Dem
51
GOP
49
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) announced yesterday that he has scheduled the election necessitated by the death of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA). It will be held on February 21 of next year. The candidates will be chosen by the local party organs no later than December 23.
Virginia law is surprisingly imprecise when it comes to special House elections. The relevant statute says only that "When any vacancy occurs in the representation of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the House of Representatives, or when a representative-elect dies or resigns, the Governor shall issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy." That actually adds nothing that is not already in the U.S. Constitution, which reads: "When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies."
In other words, Youngkin could theoretically have scheduled the election for tomorrow, or for December of next year. The local Democratic Party, who will effectively decide which person will fill the seat, is already complaining about the short timeline, so the Governor has plenty of cover for pushing things to February. However, it has undoubtedly occurred to him that the new representative will not be seated until well after the choose-the-next-speaker soap opera. The absence of one Democratic vote makes wannabe Speaker Kevin McCarthy's life a wee bit easier, as it makes some sort of Democratic-Republican moderate alliance a wee bit tougher to pull off. (Z)