Audio: VA Senate Majority Leader Surovell Says Gov. Spanberger’s Veto of Collective Bargaining Legislation “Not Great” for Their Working Relationship

On WAMU’s The Politics Hour a few minutes ago, VA Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell addressed some hot topics in Virginia right now. See below for video and highlights.

• On the VA Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling striking down the redistricting referendum, Sen. Surovell said “I don’t agree with it at all. You know, we went through the process we did with the advice of our  independent nonpartisan advisers, the division of legislative services. The definition of election that we relied on is the definition we’ve used in Virginia for a century. And the Supreme Court pulled this new definition basically out of the air and decided that based on using dictionaries and things, they were going to redefine when an election was. And we’ve started to learn that there’s all kinds of problems it’s creating. There’s attorneys all across the state right now preparing motions to dismiss criminal cases because our constitution also says you can’t summon anybody to a courthouse when there’s an election going on. And that was always interpreted to be one day a year, not 90 days a year. Now it’s going to cause a lot of chaos. It’s really kind of disturbing.”
• On the appeal to the US Supreme Court, Sen. Surovell said “as Chief Justice Cleo Powell of our Supreme Court pointed out, this new interpretation of when an election is in Virginia conflicts with the federal constitution and federal law, which is what creates federal jurisdiction for the US Supreme Court to look at it. And the Supreme Court has looked at state constitution interpretations like this, like they did in North Carolina a few years ago in 2023.” But “given the current ideological makeup of the US  Supreme Court, I’m not optimistic that they’ll be too inclined to try to do anything about this, but we owe to our voters to, you know, to try to ensure that the amendment that they passed…becomes the law of this state because, you know, the voters voted for this. It was a very anti-democratic decision that [the VA Supreme Court] made.”
• On suggestions of replacing the entire VA Supreme Court, Sen. Surovell said “I mean, that was first posted on a blog last weekend by somebody and I mean it’s a theoretically possible thing to do, but there’s a couple problems with it that most people don’t realize. Number one, it takes like weeks to change the law. I just can’t call 140 people back into session on 24 hours notice. Under our Constitution, you have to read a bill for 5 days through both chambers before you can pass it. And then [it] has to go to the governor, she has to sign it. It’s not law till July 1. You have to get an emergency clause on it. There’s all kinds of legislative logistical issues that make it virtually impossible to do that n time to do an election. You know, voting starts in about 4 weeks and the Department of Elections told us they need to start uploading these new maps into our computers a couple days ago in order for them to be able to comply with having all the data ready for election day. And just beyond all that, you know…throwing out the entire Supreme Court over one decision, even you know, the people that were in the dissent like Chief Justice Cleo Powell, who’s the first African-American woman to chair our Supreme Court in her 250 year history. I just feel like that’s a a really significant step to take and it’s not something you’ve seen in this country, I don’t think. And I understand we’re in extreme times, but I think a lot of us just feel like that’s a little bit too far to go.” Also, “May 12th was the drop dead date to get the new stuff up.”
• On any of this harming Democratic voter turnout in the fall, Sen. Surovell said “I don’t see that at all. I think a lot of Virginians and a lot of Americans are really upset with the direction of our country right now and there’s a lot of people going to be out to send a message. I don’t think it’s going to discourage people from voting,” given “President Trump, you know, getting us into these crazy illegal unauthorized wars and tariffing our economy into a recession. So, I think that’s going to motivate people plenty.” 

• On Gov. Spanberger’s veto of collective bargaining legislation: “I’m disappointed, I’m upset. There’s about 17% of Virginia’s workforce works for either the state or local government. It’s about 760,000 people. You know, the history of this goes back to 1943 when some Black nurses at UVA decided to protest their working conditions and the Byrd Machine decided that, you know, the NAACP, Jews and Communists were conspiring to ruin Virginia. And it’s an old legacy. I think we’ve moved beyond…I thought we had had a consensus about this. The governor says she supports the concept. She made amendments to it that we accepted during session and then when veto session came around she proposed an entirely brand new bill and we typically don’t legislate like that, because you can’t have public hearings and take comment and debate in public and her changes were just really massive, and we couldn’t accept those in that context. And I was hoping she would just sign the bill and we could work on amendments over the next 12 months but she just she vetoed it and a lot of people were very upset about it.”
• On Gov. Spanberger apparently also planning to veto a class action bill, Sen. Surovell said “Virginia is standing strong with Mississippi as the only two states in America where you can’t file a class action lawsuit in state court. And I was hoping to bring us into the the real world. I’ve been trying to get this passed for six years…”
• How is all this affecting Sen. Surovell’s working relationship with Gov. Spanberger? “It’s not great. There’s been about, I think three vetoes for me this session and there’s a couple other bills that I wrote other people were carrying for me that got vetoed as well. And it certainly doesn’t help when you see your bills vetoed…Governor Youngkin vetoed more of my bills than anybody in the entire legislature. And I might be leading the way again, but it certainly doesn’t help. I mean, historically, Democratic governors don’t veto Democratic bills. And, you know, we’re still trying to figure out this governor and her style and we’ll continue to try to work with her. But a lot of these are coming as surprises [to us].”