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party loyalists who choose them.
It is probably true in the short term that party registration will hurt the contemporary Democratic Party in Virginia. If genuine party registration should be implemented, some “Republicrats” in Virginia (those who carry the Democratic label but who are really Republican in philosophy) would have to show their true colors.
Some of these individuals who now run as Democrats would either have to retire or be defeated. The now overwhelming Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate of the Virginia General Assembly could shrink significantly, if not disappear.
In the longer run, however, Virginia would benefit from this “truth in labeling” legislation. The goats would then be finally separated from the sheep. We ordinary citizens would be the better for it. We would be able at long last to know really what we were getting for our votes.
Virginia, in the short term, might become a totally Republican state as it was for 12 years and as it already is with respect to national elections. If so, so be it. That is real democracy.
Party registration in the now very competitive Virginia political party system is long overdue. Let all Virginians and all Virginia political leaders have the courage to stand up and be counted for what they really are, for what they really believe. That is the American way.
Leuris P. Fickett Jr., a former Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates, is a professor of political science at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg.
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