Republicans take reins of Va. General Assembly

[xchrom]

http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

richmond — Republicans seized control of an equally divided Senate on the first day of the General Assembly session Wednesday, relying on arcane maneuvers to take over the last part of the state government they didn’t already control.

All Democrats could do was deliver speeches about fairness and threaten to go to court — again.

It was a sharp contrast from 1996, the last time the chamber was split 20-20 and both parties agreed to share power — albeit only because a Democrat threatened to defect if his party didn’t. The Republicans’ carefully calibrated legislative maneuvers on Wednesday were more emblematic of the partisanship that has surfaced on both sides in Congress as well as in other state legislatures, such as in Ohio and Wisconsin.

“This is not a power grab. This is a re-articulation on this side of the aisle of the Senate rules as we see appropriate,” Sen. Thomas K. Norment (R-james City), the new majority leader, told Democrats. “If you chose not to accept the legislative hand of friendship, I would be disappointed.”