Weekly Recap | NRA pays VA Republicans, O’Rourke campaigns for VADems, Extreme Republicans’ facing tough re-elections…
Follow The Money: NRA pays Virginia Republicans $200K After They Stopped Action on Gun Violence Prevention (DPVA)
Link to press release here.
RICHMOND, VA — 96 days after the gun massacre at Virginia Beach that left 12 innocent Virginians dead, Virginia Republican House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert accepted, through his PAC, a $200,000 political contribution from the National Rifle Association.
Leader Gilbert, the man who moved that the House adjourn the special session called to address gun violence in the wake of the Virginia Beach shooting after just 90 minutes with no votes or debate, has used this PAC to support House Republicans, including endangered Delegate Roxann Robinson.
The NRA’s pay out to Leader Gilbert’s PAC is the logical next step in the NRA-Virginia Republican pay for play…
- FIRST The NRA uses Speaker Kirk Cox’s office as a staging location to combat gun safety legislation during the post-Virginia Beach special session on July 9th.
- THEN GOP House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert moves to adjourn that session after 90 minutes without any debate or votes. Republicans unanimously agree and lawmakers leave town.
- NOW the NRA drops a $200,000 contribution on Todd Gilbert’s PAC 57 days after he helped adjourn the special session and 62 days before Virginia’s critical legislative elections.
“Follow the damn money. The NRA is paying Virginia Republicans to block common sense safety measures. Todd Gilbert, Kirk Cox, and their Republicans colleagues have sold their souls to the NRA, and on November 5, we are going to take their majorities. Enough,” said Jake Rubenstein, DPVA Communications Director.
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Presidential Candidate Beto O’Rourke Campaigns for Virginia Democrats
“The road to 2020 runs through 2019. The road to America runs through the Commonwealth of Virginia.” — Beto O’Rourke
Facing tough re-election bid, Sturtevant declares opposition to rezoning for Richmond’s whitest schools (RTD)
Link to article here.
State Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, said Tuesday that he’ll push to “save” two high-performing, majority-white Richmond elementary schools that might be merged with majority-black schools.
Facing a tough re-election fight this fall, Sturtevant, a former Richmond School Board member, used the first day of school to wade into an intense neighborhood debate over the future of the two schools and the city’s racial divides.
Mary Munford Elementary in the West End and the Fan District’s William Fox Elementary are both under consideration to be combined with schools a few miles away, an idea pitched by school leaders as a way to create more racially balanced student bodies in the city’s whitest schools.
Declaring his opposition to rezoning plans that could affect the two schools, Sturtevant circulated a petition titled “Save our neighborhood schools” that calls the proposals “wrong for our community.” He promised to draft legislation that would require school boards across Virginia to hold a new election or a voter referendum before redrawing school attendance zones to allow the public to render a verdict before changes are made.
Some city officials, including Mayor Levar Stoney, characterized Sturtevant’s stance as an election-year attention grab and an intrusion into local decision-making authority.
In an interview, Sturtevant, a top target for Democrats looking to flip the state Senate this year, said Fox and Munford are two of the best in the region and a “jewel in the crown of Richmond Public Schools.”
“The concern — from what I heard — is that this is breaking up two very strong schools in a school system with a lot of challenges,” Sturtevant said. “And it’s something that was never put to the folks who want to send their kids to these schools, who want to invest in Richmond and Richmond Public Schools.”
Though the city school system has accepted public feedback on the plans, Sturtevant said no School Board members campaigned on a platform of rezoning Munford and Fox.
Stoney, who has not taken a public position on the rezoning plans, called Sturtevant’s announcement an “election-time gimmick.”
“I think we need more community engagement and more working together and collaboration on such an endeavor, not political stunts,” Stoney said.
Sturtevant is being challenged this year by Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, a community college administrator.
In response to Tuesday’s announcement, Hashmi’s campaign noted that Sturtevant was sued in 2013 by a Richmond parent who accused him and other School Board members of holding secret talks to protect white enrollment at certain schools during the rezoning process.
“Now he’s back to playing politics with our schools again in an effort to distract people from his record voting in lockstep with Republicans in the Senate to undermine public education funding,” said Hashmi campaign manager Philip Stein. “Richmonders don’t need a lecture on public schools; they need a state senator who will fight for every student’s access to a quality education.”
The lawsuit was dismissed in early 2016 when the parent who filed it moved into a different school district.
The idea of combining the elementary schools with others first emerged this summer when one of the initial options created by Ohio-based consultant Cropper GIS “paired” Fox with John B. Cary Elementary, two schools that both meet the state’s full accreditation standards. Under that plan, Fox would have gone from 66% white to 47% and Cary from 86% black to 52%.
Students in the one large school zone would attend Fox for kindergarten through second grade and Cary for third through fifth grades.
Initial feedback to the idea was negative, but became more balanced as the rezoning process has played out. Both of the initial proposals left Mary Munford untouched.
The latest options — released in early August — bring Munford into the fold, however. One option would combine Munford with Cary, and combine Fox with George W. Carver Elementary School.
Under that option, Munford would go from 77% white to 55%. Fox — this time combined with Carver — would go from roughly 2 in 3 students being white to 41%.
Fox would still be paired with Cary in another proposal.
Changing the school zones, Sturtevant said, could split siblings between buildings, making drop-off and pickup harder for working parents. For many young families, he said, Munford and Fox were the “driving force” that led them to buy a house in Richmond.
“This is obviously a major change for them,” he said.
Parents both in support of and against the idea have turned out at community meetings across the city since the new plan’s release. They’ve also taken to an online feedback form the district is using to curate opinions.
“The school system should support its neighborhood schools and should focus on building a pipeline of high-achieving schools that keep families in Richmond,” one Munford community member wrote.
Others threatened to move out of the city or send their children to private schools. Some, though, supported the idea.
“Munford is a great school, but we did not like what it represented: the old Richmond under segregation. We are both millennials with a child on the way,” a prospective Munford parent wrote. “We want our child to have the opportunity to attend a diverse school, just as we did. We are strong proponents of Option B pairing Munford and Cary.”
The School Board is scheduled to vote on a plan by the end of the calendar year.
Members of the city School Board suggested Tuesday that Sturtevant should focus on other things, such as improving education funding, before getting involved in School Board business.
“Our state senators truly have the ability to transform schools by ensuring we have the funds to cover the basics,” said Kenya Gibson, who represents the city’s 3rd District on the School Board and lives in Sturtevant’s district. “There are plenty of schools in his district and throughout the state that need new roofs, working AC and chairs.”
Said 2nd District School Board member Scott Barlow: “I’d prefer that Senator Sturtevant use his influence and experience in public schools to advocate for sufficient resources for all of Richmond’s public school students, not to turn our rezoning process into a Senate campaign issue.”
State funding per student has dropped 9% since the Great Recession, according to a report last year by the Richmond-based Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis.
Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor and national expert on school desegregation, called Sturtevant’s proposal “deeply ironic.”
“This is a state representative interfering with a local decision-making process and in the past we’ve seen local control invoked as a means to preserve segregation,” she said. “This turns that on its head.”
Siegel-Hawley added: “It’s reminiscent of the era of Massive Resistance when people who oppose integration use whatever means necessary to do so.”
Sturtevant served on the Richmond School Board from 2013 through 2015, the year he was elected to a suburban Senate seat that stretches from Richmond’s West End to Chesterfield and Powhatan counties. He now lives in Chesterfield.
Sturtevant, a former Munford parent whose family is multiracial, said that if city officials believe rezoning is the right way to desegregate schools, they should make that case publicly and let residents respond through the ballot box.
“There is value in having it put to voters,” Sturtevant said. “Perhaps they agree. Maybe they don’t.”
Republican Senator Amanda Chase To Campaign With Alex Jones Defender and Conspiracy Theorist Joy Villa (DPVA)
Link to press release here.
Like fellow conspiracy theorist President Trump, Villa blamed “both sides” for Charlottesville 2017 deaths; Villa to appear in Richmond with Sen. Chase
RICHMOND, VA — Like many other Virginia Republicans, Senator Amanda Chase is well known for her extreme rhetoric that often mirrors President Trump’s. She’s faced sharp criticism for blaming rape victims for being “naive and unprepared,” demeaning Virginia Capitol Police and calling the Clerk of the Senate “Miss Piggy,” claiming the Equal Rights Amendment would “eliminate gender,” and calling for more guns in public spaces after recent mass shootings.
In a competitive election year when Republicans are already at risk of losing control of the Senate and President Trump is underwater with Virginia voters, Chase is doubling down on her far-right views.
This week she will host a campaign fundraiser with Joy Villa, a pro-Trump artist with her own track record of extremism. Villa is best known for wearing a “Make America Great Again” dress to the Grammy Awards, but she’s frequently crossed the line into promoting dangerous conspiracy theories and siding with white nationalists.
After the Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, Amanda Chase’s “special guest” Villa, like Conspiracist-in-Chief Trump, blamed “extremists on both sides” for drawing attention to the events and chose to attack the media rather than condemn the Neo-Nazis who came to the city.
Villa has a history of similar conspiracy theories and white nationalist sympathies:
- She defended Alex Jones and criticized the removal of his content from YouTube. Jones is famous for spreading far-right conspiracies about mass shootings and propagating racist attacks against Barack Obama.
- She once claimed Senator Kamala Harris paid Jussie Smollett to fake a hate crime against himself while appearing on Jones’s InfoWars show.
- She praised white nationalist activist Mike Cernovich as “phenomenal.” Cernovich helped spread the PizzaGate conspiracy and has a history of misogynistic writing.
“Virginians have been steadfast in their rejection of the kind of hate that Trump, Chase, and Villa promote. Unfortunately, Amanda Chase and the rest of the Virginia GOP have apparently decided that being as extreme as possible and bringing the most offensive people to campaign with them is the best way to win. They should ask Corey Stewart and Ed Gillespie how that worked out for them,” said DPVA Press Secretary Grant Fox.
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How to send a message on gun violence in Virginia (Washington Post)
Link to article here.
VIRGINIA IS one of four states facing legislative elections this fall, and the only one where control of both chambers, each run by Republicans holding tissue-thin margins, hangs in the balance. Small wonder, then, to see one of the most vulnerable Republicans, now clinging to a seat in Northern Virginia, struggling to do damage control on a key issue: guns.
The state has suffered its share of firearms-induced carnage: 32 people massacred in 2007 by a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech; an additional dozen killed this May by a shooter at a municipal building in Virginia Beach. Neither trauma dented state Republicans’ determination to block even the most popular gun safety measures or rescind sensible ones already on the books.
In 2012, the General Assembly, led by Republicans, repealed a 20-year-old law limiting handgun purchases to one a month. And while a 2017 poll showed that 9 in 10 Virginians support background checks for all gun purchases, GOP legislators have consistently refused to close a yawning loophole in state law that requires no such checks for any firearms purchase from private sellers.
Del. Timothy D. Hugo, a Republican who represents a suburban district straddling Fairfax and Prince William counties, has backed those and other pro-gun positions during his 10 terms in office. He opposed allowing localities to regulate firearms without Richmond’s permission and voted to allow concealed handguns to be carried inside bars and restaurants that sell liquor. As the third-ranking Republican in the House of Delegates, he also helped orchestrate the party’s abrupt shutdown of a special legislative session on gun safety measures last month, called by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) after the Virginia Beach massacre.
Those stances have earned Mr. Hugo an A rating from the National Rifle Association. They’ve also proved awkward for Mr. Hugo, who was reelected in 2017 by just 106 votes out of roughly 30,000 cast. This year, he faces a formidable opponent, Democrat Dan Helmer, a U.S. Military Academy graduate who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Faced with the dawning realization that he is radically out of step with his constituents, Mr. Hugo is belatedly making a gesture meant to convey that he is open to sensible gun regulations — his record notwithstanding. Having opposed tough “red flag” bills in the past — measures to keep firearms out of the hands of those who pose a risk to themselves or others — he now says he favors one. In fact, the bill, proposed by another suburban Republican battling to keep his seat, mostly tracks existing mental-health laws. It would do little to keep guns from dangerous and violent people who have not been diagnosed as mentally ill.
There are other reasons to oppose Mr. Hugo, who has blocked key measures to improve transportation and shocked even GOP colleagues by using campaign funds (read: special-interest cash) for snacks, groceries, gas fill-ups and other daily expenses. His extreme record on firearms suggests he has not gotten the message that gun violence is a mortal threat to the public. Perhaps Northern Virginia voters will deliver it.
Labor Day
On Labor Day, Virginia Democrats honored the men and women of organized labor who drive our economy and fight for fair wages, safe workplaces, and so much more. Thank you!
LGBT+ Democrats of Virginia Equality Breakfast: September 21
DPVA Quarter 3 Happy Hour
Chat with fellow Democrats, make new friends, and celebrate what we’ve accomplished and the work that lies ahead! Quarter 3 will be taking place in Fredericksburg!
Upcoming Events
To get your event added to the DPVA website and the newsletter, email digital@vademocrats.org with event details!
9/5 Richmond City Democratic Committee September Mtg
9/7 Northern Neck BLUE Crab Feast
9/10 Flip VA Blue! Event in San Francisco
9/11 September 2019 Hunter Mill Democrats Meeting
9/11 Hunter Mill Democrats Meeting
9/14 Arlington Dems — September Breakfast
9/15 11th CD ‘Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day’ event
9/20 DPVA Q3 Happy Hour in Fredericksburg
9/21 LGBT Democrats of Virginia Equality Breakfast
9/21 Westmoreland Democratic Committee Meeting
