Video: At Fairfax Dems’ “Road to Richmond” 2022 Event, Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw Says Glenn Youngkin “May Be Morphing Into Donald Trump”; Vows to Block Rightward Policy Shift “Wherever Possible”

Every year, prior to the Virginia General Assembly session starting up again, the Fairfax County Democratic Committee holds its big “Road to Richmond” event, usually attended in-person by hundreds, and with speeches by leading Virginia Democrats. This year, due to the COVID pandemic, the event was held virtually, but the speeches were no less passionate.  I’ve already posted a great one by Virginia Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn – click here to see that!  Now, check out another strong speech, this time by Virginia Virginia Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, as he and Senate Democrats prepare to head to Richmond for the 2022 General Assembly, which begins on Wednesday. Here are some highlights from Sen. Saslaw’s speech:

• “This is not the first time…that I’ve been there when we’ve had a Republican governor…it’s not unusual, but what’s happened is the huge changes in the philosophy of the Republican Party – used to be extremely cooperative, that’s not the case anymore. And I’m somewhat concerned that the governor-elect may be morphing into Donald Trump when I see his appointment to our natural resources secretary, when I start seeing they want to sue over the mask mandate…”
• “So…there’s a lot we’re going to have to deal with. There’ll be a hold the line on so many items, that you know you can’t believe it. The bills that have been put in so far by Republican legislators, and mostly in the House, have been to repeal everything that we did in 20 and 21. So we’re going to be dealing with that…I’ll be talking with the governor elect on Tuesday, and hopefully I can get some more positive responses.”
• “It’s a situation which I wish we hadn’t had. It certainly was a lot easier and it’s been a lot easier when we’ve had Democrats sitting in the governor’s chair. But we’ll deal with it and we will get through this. And I can tell you, the Senate –  which we still have a majority – wherever possible we will block this rightward shift. Because it just doesn’t do any good to do away with all the environmental changes that we’ve made…nor am I interested in repealing all of the gun legislation that we got through…So there’s a lot to be done, there’s a lot to prevent from being done, and hopefully and I think we will be successful.”