Virginia Gov. Spanberger Rips Tax Exemption Away From Confederate Heritage Groups
“To target any group that does not conform to a delegate’s way of thinking is un-American,” Confederate heritage group says in response to bill.
Several nonprofit groups in Virginia dedicated to preserving the commonwealth’s history will have their tax-exempt status revoked following a bill signed by Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger.
House Bill 167, which has been in the works for four years now, takes away a valuable tax exemption for groups that are tied to the preservation of Confederate heritage, including Daughters of the Confederacy.
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed similar legislation in 2025.
Gov. Spanberger, who came into office just in January, signed the bill on April 13. It removes a tax exemption for property now owned and purchased in the future by six specific organizations.
The law does not eliminate the exemption for similarly situated religious, historical, or recreational organizations that are currently exempt from those taxes. This raises legal concerns.
The Daughters of the Confederacy say they are considering their legal options and that the law amounts to “viewpoint discrimination,” a view backed by at least one free speech expert.
“This law has now set a precedent to open the door for other valuable historical museums and libraries to lose tax-exempt status,” the group stated in a news release on Monday.
“To target any group that does not conform to a delegate’s way of thinking is un-American,” the group stated.
The punishment is also “discriminatory” and “misguided.”
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley also criticized the legislation.
“The law clearly violates the First Amendment, but neither Spanberger nor the Virginia Democrats appear to care,” he wrote on his commentary website.
The George Washington University law professor said the state “will now spend additional money to defend this unconstitutional action and fight for the right to discriminate against those who have opposing views in the state.”
He warned about the use of taxation to punish free speech, writing “[t]ax exemption should not be a status bestowed upon those adhering to the demands of whatever party is in power.”
The decision also drew criticism from a Virginia college graduate, now writing at The Federalist.
“Spanberger is sending an unequivocal message — it’s open season on those who would honor American history and the heritage of their ancestors,” Hayden Daniel wrote. “And the full force of the state will be used to quash them.”
The Daughters of the Confederacy have been violently targeted in the past, Daniel notes.
In May 2020, Black Lives Matter rioters reportedly “caused $4.1 million in damage to the building and its contents.”
[Featured image via WRIC]
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Comments
Confederate memorials etc. were and are part of reconciliation. A domestication of a past conflict.
Generally domestication is the best you can hope for. It’s like language instead of war.
No room for forgiveness. Thinking of the “Reconstruction” after the Civil War that still echoes today. These is an empty pedestal where Lee’s statue was…. who will it be for? Marx, Gramsci, Stalin, Mao, Fidel, Che, Obama?
They will put up statues in honor of all of the Marxists, and maybe some of Laverenti Beria to get people used to the GULAG camps they so desperately want in Virgina.
Subotai Bahadur
I used to appreciate driving past this monument when I lived in Alexandria. Grok:
“Broader National Discussions.”
National “conversations.”
The
CommissarConfederate Vanishes.The civil war continues Left vs Right. The violence is slowly building. It will increase as the left gains more political power and it could become a “shooting war”. The Republicans don’t seem to recognize the threat. They think its just political games. They are blind to what is happening in our country. The anti ICE riots in MN organized by the left. The open border invasion, created by the left. The longest shutdown of government, DHS, gone on so long, the media ignores it. The Coast Guard, FEMA, CBP, ICE and other government employees going unpaid for months. The left has destroyed critical government agencies. Part of the plan to destroy the USA. Who will come out on top? Communists or Islamists?
Among my ancestors were abolitionists and Union soldiers. My family came to the colonies on the Fortune. Your ancestors would have to have walked the land bridge into Alaska to have beaten my people.
I have studied the Civil War closely enough to have a deep and abiding respect for both sides of the conflict. It was a national tragedy of epic proportions but the nation that we live in today (such that it remains) was forged in that cauldron.
I could no more desecrate a confederate memorial than my own mother’s tombstone.
As to Spanberger, let her do her worst. The damage will be contained within the borders of Virginia. The electorate there needs to feel the pain of their stupid decision to elect a deep state socialist hack.
They never will.
They’re as stupid as birds flying into a picture window, wondering what the hell is there.
There was more than a bit of dirty politics in the civil war. The North got to write history and loot the south.
Many slaves where intellectually incapable of managing their lives, thatis still true for a pretty large perentage of their decendents.
With respect, it was NOT a civil war. It was a war of Northern Aggression. “State” is fungible with “country” in English grammar. Even Yankees labeled themselves “Uni0n soldiers.. ”
Civil war is defined as two political entities fighting each other within a country for control of that country. The South didn’t want any thing to do with Northern states other than view them in the rearview mirror.
This woman is just AWFUL and Virginians are just stupid. Moderate – yeah right. A moderate democrat is a whacked out left wing socialist. A left wing democrat is actually a whacked out left wing communist/anarchist.
There are NO moderate democrats.
When a democrat calls themselves moderate they are lying.
When the media calls a democrat moderate they are lying simping and promoting that democrat.
Agree. Except “stupid” is the wrong word. “Ignorant” and “fools” are more true. And much worse.
Well I will give you that any Virginian under 30 voting democrat is just ignorant.
However if you are over 30 you likely have responsibilities and if you still vote democrat without being in a labor union you are just stupid.
Democrats advocating Jim Crow 2.0 – they’ve just changed targets.
This reads imho like a Bill of Attainder, a legislative act designed to remove civil rights and/or impose judicial punishment on individuals or groups without judicial oversight.
The US courts have very seldom let such bills stand, and only in cases where it was successfully argued that it was both narrowly targeted and served some public interest – such as one case where felons (in general) were banned from owning a medical license.
My (googled) understanding is ALL current state constitutions, and the Federal constitution “forbids legislative bills of attainder: in federal law under Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 (“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed”),” … “The fact that they were banned even under state law reflects the importance that the Framers attached to this issue”
“such as one case where felons (in general) were banned from owning a medical license.”
Or the recent case, which expropriated control of every social media company fulfilling a certain set of conditions which were matched only by (surprise!) TikTok.
IT certainly reads like ‘content specific’ restriction on speech. The article says that some historical nonprofits are more equal than others.
Yeah well here’s the thing, This hack is entitled to call for stripping away the tax exempt status of nonprofits, but not because she doesn’t like the views of the nonprofit. As an aside, there are more than a few “nonprofits” that should be investigated for abusing their tax-empt status. And they’re pretty much all democrat aligned hacks who make a considerable profit in their “nonprofit.”
” “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” Orwell was an optimist.
Besides the Bill of Attainder issue raised by BobM above, this likely unconstitutional for a wide variety of other reasons: 1st Amendment and 14th Amendment. It is probably in violation of the Civil Rights Act as well. Spanberger is a classic case of bait and switch.
She is homely, but not as ugly as Abrams on the outside. She is hideous on the inside.
Bait and switch from the homely witch.
by six specific organizations
Is there some evidence of this? Because that would very much be a bill of attainder if it named those organizations. Then we can work on suing these SoBs for denial of rights under color of law.
I seem to recall some years ago (might have been after the Summer of BLM Love) they were having to shut down re-enactments of the War Between The States because no one was willing to play the Confederate side. People and units were being hassled.
Can’t buy a Confederate Flag at Gettysburg National Military Park. “The Civil War” by Ken Burns “saved” PBS. I wonder how he could..or would… have done it now… sans Shelby Foote, sans Confederate Flags, sans Union letters home about freeing the “N’s”? Looking at his recent obscuration of the founding of the country,,, I would hate to see the attempt by Burns now anyway. Lincoln wanted to let the South up easy after the blood bath to asswage the pain and hatred. Look at Grant and Lee at Appomattox. We are dealing with people who have deep hatred for anything they don’t like…. to the point of destruction.
“to asswage the pain”
Now there’s a neologism just looking for the right application.
I suspect it will arrive in the company of the dildo of consequences.
Thanks for making me look that up, ” Henry.”
John Ross would approve !
Ken Burns spent more time talking about slavery in The American Revolution than he did in the Civil War.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Wrongthink must be punished.
Erase it sufficiently and where’s the evidence anything ever happened?
That’s why those who’ve captured our educational system will not teach real history.
Confed history is american history. For good or bad. It has historic value.
Spanberger’s imperial style of governance should act as a warning to all torn about who to vote for in the next few election cycles.
How soon we forget that it is nothing but an echo of Biden’s.
We’ve already normalized Biden’s behavior in our heads.
The Left is trying their best to make America have yet another Civil War. They were the perps on the first one, with insisting on their slaves and refusing to free them. The Left, aka Communists, have NEVER supported the common man; and they still lie about that.