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Democrat Majority Could Bring Monumental Change to Confederate Symbols

VCU CNS | January 6, 2020

Topics: Confederate monuments, Dillon Rule, General Assembly, Levar Stoney, Monument Avenue, Monument Avenue Commission, Richmond city council, Rumors Of War, Unite the Right, Virginia supreme court

Under the Dillon Rule, all decisions made by Virginia localities must be authorized by the General Assembly. Thus far, the GA has not allowed Richmond and other VA cities to remove Confederate monuments. But a new Democratic majority may change all that in 2020.

Virginia has 110 Confederate monuments, many of which are housed in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy. Among the most notable are the five towering monuments of Confederate leaders lining Monument Avenue. Others live in neighborhoods across the city from Church Hill to Bellevue.

The city is home to significant Civil War buildings, including the American Civil War Museum and White House of the Confederacy. Street names such as Confederate Avenue inhabit the Northside, while Jefferson Davis Highway, named for the president of the Confederacy, runs along the city and throughout the state. Schools such as John B. Cary Elementary — named after a Confederate soldier who later served as his district’s superintendent — and George Mason Elementary — named after a slave-owning Founding Father — still exist, even though concern for renaming the schools has been articulated. 

In recent years, residents have been pushing for the Monument Avenue monuments to come down. But the statues, which represent the dark and violent history of slavery for some Virginians and their families, stand tall, staring down the median of a prominent and busy avenue. This is in part because the power to remove the monuments has been denied to localities under the Dillon Rule, which allows the state to limit the powers of local governments. However, a new Democratic majority in Virginia’s state legislature may open the door to more local government control — and perhaps the removal of the monuments.

The Dillon Rule is derived from the 1868 written decision by Judge John Dillon of Iowa. Dillon identified local governments as political subdivisions of the state government. According to the American Legislative Exchange Council, 39 states apply the Dillon Rule to some capacity. Thirty-one apply it to all localities, while eight use the rule for only certain municipalities. The Virginia Supreme Court adopted the Dillon Rule in 1896.

James Ewell Brown (J. E. B.) Stuart was commander of the Cavalry Corps of Lee’s army during the Civil War. Photo by Susan Shibut, Capital News Service

Because Virginia law states that localities cannot remove war monuments after they have been established, the Dillon Rule has prevented localities such as Richmond and Charlottesville from passing measures to remove their Confederate monuments.

When the General Assembly resumes session in January, a Democratic majority would make it easier for legislators to make a new law stating that local governments have the power to remove Confederate monuments, or a law that bans them outright. John Aughenbaugh, assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said a new law is a way he could see localities gain the power to make their own decisions about the monuments.

“I don’t think many members of the General Assembly want to get blamed for upsetting those who still like the monuments,” Aughenbaugh said. “But they’ll be willing to go ahead and give the local governments the authority to make that decision on their own.”

Jim Nolan, press secretary for Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, said that increasing local authority has been a legislative priority for the mayor and will remain one heading into the 2020 General Assembly session. He said the mayor believes the General Assembly should grant authority to allow localities to determine the future of Confederate monuments. 

“Cities should have the right to choose if they want to contextualize or permanently remove monuments,” Nolan said.

In recent years, the Richmond City Council voted against two resolutions brought by Councilman Michael Jones requesting that state lawmakers give the city authority on what to do with the monuments. The resolutions would have put pressure on lawmakers to give the city authority. However, the General Assembly is not the only avenue for localities to gain the power to remove their monuments. Aughenbaugh said he predicts a locality will sue for the right to remove their monuments and the Virginia Supreme Court will be the deciding body. 

Jefferson Davis’ is the only monument that the Monument Avenue Commission recommended be torn down completely. Davis was the president of the Confederacy, and his monument is the most explicit in its veneration of the “Lost Cause,” the idea that the Confederate cause was just, heroic and ethical. Photo by Susan Shibut, Capital News Service.

One city has already brought such a suit. Earlier this year, Norfolk filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, arguing that requiring the city to keep a Confederate monument was contrary to their freedom of speech. The suit has not been decided yet.

More than 1,800 Confederate symbols stand in 22 states as of February, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Virginia, with 262 Confederate symbols, has more than any other state and has removed 17 of its symbols since the racially-charged Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting in which nine African-Americans were murdered, the organization said.

For decades, Richmond has sought to offset Confederate symbols. In 1996, a sixth statue was added to Monument Avenue depicting Arthur Ashe, an African American tennis champion from Richmond. Earlier this year the Richmond City Council voted to rename the Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard. J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School was renamed Barack Obama Elementary after a 6-1 vote by the Richmond Public School Board in 2018. In December, Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts unveiled, in front of a welcoming crowd, Kehinde Wiley’s statue “Rumors of War,” which depicts a black man in classic equestrian portraiture — a response to the monuments on Monument Avenue.

Virginia has been center stage in the national debate regarding the potential removal of Confederate monuments. In August 2017, the nation was rocked with news of violent clashes in Charlottesville. A “Unite the Right” rally and counter-demonstration were the climax of a months-long battle over the fate of a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue that the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove. At the protest, James Alex Fields Jr., a white supremacist who traveled from Ohio to the event, drove his car into a crowd, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. The night before the protest, participants gathered in the park with tiki torches and chanted slogans including the Nazi-associated phrase “blood and soil.”

After the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting, Stoney created the Monument Avenue Commission in 2017 in hopes of creating new ways to remember Richmond’s history while addressing the past memorialized on Monument Avenue. Its first meeting took place days before Heyer died counter-protesting in Charlottesville.

“Richmond has a long, complex and conflicted history, and the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue represents a shameful part of our past,” Stoney said in the commission’s 117-page report. “The majority of the public acknowledges Monument Avenue cannot and should not remain exactly as it is. Change is needed and desired.” 

J. Hunter Dabney walks past the Robert E. Lee Monument. Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general. His monument was unveiled in 1890 and was the the first of the monuments to go up. Photo by Susan Shibut, Capital News Service.

After 11 months of public deliberation, the commission suggested solutions, which included:

  •  Moving the monuments to a museum and creating a permanent exhibit, including a deeper historical look into the history of the monuments by creating a mobile app and a film that ensures historical accuracy.
  • Adding permanent signage that reflects the historic, biographical, artistic, and changing meaning over time for each monument.
  • Erecting a monument that pays homage to the resilience of the formerly enslaved.
  • Having local artists create contemporary pieces that bring new meaning to Monument Avenue.
  • Removing the Jefferson Davis statue.

The city cannot implement these suggestions, however, if state law overrides local laws. 

House Bill 2377 was introduced by former Del. David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, in the 2019 General Assembly session. It would have given localities the power to remove or add context to their monuments, but it did not pass the then-Republican majority House.

For those who oppose the monuments, hope is on the rise. Democrats hold both chambers of the General Assembly as well as the governorship after the Nov. 5 elections — a power that has not been seen in over 20 years. Several of the newly elected legislators have spoken out against the monuments, including Democratic Sen.-elect Ghazala Hashmi, Democratic Del.-elect Sally Husdon, and Del. Jay Jones, D-Norfolk. Hudson plans to introduce legislation very similar to Toscano’s bill — Jones said he will co-sponsor the legislation.

In November, Jones tweeted: “The ‘monuments’ are nothing more than vestigial symbols of oppression and hate that need to come down – ESPECIALLY if it is the locality’s choice. We’re moving VA into the 21st century rather than ‘honoring’ the failures of the 19th.”

In 1895 the city purchased a lot at the intersection of Broad Street, Adams Street, and Brook Road for the J.E.B. Stuart monument. The location, at the terminus of Brook Turnpike, was where Stuart was shot and killed. That site became home to a statue of African-American businesswoman Maggie L. Walker in 2017. Photo by Susan Shibut, Capital News Service

This was not the first time Jones touched on this subject. During Black History month in February, following Gov. Ralph Northam’s blackface scandal, Jones stood in front of the House of Delegates and made a personal speech. 

Jones talked about “two Virginias,” a white one and a black one, and how they have existed “in parallel along the same arc of history, frequently intersecting, but never running together as one. Two different experiences, born from the same beginning four hundred years ago and still never merged into one shared story.” 

According to Jones, “glorification of the Confederacy via monuments and flags in public spaces,” are examples of how white Virginians “consciously or unconsciously attempted to demonstrate its power over black Virginians.”

In describing the racially-charged differences between Virginians, Jones said, “It seems that we have not come far enough to understand the hurt and pain and the effect on those who grew up in the shadow of separate but not equal. Thirty years on, throughout the duration of my life, we are still struggling mightily with race in our state.”

If localities are given the authority to legislate the fate of their monuments, Nolan said Stoney and his administration will ask the city’s History and Culture Commission to make recommendations and commit to following a process in accordance to solutions provided by the Monument Avenue Commission.

Written by McKenzie Lambert and Susan Shibut, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Monument Avenue has five Confederate monuments and one statue of Richmond-native tennis champion Arthur Ashe on its median. Photo by Susan Shibut, Capital News Service.

Making Sense of Virginia’s Many “Second Amendment Sanctuary” Resolutions

Owen FitzGerald | December 16, 2019

Topics: Campbell County, Carroll County, Dillon Rule, General Assembly, lee county, Moms Demand Action, Philip Van Cleave, Second Amendment, Second Amendment sanctuaries, Tim Tatum, Virginia Civil Defense League, Virginia Democrats

As we approach the start of the 2020 General Assembly session, here’s an up-to-date look into an ongoing fight over guns that has the whole Commonwealth concerned.

It has been a truly tumultuous month since Virginia’s November elections.  Specifically, the conversation around the Second Amendment, gun ownership and potential gun control legislation has flooded headlines. Since the commonwealth went “full blue” last month, a large handful of counties and municipalities have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.” There has been a heated discussion about what that term means, and how it will be upheld if gun control legislation is passed during the upcoming General Assembly session. 

So, how did we get here? What have people been saying across the state? Who are the key players? Well, let’s try and figure that out.

What’s happening?

As we know, the November 5 elections resulted in the first completely Democrat-controlled Virginia state legislature in 26 years. Many were quick to hypothesize about issues that would climb to the top of the docket once the General Assembly session begins in January.  The issue of gun control legislation immediately took center stage.

It began in Campbell County on November 7 — only two days after the elections. At a board of supervisors meeting, Brookneal District Supervisor Charlie Watts proposed a resolution emphasizing the board’s “deep commitment” to maintaining its citizens’ Second Amendment rights. In the resolution, Watts declared the county a “Second Amendment sanctuary” — meaning that the supervisors of Campbell County support gun rights and oppose any legislation that would limit gun ownership. The resolution passed unanimously, and thus, the snowball was pushed down the hill.

In the days that followed, a number of other counties began holding meetings to discuss adopting sanctuary resolutions and policies. One after another, board of supervisors meetings were being flooded with crowds gathered in the hundreds — even thousands in some cases — to voice their support for such policies. Appomattox and Pittsylvania counties designated themselves sanctuary counties as well. 

To this date, at least 20 counties, and a couple of independent cities, across the state have declared or have considered declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. Below is a map showing counties known to have adopted or considered adopting such policies.

Almost all of the counties that have adopted or considered adopting sanctuary are rural, with a large number of them being in the southwestern part of the state.

It’s worth noting that this post-election behavior is not the first Virginia has heard of Second Amendment sanctuaries. Back in April, months before the current wave, Carroll County adopted a resolution declaring themselves a Second Amendment sanctuary in response to similar actions nationwide.

What’s important to understand about these declarations is that because of the Dillon Rule, they have no legal authority unless the General Assembly adopts actual legislation that legitimizes them. The Dillon Rule says that unlike the powers of the states, municipalities only have powers that are expressly granted to them by the state government. Virginia is one of 31 states that abides by the Dillon Rule. Because of this, counties and cities cannot legally refuse to enforce laws and policies they don’t agree with.

Who are the key players?

One group that has made a lot of noise since the November election is the Virginia Civil Defense League — a non-profit organization created to protect citizens’ right to bear arms. Their president, Philip Van Cleave, has been urging lawmakers and law enforcement across the state to adopt sanctuary policies. He’s even gone on record suggesting that law enforcement not enforce gun-control legislation should any be passed by the General Assembly.

“We can push for more Second Amendment Sanctuary Localities, like Carroll County, which will refuse to enforce unconstitutional gun laws,” the group stated. “Sheriffs and other law enforcement have no obligation to enforce unconstitutional laws, either.”

Van Cleave and other VCDL members have been present at many of the meetings held across the state since November 5.

“VCDL is not going to back down — the fight is on,” Van Cleave wrote in a statement.

Philip Van Cleave at Virginia Citizen Defense League’s 2012 Roanoke County Picnic. (Image via VAGunRights/YouTube)

Meanwhile, gun-safety groups like Moms Demand Action, led by Shannon Watts, viewed the elections as a massive win for gun-control activism.  These groups have been in long-running, heated debate with organizations like the NRA and VCDL over gun-control legislation. 

What are people saying?

As can be expected, many gun rights supporters have turned up to meetings to have their voices heard. Here is a short list of quotes from people across the state:

  • “If we don’t have our guns to protect our rights, we’re not going to be able to worship freely.” – Dr. Mark J. Matney, resident, Washington County
  • “I read somewhere the quickest way to overthrow a country is to disarm citizens, and that’s what we’re seeing.” – Bennie Woody Jr., resident, Amherst County
  • “All I can say is we’re just going to have to lock and load.” – Joe Davis, Dan River supervisor, Pittsylvania County
  • “It is time to stand up to tyrants who want to transform America into something that it wasn’t meant to be,” Mark Matthews, retired firefighter and sheriff’s deputy, Pittsylvania County

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office even posted on Facebook about their lack of enforcement of any potential gun control restrictions: “I want to assure the citizens of Lee County that me and my officers will stand up to any federal or state agency that attempts to infringe upon our gun rights. We stand for the Constitution and the second amendment. May God bless Lee County and our great nation.”

For as many governing bodies have adopted Second Amendment sanctuary declarations, lawmakers have been quick to educate citizens to the reality of the situation.

Tim Tatum, supervisor for the Blue Ridge district in Franklin County, spoke in support of showing solidarity with other districts across the state. However, he was quick to remind the crowd of over 350 people in Franklin County of the principle laid out by the Dillon Rule.

“I want to make sure that all of you don’t get some false sense of security that when we pass this that this gives you some type of protection from any laws that the state may pass,” Tatum said.

Lee County Sheriff Gary Parsons. (Photo via Lee County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)

What’s next?

The reality of the situation is this; we have no way of knowing. For many, the comments and stances of radical gun owners across the state have been terrifying. Regardless of an individual’s beliefs, the idea of a law enforcement agency outwardly expressing that they will not enforce enacted law is troubling and concerning. 

The 2020 General Assembly session begins in early January, and all eyes, both in Virginia and across the nation, will be on the Capitol in Richmond. With gun-safety laws expected to headline the Democratic docket, we will have to wait and see what physical results come as a result of the shift in political power. 

Top Photo by Specna Arms on Unsplash

Symbolic, But Important Nonetheless: Richmond City Council Bans Conversion Therapy

Marilyn Drew Necci | September 13, 2019

Topics: Adam Trimmer, conversion therapy, Dillon Rule, Equality Virginia, General Assembly, Levar Stoney, mental health, Richmond city council, Vee Lamneck

Due to Virginia law, the ban can’t be enforced. But by passing it, Richmond City Council still sends a powerful message.

On Monday, Richmond’s City Council passed a resolution enacting a ban on conversion therapy within the city. The resolution, which is non-binding, was proposed by Mayor Levar Stoney, and received unanimous support from the nine members of City Council.

Conversion therapy, as many of us in Virginia’s LGBTQ community know all too well, is the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity through therapeutic processes that are unscientific and often religiously based. A 2018 study published in the Journal Of Homosexuality found that participants in the study who’d undergone conversion therapy were five times more likely to have attempted suicide than those who hadn’t.

Over the past year, three different state boards regulating mental health caregivers have banned the practice by refusing approval for those who engage in conversion therapy. However, multiple attempts at passing bills in the General Assembly to ban conversion therapy in Virginia outright have failed in the House Of Delegates. Most recently in 2019’s General Assembly, a Senate bill introduced by 23rd District Virginia Senator Stephen D. Newman passed the Senate, but failed to make it out of committee in the House Of Delegates.

In a statement, Mayor Stoney praised the City Council’s decision, saying, “I am proud that members of Richmond’s City Council joined me in opposing the inhumane and regressive practice of conversion therapy and affirming the sexual orientation and identities of all Richmonders.”

The vote is, unfortunately, non-binding and symbolic. As a Dillon Rule state, Virginia requires any law passed by localities within the Commonwealth to align exactly with the laws passed by the state government. Therefore, without the passage of a state law banning conversion therapy, the City of Richmond has no legal ability to enforce a ban within city limits.

Nonetheless, activists were pleased by the verdict. Speaking to WTVR, Equality Virginia Deputy Director Vee Lamneck pointed out that this decision was a first in Virginia, and remains important despite its symbolic nature.

Conversion therapy survivor Adam Trimmer, who runs the conversion therapy survivors support group Love Actually Won RVA and is the Virginia ambassador for national anti-conversion therapy campaign Born Perfect, spoke of his experience during the public comment period for City Council’s resolution, and was thankful that they went on to pass the resolution.

“We are finally being heard and hopefully this can stop happening to our community,” he told WTVR. “I hope that the members of the General Assembly see this, and I hope they see [that] Mayor Stoney and City of Richmond support our efforts to protect the LGBTQ+ youth.”

Photo: GayRVA archives

RVA city officials want state to stop meddling

Brad Kutner | March 23, 2015

Topics: Charles Samuels, Dillon Rule, GA 2015, Parker Agelasto, RVA city council

RICHMOND – State law may trump local ordinances, but that does not mean Richmond City Council is going to lie down when Virginia legislators try to unilaterally impose policies on the city.

[Read more…] about RVA city officials want state to stop meddling

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