Jim Geraghty of National Review Online pokes holes in Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s promise to govern as a moderate.
[O]nce Spanberger was in office, her moderate mask began to slip. After she ran on affordability and a traditional biography, Spanberger has served up pure culture-war fodder and let her party’s left wing run wild during her first months in office. Let that be a warning to other states tempted by a Democrat who insists he’s nothing like the fringe of his party.
As of this writing, Spanberger has signed four bills into law that will each be subject to a referendum. One would enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution, another would enshrine same-sex marriage, and a third would automatically restore voting rights to an estimated 260,000 convicted felons upon their release. All three will be on the ballot in November.
A fourth referendum, scheduled for April 21, concerns a proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow Democrats to implement a new congressional map featuring ten Democratic-leaning seats and only one Republican-leaning seat.
This is a reversal of Spanberger’s stance on the campaign trail. …
… Spanberger ran on the high cost of living, but she is likely to sign tax increases into law this year. Since she took office, Virginia Democrats have introduced more than 50 new tax bills. They include: (1) a new top income tax bracket of 10 percent for millionaires, which would give Virginia the fifth-highest top income tax rate in the country; (2) a new tax on retail deliveries in Northern Virginia from companies such as Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and DoorDash; (3) a new 11 percent sales tax on the gross receipts from the retail sale of any firearm or ammunition; (4) a 10 percent tax on revenue earned by the operators of fantasy sports; (5) an extension of the state’s sales tax to digital property such as Netflix subscriptions and cloud storage, and an extension of the state’s retail sales tax to services such as dry cleaning and laundry services, companion animal care, and residential home repair or maintenance. …
