Scott poised to become first Black Speaker of the House of Delegates

With Virginia Democrats flipping the House of Delegates to Democratic control, House Minority Leader Don Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth, is poised to become Virginia’s first Black Speaker of the House.

“Richmond was the cradle of the Confederacy and Virginia was one of the leading areas of where the Civil War was fought,” Scott said. “I think (Virginia) is a lab testing about where we’ve come from as a country and as a commonwealth.”

Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Richmond, chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he expects the group to have at least 30 members in a General Assembly of 140 seats. Democrat Kimberly Pope Adams could bring the total to 31 if she wins her contest against Del. Kim Taylor, R-Dinwiddie, in House District 82. Taylor holds a lead of 173 votes and has declared victory. Adams says the race is too close to call.

(Del. A.C. Cordoza, R-Hampton, is an African American who is not a member of the caucus.)

If House Democrats elect Scott as speaker, Black office holders will preside over both of Virginia’s legislative chambers. Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican and the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia, leads proceedings in the state Senate.

The growing Black representation in the General Assembly is significant as it was not very long ago that Virginia’s laws and state policy hindered Black people from participating in politics.

About 100 African American men had served in Virginia’s legislature between 1869 and 1890, during Reconstruction after the Civil War, according to the General Assembly’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission. But a backlash of Jim Crow laws and Virginia’s 1902 constitution, which put in place barriers to voting such as poll taxes and literacy tests, snuffed out political participation by most Black men and many poor white men in Virginia for decades.

There were no Black members of the General Assembly from 1890 to 1968, when Richmond physician William Ferguson Reid joined the House of Delegates, became the first African American elected to the legislature in the 20th century. In 1969 Richmond’s Doug Wilder became the first Black person elected to the state Senate in the 20th century. In 1990, he was inaugurated as the nation’s first elected Black governor.

U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, who used to hold Bagby’s seat in Virginia’s Senate, recalled earlier this year how her father was subject to literacy tests to vote and how her mother could not vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“It blows my mind that we’re still having firsts in 2023,” McClellan said of becoming the first Black woman to represent Virginia in the U.S. Congress.

Scott, a lawyer, has served in the House since 2020. The House Democratic Caucus elected him as minority leader in 2022 after it ousted former House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, as its leader, a reaction to Democrats losing control of the House in November 2021.

Scott’s likely ascension in the House comes as the legislature grows more diverse in many ways. From more women and women of color on the ballot this year, to a modern record number of Black lawmakers set to do their work in the Capitol, to a number of LGBT-identifying lawmakers elected — the House and Senate will more fully represent the diverse communities it serves.

Virginia’s legislative elections this fall were also a testing lab on issues such as the appetite for abortion access or potential restrictions.

Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governorship in 2021 and the House flipped to the GOP, testing whether Virginia was as blue as the nation had perceived it in recent years, or more purple. Virginia will continue to have split government, but Democrats will now control both General Assembly chambers.

The GOP campaign included record investments from Youngkin’s political action committee and mostly uniform messaging depicting as reasonable a proposal to restrict abortion after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant person. Republicans also ran on tax cut proposals, support for law enforcement and giving parents more authority in public education.

But abortion resonated with voters who wanted to keep Virginia the least restrictive Southern state for access.

“Abortion access is quite popular in Virginia,” Democratic strategist Atima Omara said. “With Youngkin trying to thread the needle to say ‘oh, we found a compromise in 15 weeks’ I think the voters saw right through that.”

Another test was if a winning strategy for Youngkin around “parents’ rights” would work again. Opponents asserted that the movement was being used to harm LGBT youth and censor diverse reading materials.

Former Del. Joshua Cole, a Democrat, will return to the General Assembly after beating Republican Lee Peters in a key House race in the Stafford County area. Cole noted that he has faced adversity and skepticism running for state office as a bisexual Black man.

“When I decided to run for office, (people) told me I couldn’t win. They said I was too young. They told me a Black man couldn’t win this majority-white district. They said an LGBTQ+ person couldn’t win this rural seat,” he said in a statement. “Thanks to our incredible team of grassroots supporters — we proved that when you bring people together for the good of the community, we can win.”

Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William — who in 2017 became the first openly transgender person elected to state office in Virginia — will now represent a Prince William County district in the Virginia Senate. Cole and Roem are among a handful of lawmakers that are also part of the LGBT community.

“These results show that Virginians aren’t just pro-equality; Virginians are invested in electing candidates whose identities and values match the broad diversity of our population,” said Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia.

Though the Democratic Party typically offers up more diverse options to voters, the Republican Party fielded some diversity this year too.

More than half of the Democratic candidates who ran for the House of Delegates and Senate this year are women, and about half of the Democratic candidates are people of color. About 17% of the Republican legislative candidates are women, and about 10% of its candidates are people of color.

As Democrats regained the House and maintained control of the Senate, Scott says he is taking a moment to be proud of his colleagues, but he’s eager for them to get to work on Democratic priorities and issues both parties can come together on.

“I’m proud of all of our candidates, even though we didn’t get all of our races,” he said. “We had great candidates. They were tough. They were from the community they were able to resonate in.”