Brian Moran told a Charlottesville audience today:
A governor always has time to fight for equality. To allow discriminatory language in our constitution is not acceptable, and I will do everything I can in my power as governor to repeal the Marshall Newman Amendment.
Emphasis mine. Here’s my question: What powers does the governor have, other than a bully pulpit, to amend the state constitution?
Answer: zero.
Ah the not a lie, but a misleading truth. I have no doubt that Brian Moran will abide by his statement. He will do everything in his power to repeal the Amendment, which amounts to nothing more than showboating.
Brian has been saying this consistently since the first debate in April – not sure why you’re just noticing it now.
As to what he can do – the governor has always had a legislative agenda and gets key members of the legislature to carry the bills. (Most consider it an honor to be asked to carry the governor’s legislation.)
A bit more than a bully pulpit.
More importantly, it shifts the onus: do Terry and Creigh support the repeal of Marshall Newman, and if so is it a priority for them? It’s a bit of an unanswered question with Creigh, given that he voted for the thing multiple times before declaring a mea culpa and saying it was a lousy thing to do.
Structurally, the Governor doesn’t do much – if they did, Kaine would have been able to stop it.
I didn’t just notice it now. I just mentioned it now. And I’m just mentioning now because it’s just occurring to me that many voters may believe that he’s promising to do something that, unbeknownst to them, he has no legal power to affect in any way.
So we’re all in agreement that the governor has no power here, other than of the bully pulpit?
Brian’s insistence on this point actually makes me very angry because its such blatant and unabashed pandering. A repeal of Marshall Newman would have to pass both house of the legislature which voted for it overwhelmingly in the first place. Brian knows how to count votes, and a majority of Democrats voted for the amendment too. Only an idiot governor would waste time and political capital trying to push through legislation that doesn’t have a spitting chance.
I disagree that it’s pandering. Brian is trying to point out that he’s been a consistent opponent of Marshall Newman and would like to see it gone, and drawing the distinction that a) Creigh doesn’t have that consistent record, and b) Terry hasn’t held office in order to establish that record. The point could have been made more effectively rather than giving the impression that he can do more as Governor on this than he’s been doing already, but the underlying point’s pretty salient.
I wonder how well some of the candidates positioning will work. Voters in primaries skew much older and female. I think a number of primaries have had an average voter age in the 60s.
I think that’s quite true, Brian—I certainly don’t mean to diminish that.
I was sitting directly in front of Brian – no more than 10 ft away – when he made that pronouncement. If you watch the video and listen to the audience response, you get a much better understanding of just how powerful it was. The Farm Team debate wasn’t comprised of a bunch of gay folks – it was mostly older, white women. If he was going to pander, don’t you think he’d hold off til he had a much more friendly audience?
(In fact, he was chastised at a local gay fundraiser for NOT mentioning this first.)