What a Republican Virginia Will Look Like

Those of us who have been morbidly curious about what an all-Republican government would do given the chance can now look at Virginia for an answer. With the Senate swinging over to the Repubs (the official count right now is 20-20, but with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling's vote, the Repubs have a majority), the House long in its hands, a Repub governor and a state Supreme Court that is to the right of John Birch, we'll see how the GOP governs.

My guess is we'll get some of the following:

• A clamping down on abortion, which nearly doesn't exist in Virginia already. I'm looking for something similar to what Mississippi rejected yesterday, a law that makes birth control illegal.
• A requirement that every citizen, regardless of age, background, physical and mental condition or national origin carry a concealed gun. At least one. Could go to two or three. Guns will be not only legal but encouraged in places like bars, church, school and work.
• The coal industry, which has caused far more deaths than Aids, will have strong support as it knocks away mountaintops and pollutes the air.
• Concern for the environment will be as out of date as leisure suits.
• Poor children will go hungry and without medicine.
• Rich people will get richer and pay even less tax than they pay now.
• The gap between wealth and poverty, which is huge today, will double or triple over the next four years.
• Roads and bridges, already crumbling under a 25-year austerity focus, will begin to disintegrate. I expect a Minneapolis-style catastrophe on one of our bridges any time now. Hope I'm not on it. Hope you're not, either.
• The state will start sending federal funds back to Washington because the Repubs won't want to be told how to spend them.
• More prisons will be built in a state that is overbuilt by about half.
• Utility rates will wind up on the moon.
• Cities will be on their own, though the mandates will not slow down.
• All bare breasts on state statuary will be covered.
• Bible Study will be a required high school course.
• Cigarettes will make a strong comeback among kids.
• Oil derricks will appear off the Virginia coast in huge numbers and we'll have a major oil spill within 10 years of their appearance.

And there'll be plenty more that we haven't even imagined yet.

(Graphic: crowel.typepad.com)