When I’ve said that the freshmen Republican legislators in Richmond are insane, it’s guys like Senator Nick Rerras that I’m talking about. Rerras is an extremely conservative Christian that looks to enforce his beliefs upon the whole of the state — a theme that should be familiar to those that follow Virginia politics. He’s running for reelection for the first time, and the news has just come out that this man attributes mental illness to possession by demons, and once explained that children were given mental illness by God to punish their parents. This guy, incidentally, is the same joker that introduced the ultimately-ratified bill requiring all schools to post conspicuously the statement “In God We Trust.”
Rerras will no doubt be reelected, as will the vast majority of the Republican seeking reelection this Tuesday. The state’s problems will continue to get worse, and people will continue to wonder why. I don’t doubt that people will catch on eventually, I just wonder if it might not be too late to undo the damage.