Back in the early 1980s, Speaker of the House of Delegates A.L. Philpott had a 66-seat majority.
"He was the last speaker really in the era of complete Democratic control of government in Virginia," notes John Milliken at George Mason University's Schar School.
Milliken says current House Speaker Don Scott and A.L. Philpott share more than a 60-something seat majority.
"Both are speakers of large majorities in an era when there was strong competition from the other party," Milliken says. "And so the fact that he had a 66-person majority in the 1980s didn't mean he was going to hold that forever."
Radio IQ politics analyst Jeff Schapiro was a young reporter back in the 1980s and covered Philpott.
"A.L. Philpott exercised power with great subtlety," Schapiro remembers. "He used his control of the committee system and he used his control of the legislative calendar, and he relied very heavily on a pool of lieutenants, many of whom sat as chairs of important committees."
Now Speaker Scott will have a majority so large he doesn't need to worry about close votes, but he also has to keep an eye on factions in his own caucus.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
