Democrats in Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a host of new gun measures on to the Senate Thursday. But not all Democrats voted for them.
“Look, there's something things I think go too far," said Loudoun County Democrat John McAuliffe after voting against a new safe storage law. "We want to make sure we’re not putting additional penalties, additional fees on folks who are otherwise law-abiding, so I voted against it.”
And here’s Montgomery County Democrat Lily Franklin after voting against an assault weapons ban.
“I just voted along with what my constituents sent me here to do," Franklin told Radio IQ. "I knocked a lot of doors, talked to a lot of voters across my district so I just made sure I represented my district well today.”
The two freshmen Delegates won in traditionally Republican districts but came to Richmond as part of the new 64 seat Democratic majority.
House Speaker Don Scott said the diversity of thought in his own party shows Democrats expanded their tent but can still work together.
“We can disagree with one another and allow people to vote their districts, vote their conscience, and still get the agenda accomplished that the people of the Commonwealth asked us to do,” Scott said after Thursday's floor session.
University of Mary Washington political science professor Stephen Farnsworth said that can be beneficial for likely-vulnerable legislators like McAuliffe and Franklin, but it can cut both ways.
“The big majority gives the speaker a lot more flexibility, not only to let individual lawmakers walk away from what a majority of what Democrats might want, it also gives the speaker the opportunity to kill bills from the far left that the governor doesn’t want to see on her desk,” Farnsworth warned.
Those gun bills are now headed to the senate, along with a handful of others including new limits on ghost guns, a penalty for leaving a gun unattended in a car, and new liability for gun manufacturers. But none had all 64 democrats support.
