Yesterday, in Senate Privileges & Elections Committee, there was a HIGHLY revealing moment about the corrupt “Virginia Way” (the revolving door, corporate power and money influencing the very legislators who regulate them, etc.). What happened, as you can see in the following video, is that Sen. Lionell Spruill (D-Chesapeake) questioned Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) in crude language (“do you really really have a real hard-on and dislike for Dominion, because it sounds to me like it’s a personal thing with you with Dominion”) about this bill, which would prohibit public utilities like Dominion Energy from “making any contribution to any committee or otherwise provide any money any other thing of value, given, advanced, loaned, or in any other way provided to any person or committee for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election.”
Seems like a no-brainer, right? I mean, as Sen. Petersen pointed out, there is “no other state in the union [which] has the public utility make donations to state lawmakers – we are unique, so I will simply say that.” So why on earth does Virginia allow an ostensibly state-REGULATED monopoly utility, in this case Dominion Energy, to give money (obviously, not out of altruism!) to the very lawmakers who are supposed to regulate them? If this isn’t a classic case of “legalized corruption,” it’s hard to know what would be.
In this context, it’s relevant to point out that Sen. Spruill’s top donor over the years – BY FAR – has been…yep, Dominion Energy, clocking in at a cool $277,569 given to Sen. Spruill. And, just purely coincidentally I’m sure (heh), Spruill has been a vociferous defender and staunch ally of Dominion Energy for many years. But again, I’m *sure* that’s just pure coincidence, and that Dominion Energy simply donates money out of the goodness of its warm, corporate heart. And yeah, if you believe that, I’ve got some obsolete coal-fired power plants to sell you! Haha. Anyway, the bottom line here is that, in this back-and-forth between Sen. Spruill and Sen. Petersen, it’s far more the former than the latter with the “hard-on” (a vulgar “metaphor for being excited about something in general”) for Dominion Energy…
P.S. Not surprisingly, given the pervasiveness of the “Virginia Way,” the bill was killed in committee on a bipartisan, 11-4 vote, with only Senators Adam Ebbin, John Bell, Creigh Deeds and Jennifer McClellan voting for this important campaign finance reform measure…
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