Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates forced their Republican colleagues to take an up-or-down vote Monday on a sweeping anti-abortion bill one lawmaker called “a slap in the face” to women who have been raped or suffer life-threatening complications from a pregnancy.
So for those not following VA politics, I'll do up a bit of a TL;DR:
Pre-Nov-2023:
Governor: Republican
Legislature: 1 house was Dem, 1 house was Republican
Abortion was used to try to drum up support to make both legislative houses Republican in the Nov 2023 elections (among other things)
Nov 2023 elections happen.
Plan backfires. Dems get both legislative houses, but Gov seat is still Republican.
Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, said it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to have their own bills turned against them.
“It’s happened to me. I’ve had some bad ideas before,” Simon said. “You put those bills in, and anything can happen. And you’ve got to be willing to deal with the consequences.”