Abigail Spanberger’s recent move to strip tax exemptions from Confederate organizations has created a political opening that Republicans can exploit against violent left-wing groups, while raising constitutional and political questions about selective enforcement.
Democrats promoted Abigail Spanberger as a moderate, but her record since taking office has pushed her sharply to the left and put her on a collision course with voters. Polls now show her approval sinking fast after tax hikes, broken promises, and controversial policy choices that many Virginians view as out of step with their priorities.
Her administration enacted tax increases and approved big raises for state employees while changing district lines in ways she once opposed, and crime and illegal immigration have become campaign flashpoints. Those changes fed a narrative that Spanberger abandoned her moderate pitch the moment she had power to spend and redraw maps.
The move that changed the game politically was signing a bill that removes tax exemptions for the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and similar Confederate-linked groups. That action gives red-state Republicans a precedent to argue for stripping tax benefits from left-wing organizations that engage in destructive behavior.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) on Monday signed into law a bill eliminating tax exemptions for multiple organizations connected to the Confederacy.
Democrats in the Virginia House and Senate passed HB167 with vote totals of 62-35 and 21-17, respectively, earlier this year. The bill specifically removes the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, among other similar groups, from the list of organizations exempt from state property taxes.
The UDC, a nonprofit, was founded in 1894 by women “seeking to honor their family members and ancestors” who served in the Confederate military or contributed to the Southern war effort, its website states.
The organization also seeks to “preserve, protect and mark” Confederate monuments and “collect and preserve the material for a truthful history” of the four-year Civil War.
That action prompted an immediate backlash from the UDC. In a press release from February, Julie N. Hardaway, President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy warned, “Passage of this bill will set a precedent to open the door for other valuable historical museums to lose tax-exempt status and opens wide the door for legal action. Is this simply a test case before moving on to bigger and better targets, including churches? To target any group who does not conform to the delegate’s way of thinking is un-American.”
Hardaway’s warning is a constitutional red flag, and it’s reasonable to expect legal challenges that could reach the Supreme Court. The bill targets groups for their viewpoint and historical association, which raises equal protection and free exercise concerns that judges do not take lightly.
Politically, though, Spanberger handed Republicans a template. If red states want to be consistent, they can pursue the same tools against organizations that routinely incite, coordinate, or benefit from violent street actions. That is a very different class of activity from preserving history or maintaining monuments.
Groups like BLM chapters, Antifa-affiliated networks, Code Pink affiliates, and the No Kings collectives have been linked to riots, vandalism, and assaults on businesses and police. Targeted enforcement aimed at organizations that materially support or coordinate illegal acts would be defensible in ways that punishing a historical society is not.
There is a legal distinction worth stressing: celebrating a disputed past and maintaining historical artifacts is not the same as funding or organizing violence. Courts have long treated direct support for violent or terroristic conduct as outside First Amendment protections. The left sometimes brands property destruction or assaults as “speech,” but the law draws a line when speech turns into violent action.
Democrats who cheered removing exemptions from Confederate groups will not expect the mirror to be held up to their own allies, and they will react furiously if the rules are applied across the board. That political meltdown could be an advantage for Republicans who are willing to follow through and enforce consistency rather than selective outrage.
Spanberger’s political miscalculation is plain: she created a tool that can be weaponized back against those who traffic in violence and intimidation. Republicans should note the precedent, prepare legal arguments that target actionable wrongdoing rather than viewpoint, and, when they act, say plainly, “She did it first.”
Her choice to press this fight gives the GOP a strategic option in state capitals, and it will force a national conversation about whether tax policy can or should be used to punish organizations for political views or for violent conduct. Spanberger just fired the opening salvo.
