Effort to Depoliticize Virginia’s Top Elections Job Hits Snag in State Senate

After passing the House of Delegates 99-0, legislation that would strip future Virginia governors of their power to handpick the state’s elections commissioner ran into trouble Tuesday in a Senate committee.

The bill, which has drawn bipartisan support in the House despite being sponsored by a Republican, is the latest of several attempts to reduce the role of partisan politics in the state’s election bureaucracy. Similar efforts have failed late in previous sessions, and the new complications in the Senate highlight the complexity of trying to get partisanship out of an election system that’s inherently political.

Instead of the next governor being able to hire someone to lead the Virginia Department of Elections, the bill under consideration by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly would give that ability to the five-person State Board of Elections. By law, the governor’s party controls that board, but the pending legislation would require a supermajority vote (four of five members) in order to hire and fire elections commissioners.

The supermajority rule seemed to cause the most angst for Democratic senators.

At Tuesday’s committee hearing, Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, asked whether it’s realistic to expect Democrats and Republicans to agree on who should run the elections department given the threats and intimidation directed at election officials from the right. If Democrats were to retake the governor’s mansion in 2025, the bill would require at least one Republican board member to vote with the Democratic majority in order to hire or fire an elections commissioner.

“Why should we believe that the group that’s in the minority is going to step out?” VanValkenburg said. “If it’s a 4-1 vote to elect a commissioner, that one person in the world we’re living in now could face a lot of pressure politically and otherwise.”

Proponents of the bill have said the elections board, which includes ex-legislators from both parties, has worked in a mostly bipartisan manner and has a real chance of making a “consensus pick” on the next commissioner.

“I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that you could have a 5-0 vote,” said Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Bristol, the bill’s sponsor.

VanValkenburg then made a motion to kill the bill. But it was pulled back from the brink by Sen. Danica Roem, D-Manassas, who voted to keep the proposal alive and asked for it to be delayed for a week.

In an interview, Roem said she wanted to give O’Quinn more time to work out any issues on the Senate side.

“A bill like that that got out of the House 99-0, he’s clearly put in work for it. No question” said Roem, who clarified she doesn’t have a yes or no position on the bill as it was presented Tuesday in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee. “If everyone likes the idea but they don’t like the words on the bill right now, let’s give it a little extra time.”

Virginia’s current system of selecting an elections commissioner has often fueled complaints of politics seeping into the work of the supposedly nonpartisan elections department. As the leader of that department, the commissioner has a hand in ensuring voting laws are properly followed, maintaining accurate voter rolls, certifying voting equipment, verifying election results and overseeing the work of local election offices.

Current Commissioner Susan Beals, a Republican hired by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, has testified in favor of the bill. The current five-member board, she told a House committee earlier this month, “works very well together to set policy and certify voting systems and election results.”

“I believe this group is most well-suited to pick the next elections commissioner of Virginia,” Beals said.

A lobbyist for the Virginia Registrars Association of Virginia, which represents city and county election officials across the state, also spoke in favor of the proposal, calling it “a good government bill.” The League of Women Voters of Virginia also supports the bill.

Complaints about partisan influence in the elections department have run in both directions.

Last year, Democrats accused the Youngkin administration of playing politics by erroneously removing thousands of eligible voters from the rolls and ending Virginia’s participation in a multi-state voter roll maintenance program that had come under fire from right-wing “election integrity” activists. A local GOP official also accused Youngkin of pressuring the department to intervene in a dispute over how Republicans would pick their nominee in a competitive state Senate race.

In 2016, a Republican lawmaker called on former Gov. Terry McAuliffe to fire then-Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes over alleged partisan bias, and a legislative review two years later found the department had an “environment of open support for one party over the other” during the McAuliffe years.

When former Gov. Ralph Northam succeeded McAuliffe in 2018, he replaced Cortes with Chris Piper, a former campaign finance compliance specialist who had held a variety of positions in state government. Though Piper drew bipartisan praise in the role, Youngkin announced in 2022 that he wouldn’t keep his job. Piper, who also publicly advocated for less political influence over the commissioner position, was then replaced by Beals.

The bill under consideration by the General Assembly, which would retain its ability to confirm or reject the commissioner’s hiring, would change the process that will greet the next governor who will take office in early 2026.

The legislation would allow Beals to continue in the role until June 30, 2027, a timeline that would give the next governor time to fill three of the elections board’s five seats before the board would consider a new commissioner.

Under state law, the governor appoints all members of the board, with three seats reserved for members of the governor’s own party and two seats going to the party that finished second in the most recent gubernatorial election. The supermajority rule would mean the governor’s party could not use its majority control to make unilateral hiring decisions.

“In addition to depoliticizing the process, it gives the board quite a bit of incentive to get to a consensus pick with the 2027 legislative elections and the 2028 presidential elections both coming down the pike,” O’Quinn said as he presented the bill in the House.

Past efforts to give the two major parties equal seats on the board have failed, with skeptical lawmakers warning they would lead to tied votes that would cripple the board.

Under O’Quinn’s bill, if the board fails to make a bipartisan choice, the existing commissioner would be deemed reappointed subject to General Assembly confirmation. If the position became vacant, the commissioner’s duties would be handled by the department’s director of operations, who is not a political appointee.

This year’s bill originally failed in a House committee but was revived after O’Quinn amended it to clarify that the next commissioner decision would be made by a board shaped by whoever wins the 2025 gubernatorial election. Because board members serve staggered terms, Youngkin’s board appointees won’t immediately depart when he leaves office in early 2026.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, put the current elections commissioner on the spot by publicly asking her if she feels political pressure from Youngkin. When Beals deflected the question, Deeds asked again.

“Right now, I’m appointed by the governor,” Beals said. “He is my boss.”

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