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GOP delegates do a number on civility

SOME DEMOCRATS sneer that, because of its ties to Christian activists, the GOP stands for "God's Own Party." Maybe they're right. After all, Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates have performed a geographic miracle with their vote last week to reject Daniel LeBlanc as secretary of the commonwealth: They have made the Potomac River a tributary of the James.

Someone call the EPA. This is not a re-routing to cheer. House Republicans, having already adopted Washington-style ideology, now have embraced toxic Washington-style politics in killing, by bloc vote, Gov. Kaine's nomination of Mr. LeBlanc--the first time the General Assembly has ever denied a governor his choice of a Cabinet secretary. There is nothing conservative, nor Virginian, about so radical and rude a departure from salutary custom.

The shabbiness of a political action can be gauged by the codswallop secreted to justify it. Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, claims that approving Mr. LeBlanc, a former Virginia AFL-CIO chief, "would send the wrong message" to firms considering a move to the Old Dominion--as though entrepreneurs were junior J. Edgar Hoovers, keeping files on the nation's gubernatorial functionaries. The only related datum that might interest an out-of-state CEO is the union penetration of Virginia's work force, which in 2004, calculates labor scholar Barry Hirsch of Trinity University, was all of 5.3 percent--the nation's fifth-lowest rate. Besides, the Cosgrave solicitude for Virginia's economic vitality was hardly so tender in 2004 when he and most of Mr. LeBlanc's House executioners were willing to jeopardize Virginia's bond rating rather than raise taxes to meet state obligations.

Del. John Reid, R-Henrico, no slouch himself in the art of disgorging bilge, notes that Mr. LeBlanc is "out of the mainstream with the people of Virginia on right-to-work"--referring to the freedom of workers from compulsory unionization. Mr. Reid is surely right on this point, but so what? Do he and Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania, who made the motion to reject Mr. LeBlanc, believe that only categorically conventional thinkers should hold public appointment? Do they fear that a Secretary LeBlanc would plot darkly to seed the Virginia Soybean Board with Bolshies? Or allow some Old Dominion Mother Jones to nefariously influence lip-waxing standards on the Board for Barbers and Cosmetology?