To see a recent win for democracy, look no further than Virginia. But the work must continue.

Yahoo

20-03-2025

The Virginia House of Delegates during its 2025 legislative session, Jan. 8, 2025. (Photo by Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)
American democracy is in peril. The wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, spent $277 million dollars last fall to help get President Donald Trump elected. He's since added another $100 million to support Trump's political operation. Musk is now of course working within the Trump Administration to make massive cuts to our federal government, gutting whole programs and, in effect, eliminating entire agencies.
In such times, it might seem that any bright spots for U.S. democracy would be few and far between. But you can find a recent victory for democracy right here in the commonwealth.
This spring, the Virginia General Assembly finally passed a law that prohibits candidates from using campaign contributions for personal benefit. As of now, Virginia is one of only two states in the nation that does not put restrictions on how candidates spend money given by donors, meaning they can access these funds to purchase elegant dinners, home furnishings, designer clothes, or just about anything under the sun.
But this can all change, and Virginia can begin to catch up with the rest of the nation by tightening some of its notoriously loose campaign finance laws, if the Governor signs HB 2165, sponsored by Del. Joshua Cole, D-Fredericksburg, in the House and Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax,in the Senate.
Even if the governor vetoes the legislation, its very passage is a victory. Members of the General Assembly have been introducing similar legislation since 2014 without success. But this year it gained unanimous support in both the House of Delegates and Senate, meaning that the members of the General Assembly can pass it again for the next governor if Younkin doesn't give it his backing. While the influence of money has seemingly intensified in Washington, our leaders in Richmond have taken a serious step to reduce corruption at the state level.
The constitutional scholar Lawrence Lessig helps us better understand political corruption by distinguishing between personal and institutional varieties. Personal corruption is an illegal quid pro quo exchange in which a politician or elected official takes gifts in return for official actions.
Perhaps the best recent example of personal corruption is Democratic Sen. Robert Mendez from New Jersey, who was found guilty of accepting gifts such as gold bars in exchange for benefits solicited by the government of Egypt. Lessig argues that personal corruption has always existed in American politics, but that it is not the norm and can be reasonably held in check with law enforcement, like the good police work that uncovered Mendez's crimes.
Intuitional corruption, on the other hand, can't be tackled by law enforcement because it is the law. Lessig defines it as a legal relationship of dependence. Good people — Republicans and Democrats — come into politics to do right by their constituents and enact policies they believe in. But to get elected, and re-elected, they must raise huge sums of money, even for a seat in Virginia's General Assembly.
They become dependent upon the wealthy contributors who fund their campaigns. There is no crass quid pro quo exchange, but politicians grant big contributors access and influence, which can supersede the interests of ordinary folks and the common good.
Historically in Virginia, candidates and elected officials might have also grown dependent on their ability to charge some personal expenses, small or large, to their campaign, which was a perfectly legal thing to do. For this reason, passing HB 2165 was an important step in the fight against institutional corruption and the influence of big money in Virginia, but there is much more work to do.
A good next step would be passage of HB 2607, which failed to gain enough support to get to the House floor this past legislative session. This bill seeks to prevent public utilities, like Dominion Energy, from making campaign contributions. As a publicly regulated monopoly, Dominion Energy is the only electricity provider for more than two million Virginia residents.
In exchange for its monopoly status, Dominion Energy must comply with the rules and regulations set by the General Assembly and the State Corporation Commission, which influences the rates consumers pay and the amount of profit Dominion can accrue. Right now, Dominion Energy has the legal ability to use some of the money it charges from ratepayers to turn around and make large contributions to political campaigns, effectively playing a hand in selecting the elected officials who are supposed to regulate it.
Reining in this type of legal corruption will be no small task. But in an era where big money rules, and democracy itself seems to be on the ropes, this is one of the most important fights we can undertake.
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