Black state lawmaker shares deep frustrations with her own party
RICHMOND —
The Democratic state senator who almost helped Republicans win a bitter
judicial-nomination battle this week said she rebelled against Gov.
Terry McAuliffe and his allies because she believes that leaders of her
party have ignored black lawmakers’ concerns. Sen. L. Louise Lucas (Portsmouth) said her short-lived alliance with the GOP had little to do with who sits on the bench.
Instead,
she said, her move grew out of long-simmering grievances with fellow
Senate Democrats, who she said have passed over black senators for key
committee slots, taken their votes for granted, and left them to fend
for themselves in partisan and personal battles with Republicans.
“I’m
getting tired of being treated like I’m invisible,” Lucas said in an
emotional interview with The Washington Post and the Virginian-Pilot.
“It’s always just, ‘You sit there and you be good, and just vote with us
and we’ll take care of you.’ Well, I didn’t get elected to do that.”
Senate
Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said he has pushed hard
for Lucas and the rest of the black caucus while juggling many other
responsibilities.
“It’s no state secret — I can be a little
insensitive from time to time,” Saslaw said. “Sometimes people feel
ignored. . . . [But] I have an impeccable civil rights voting record.
I’ve done a lot of things behind the scenes, prevented a lot of bad
things from happening. Sometimes, people don’t see that.”
Lucas’s
brief break from the Democrats ultimately did not affect Richmond’s
protracted tug of war over a Supreme Court slot, which is back to a
stalemate. But the incident exposed a painful racial fissure within the
Democratic caucus. The rift comes at a particularly awkward time for
McAuliffe (D), who is trying to persuade the same minority-heavy
coalition that twice played a key role in electing President Obama to
back the governor’s close friend Hillary Clinton in the March 1
presidential primary.
Yet there was some upside for McAuliffe,
too. Lucas credited him for taking her complaints seriously and
summoning party leaders to his office Wednesday in an attempt to work
them out. He also talked Lucas out of helping the GOP replace his pick
for the high court, at least temporarily heading off a humiliating loss.
Part
of her frustration with Saslaw, Lucas said, comes from what she called
an unwillingness to help resolve a long-running battle between her and
Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City). She
described Saslaw’s relationship with Norment as “cozy, cozy.”
In
explaining the underlying beef with Norment, Lucas described a profane
verbal clash that took place three years ago in a private lounge just
off the ornate Senate floor. She also recalled a fight in another Senate
anteroom between herself and another female Democrat, which she said
nearly turned physical.
Both accounts present a sharp break from
the seemingly genteel operations of Richmond’s upper chamber, where
senators observe strict protocol even during fiercely partisan debates.
Norment, in particular, usually stands as a symbol of that gentility,
enforcing arcane rules and speaking old-fashioned flourishes. He is
known for sporting formal three-piece suits and bright-pink ties.
But
Lucas said he was far from courtly three years ago, when she asked him
why he would not appoint her to a panel studying Hampton Roads
transportation, a top concern in her traffic-choked district.
“Tommy
said, ‘The reason why I don’t want to vote for you is because you ain’t
gonna do s---,’ ” Lucas said. “And I said, ‘Just watch my black ass.’
. . . And he says, ‘I don’t want to watch your black ass.’ And I said,
‘Well, then: You keep your little, narrow white ass, little J.C.
Penney-little-boys’-department-wearing-suits out of my [expletive]
face.’ ”
Lucas said that Saslaw walked in on the argument, and
she called him over. Instead of getting involved, she said, “he makes a
beeline out.”
Through a spokesman, Norment called Lucas’s account
“a prevarication.” He said that he put himself on the transportation
panel, instead of Lucas, because it lacked representation from the area
he serves.
Lucas also described nearly coming to blows years ago
with Sen. Janet D. Howell after the Fairfax Democrat chastised her. “She
said, ‘Where were you when I needed your vote?’ ” Lucas recalled. “And I
said, ‘When did I become your [expletive] servant?’ ” The argument,
which began in the chamber, grew so loud that the Senate clerk shooed
them into a back room, Lucas said. Howell did not respond to a request for comment about the incident.
Such
clashes, Lucas said, added to the frustration she feels as a result of a
succession of perceived slights by other lawmakers. She noted, for
example, that she and Howell joined the Senate the same day in 1992 but
that Howell, who is white, landed a seat on the prestigious finance
committee many years before Lucas did.
On Tuesday, Lucas heard a
rumor that another Senate Democrat was going to back the GOP’s pick for
the Supreme Court — Appeals Court Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. — in
exchange for getting to elevate a judge from that lawmaker’s district to
Alston’s current slot. McAuliffe and the GOP had been battling for
weeks over the court seat, and the defection of a single Democratic
senator meant the Republicans would win.
Lucas wondered why deals
like that never seemed to come her way. She found herself talking to
Norment, her old GOP nemesis. In the end, she said, she agreed to give
her own vote to the GOP, as long as a judge she supported from
Portsmouth — Circuit Court Judge Kenneth R. Melvin — would get to
replace Alston.
As news of her defection spread, McAuliffe called
Lucas in for a meeting. Soon afterward, the senator issued a statement
saying that Melvin was not interested in a promotion. She was back in
the Democratic fold.
On Wednesday morning, McAuliffe brought in
Howell, Saslaw and the Democratic caucus chairman, Sen. A. Donald
McEachin (D-Henrico), to meet with Lucas and Sen. Mamie E. Locke
(D-Hampton), an ally of Lucas’s who is also in the Senate’s five-member
black caucus.
“I said [to Saslaw], ‘If I’ve got to work my own
deals because I can’t get you to resolve the differences between us
. . . ,’ ” Lucas recalled in the interview, her voice trailing off, eyes
welling.
“But it was the wrong time, wasn’t it? I picked the wrong
thing.”
Lucas said she has complained over the years not just to
Saslaw but also to McEachin, who is black. She said that McEachin has
listened but, working through Saslaw, has been unable to help. Through
an aide, McEachin declined to comment on internal caucus matters.
Saslaw
said he had tried to help Lucas advance in a chamber where party
control has switched back and forth in recent years. “The only time
we’ve had committee assignments since I’ve been in leadership was in
January 2008, and she got put on Finance then,” he said. “I made things
happen for her.”
Sen. Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington) called
Saslaw “a very decent and fair leader. His values are in the right
place. . . . You don’t want to be in a foxhole with anybody else but
Dick Saslaw.”
BLOGGER'S NOTE:
THIS, in a nutshell, explains why we should not vote for Hillary Clinton. No matter the time, the place or the face - the story is always the same. The Democrats seek us out, when they want our vote and then conveniently forget about us when it's over.
I am celebrating VA Sen. L. Louise Lucas. I like the way she talks back. I DELIGHT in her refusal to roll over. Look at her! Can you imagine that "genteel white Southerner" talking to her like that? OF COURSE YOU CAN. It's what they've always done.
If I were her I would have gone a step further and voted with the Republicans. I would have left those - just as racist, just as bigoted - Democrats with their mouths open and their drawers down. Count on my vote again MF; I'll give you something for lunch. You can eat that Bullshit you've been dishing out.*
... excepting of course Elijah Cummings and Steny Hoyer
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