Two Virginia GOP delegates stripped of committees for claiming election fraud demand to be reinstated

By Gregory S. Schneider,

RICHMOND — Two Republican delegates say Virginia’s Democratic House speaker has violated their freedom of expression by stripping them each of one General Assembly committee assignment over their claims that Virginia’s presidential electors should have been nullified.

Del. Dave LaRock (R-Loudoun) and Del. Ronnie Campbell (R-Rockbridge) demanded to be reinstated in a letter to House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) over the weekend. LaRock said Tuesday that he is considering legal action.

“It is an abuse of power to retaliate against an act of free expression,” LaRock said in an interview. “I’m in consultation with lawyers as to how best to proceed.”

A spokesman for Filler-Corn dismissed the challenge.

“Delegate LaRock and Delegate Campbell continue to exhibit exceedingly poor judgment and a lack of contrition for their actions. In light of a deadly riot, spurred by the falsehoods they helped to peddle, this is the last time one should be leveling threats,” Filler-Corn spokesman Kunal Atit said in an emailed statement.

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With the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden just one day away, the conflict is the latest example of friction within the General Assembly over support for President Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud and this month’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the state Senate, Democrats have sought to censure Sen. Amanda F. Chase (R-Chesterfield), who gave an inflammatory speech at the Jan. 6 Trump rally in Washington and praised the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol as “patriots.”

LaRock attended the D.C. rally but did not take part in the violence at the Capitol. The day before, he had written a letter to Vice President Pence, which was also signed by Campbell and Del. Mark Cole (R-Spotsylvania), asking him to nullify Virginia’s certification of presidential electors and audit the vote.

“Should you, as Vice President, announce a winner based on a tally of unconstitutionally and fraudulently elected Presidential Electors, it would create a rent in the fabric of the nation,” they wrote.

Shortly after the House convened its 2021 session on Jan. 13, Filler-Corn announced that she had removed LaRock, Campbell and Cole each from a single committee. That leaves each delegate serving on two panels instead of the more customary three.

Filler-Corn’s office cited the delegates’ letter to Pence in explaining the committee actions last week, saying the three delegates had sought to “disenfranchise” Virginia voters.

“Their attempt to cast doubt on our elections process in order to impede the peaceful transfer of power between one President to another is an affront to our democracy and violates the public trust,” Atit said last week in a prepared statement.

LaRock had said shortly after being removed from the House Transportation Committee that he would not contest the action.

“The Speaker has the say in that, there’s no grounds to contest it,” he said at the time. Virginia law gives the House speaker broad authority to make and withhold committee assignments, and they have long wielded that power to reward and punish members.

But LaRock said Tuesday that after he saw Filler-Corn’s justification, he decided that his removal had been improper.

“If I had been taken off the committee and given no reason, that would be within her power,” LaRock said. “Being removed from a committee as retaliation for exercising my freedom of expression” is a different matter, he said.

Republican House leaders have repeatedly declined to comment on the situation, and LaRock said Tuesday that he had not discussed it with Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah).

Cole, who did not sign LaRock’s letter to Filler-Corn, told the Fredericksburg Freelance-Star last week that he was not surprised at losing the committee assignment.

“I figured they would do something,” he said. “It is what it is. The speaker’s free to do whatever she wants to do.”

Campbell could not immediately be reached to comment Tuesday morning. But he wrote in a Facebook post last week that Filler-Corn had acted “arbitrarily” and “in retaliation” for his statements in the letter.

He defended his position as part of his “sworn duty to uphold Virginia’s Constitution,” claiming that changes to state elections policy enacted last year by the General Assembly had been handled improperly and caused him to doubt the election’s results.

LaRock, too, has stood by his claims that the presidential election was improper, and that allegations of voter fraud nationwide were not investigated, even though dozens of federal judges and Republican elections officials have found no substantial evidence.

Asked Tuesday if he recognized Biden as the president-elect, LaRock said: “I’m not going to answer that question at this time.”

LaRock also raised eyebrows by writing in a fundraising email that his critics should focus on “the needs of the colored community” instead of attacking him. Although the reference has since been change on his website to “the needs of minorities in the community,” LaRock has defended the original remark.

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