This precinct's color is blue, tinged with confusion -- June 14, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

“That’s ridiculous!” the angry voter roared at me. “Who do I complain to?”

It was Primary Day, and I was working as a city Election Officer or poll worker at the City Hall precinct in Alexandria, Va. My job was to greet voters and tell them something I assumed they’d already know.

“We’re having a Democratic primary and a Republican primary today,” I said hundreds of times, smiling. “You can vote in one or the other, but not both.”  

For some voters like this woman, though, that was infuriating news. She wanted to vote in both primaries and wasn’t giving up without a fight.  

The precinct election chief, overhearing her protests – who didn’t? – showed her a sample ballot with the pertinent section of Virginia Code about primaries: “No person shall vote for the candidates of more than one party.”

She redirected her ire toward Richmond and asked for a Democratic ballot.   

It would be easy to dismiss her as dumb, but the story is more nuanced. For one thing, she had plenty of company in her confusion.

By my estimate, about one in 10 voters at my precinct Tuesday either thought there was only a Democratic primary or knew there were two primaries and thought they could vote in both.

Virginia voters don’t register to vote by party and some infrequent voters had forgotten how the open primary system works.

In Alexandria, called “one of Virginia’s most lopsidedly Democratic bastions” by The Washington Post, the Democratic primary is typically the decisive election for local offices. At the City Hall precinct, of 904 ballots cast, 851 were Democratic.

The city of 150,000 residents had hotly contested mayoral and city council races. Democratic candidates flooded voters by mail and phone, knocked on their doors and stopped them at farmer’s markets. Local weeklies carried pages of letters to the editor by neighbors asking neighbors to vote for their favorite candidates.

The perpetual issue is development – how much and where.

Residents of Old Town worry more new hotels and condos along the riverfront will ruin the ambiance of the brick-walked city George Washington frequented. Some voters are also fed up with ever-rising real estate taxes.

But Alexandria faces mounting financial pressure for education and social services in an increasingly diverse city where public school children speak 120 languages and nearly two in three receive free or reduced price meals.

On a day when other women candidates across the state did well, incumbent Mayor Allison Silberberg, a soft-spoken and lonely opponent of development on council, lost to pro-development Vice Mayor Justin Wilson, who said when he announced his candidacy for mayor, “Preservation of the status quo is not a vision.”

Wilson, 39, had strong support among parents in the Del Ray neighborhood, while Silberberg, 55, was popular with well-to-do retirees in Old Town, the Post reported.

There was a strong “throw the rascals out” mood toward city council. A dozen candidates ran for the six seats, and two of four incumbents seeking re-election lost. 

Among the winning newcomers are a 32-year old woman, a Sudanese refugee and a first-generation Mexican American.   

Since the only Republican contest was for the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in November, several self-proclaimed lifelong Republicans reluctantly asked for the Democratic ballot. They wanted a voice in city government, even though it meant not having one in choosing the Senate candidate.   

At least a few asking for both ballots were Democrats who wanted to help Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in his re-election bid by voting for the weakest Republican. They needn’t have worried.

Virginia Republicans obliged by choosing Corey Stewart, a Trump extremist who supports keeping Confederate monuments in place. 

Turnout in the off-year primary was light around the state. But in Alexandria, about 23 percent of registered voters turned out – up from 16 percent three years ago – even though it was a lovely spring day with a huge parade and celebration just across the Potomac in Washington at midday for the Washington Capitals.

There was no confusion about who won the Stanley Cup.

House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. famously said all politics is local. Sometimes, as in Alexandria on Tuesday, local politics is all.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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My church struggles with Robert E. Lee's legacy -- Nov. 2, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When my church in Alexandria made the news, I knew it would be a bumpy ride.  

The historic Episcopal church, after months of soul-searching, announced Oct. 26 it would relocate from the sanctuary two marble plaques memorializing George Washington and Robert E. Lee, its most famous members.

It may not surprise you that some media reports overly simplified and exaggerated the turn of events.

Headlines trumpeted: “Cultural terrorism comes to Christ Church in Alexandria” and “George Washington’s church to tear down memorial honoring first president.”  

Blogs referred to “ripping out” the memorial to Washington the church now finds “offensive.”

Asked about the plaques in a TV interview, John Kelly, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, criticized the decision and praised Lee as an honorable man.   

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of Supervisors and a Republican candidate for Senate next year, and others decried political correctness.

“The next thing . . . is that they would take the name Christ off the name of this church,” Stewart declared in a news conference outside the church.

Let’s take a breath here.  

After Christ Church opened in 1773, Washington was one of the early worshippers and had a family pew. His adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, gave the church one of Washington’s Bibles after he died.

Lee could walk to church from his boyhood home a few blocks away. He and two of his daughters were confirmed in the church in 1853, and Lee attended Sunday morning services April 21, 1861, after he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army.

His eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee, left the church $10,000 for its endowment when she died in 1918.

The church installed the two plaques -- “In Memory of George Washington” and “In Memory of Robert Edward Lee” – on either side of the altar two months after Lee died in October 1870.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw the plaques when they worshipped on New Year’s Day 1942. Over the years, so did Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan and both Bushes when they visited.

In the decade I’ve been a member, there’s been a growing uneasiness among the largely white parish that the prominent Lee plaque discourages black people from becoming part of the church.

Then, white nationalist Richard Spencer moved to Old Town Alexandria, and the horrible events in Charlottesville last summer brought the matter to a head.

The vestry unanimously decided “the plaques create a distraction in our worship space and may create an obstacle to our identity as a welcoming church . . . Accordingly the plaques will be relocated no later than the summer of 2018.”

Emily Bryan, senior warden of the church, told parishioners last Sunday: “Today, the legacy of slavery and of the Confederacy is understood differently than it was in 1870. For some, Lee symbolizes the attempt to overthrow the Union and to preserve slavery . . . The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome.”

Where my church stumbled was in not having a new location already chosen, so outsiders would see we aren’t trying to hide our history. A committee will decide where on the church campus to put the plaques.

Remaining unchanged in the sanctuary will be Washington’s box pew, the plaque marking his funeral, silver markers for Washington and Lee on the pews and communion rail, and other references to the two men.  

In the churchyard, Confederate soldiers in a mass grave will remain undisturbed.

So, maybe you’re saying, OK, I get why they’re moving the Lee plaque – but why Washington too?

Because the two plaques were installed at the same time and “visually balance each other, maintaining the symmetry of our sanctuary,” church leaders decided they should move together.

I hope the new location balances respect for history with modern -- and timeless -- values.  

I like the way Noelle York-Simmons, Christ Church rector, explained the situation to reporters the other day.

“We are the church of George Washington, of Robert E. Lee, but most importantly we are the church of Jesus Christ,” she said. Amen.

 ©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.