as a voter.

Taking advantage of the absence of a single Democratic state senator, GOP lawmakers in Richmond rammed through a radically gerrymandered map designed to hand them control of the 40-member state Senate, which is now split evenly between the two parties.

They were able to do so, on a vote of 20 to 19, because one Democratic senator was in Washington to attend President Obama’s inauguration. Touche, Republicans! Count that as a new low for hyper-partisanship, dirty tricks and the unaccountable arrogance of power.

The Republican move was executed in the style of a putsch...

Three cheers for the Washington Post! In her own post, Digby ruminates on the devolving political style displayed in this action.

She asks if the voters will tolerate this. In the next few days, we will expand on that question.