This is Rob Bloxom in Richmond. I am struggling with this week’s report. I have always tried to be informative and as non-partisan as possible. The first part of my report will be. Virginia recently inaugurated Abigail Spanberger as the seventy-fifth Governor, and she became the first female to hold this position. She ran a campaign of making life more affordable for Virginians as well as seeming to be a Moderate, willing to bring all stakeholders together to build a consensus. Her State of the Commonwealth Address was very promising with the acknowledgment of her predecessor, Governor Youngkin’s successes along with promoting policies on which we could agree. She also gave her base a nod on the policy she would promote. This is expected and understandable. After all, the Senate and the House have Democratic majorities. Her Cabinet picks have been excellent, leaning to the left, of course, but I have worked with most of them for over a decade and have found them all to be reasonable and willing to adjust, so that their objectives are met and my concerns are considered.
I’m also pleased to announce that my committee assignments remain largely unchanged from the previous session. I am on the Appropriations Committee, Agriculture Natural Resources and Chesapeake Committee, General Laws Committee, and Privileges and Election Committee. There were some changes on sub-committees due to the proportionality changes. I have nine pieces of legislation that I have proposed, and I will report on them later this session.
This next part is a little more partisan. Usually the first day of session is organizing and adopting the rules to proceed with business and informing the Governor that we are in session. This year was a little different in that we recessed to have a committee meeting to rush through a constitutional amendment to allow a temporary mid-decade redistricting by the General Assembly. There are time deadlines that the Democrats are trying to meet to get this on the ballot in April. Some of the deadlines are being retroactively eliminated, which is a problem, in my opinion. The way the amendment is worded is also so slanted that anyone reading it would vote for it. I understand that all my Democrat friends, along with others, for lack of better wording, “want to poke a finger in Trump’s eye”, but this might be “poking ourselves in our eye.” The maps I have seen create ten Democratic congressional seats to one Republican. Currently we have six Democratic seats and five Republican ones. Any seniority our congressional delegation has, will be eliminated. If this is truly temporary gerrymandering, when the decade redistricting returns in 2030, the districts will be redrawn closer to what we have today and our congressional delegation will change again, thus losing seniority once more.
I encourage you to keep in touch with my office and me over the coming months. I value the feedback you provide on a continual basis as it helps me do a better job of representing you. Make sure to include your phone number and mailing address as I do not want to miss any of my 100th district constituents. To that end, please email delrbloxom@house.virginia.gov or call the office in Richmond (804) 698-1000 or my district office (757)824-3456. Thank you for the opportunity to represent you in the House of Delegates.
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