From the Archives: Virginia GOP Senate candidates share thoughts on 17th Amendment repeal

Virginia GOP Senate candidates share thoughts on 17th Amendment repeal
May 1, 2012 7:41 PM MST

Three of the four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia agree that efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which authorizes the direct election of senators – are impractical at best.

In post-debate interviews in Roanoke on Saturday, where all four candidates participated in a forum sponsored by the Republican Party of Virginia, the candidates expressed their views on the 17th Amendment in response to questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner.

‘Repeal Amendment’ alternative

Jamie Radtke said that she does not think the repeal efforts are viable, “so I’ve been very supportive, as you know, of the Repeal Amendment,” proposed by William Howell, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, and Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett.

The Repeal Amendment, Radtke explained, “says that if two-thirds of the state legislatures agree,” Americans can use that method to “repeal any act of Congress, any rule, any regulation, or any tax.”

That, she said, “gets to the heart of the 17th Amendment without taking any people’s right to vote away.”

Exponential corruption

E.W. Jackson said that he has “been asked that question on numerous occasions and my response is always the same: I’m not convinced it’s a good thing to do.”

Jackson explained that, “while people may feel” indirect elections “may make a senator more responsive to the needs of the state and the state legislature,” he thinks “the potential for corruption is exponential” because of “the deals that need to be cut to select who that person is going to be.”

As a result, Jackson said, “I’m in favor of leaving it as it is but I’ve made a commitment to those who have that concern that I will regularly go and visit the General Assembly and regularly meet with our delegates and our senators [to] talk to them about what their needs are and what I can do to either help them with federal policy or get federal policy off the backs of our state.”

‘Cheaper to campaign’

From the Archives: Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday

Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday
February 6, 2011 9:45 AM MST

The 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Virginia is still a year away, but potential nominees from both the Democratic and Republican parties are taking advantage of the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan to associate themselves with the conservative icon.

Jim Webb

Incumbent Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat who has not yet announced whether he will seek re-election, served as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. According to the Washington Post, he sent a letter to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, encouraging the state’s chief executive to honor the Reagan centennial.

"More than twenty years ago, President Reagan inspired this nation after a period of extraordinary turmoil and self-doubt," Rosalind Helderman quotes Webb as saying. "I believe it is entirely fitting that we reexamine his legacy today as our nation faces serious challenges at home and abroad."

On Friday, McDonnell issued a proclamation designating February 6 as “Ronald Reagan Day” in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

George Allen
Webb’s 2006 opponent, former Governor and Senator George Allen, who recently announced his intention to take back his old seat, sent an email to supporters with his own reminiscences of Reagan.

Allen notes that he first met Reagan when the latter was governor of California and that he had served as chairman of Young Virginians for Reagan during the nomination campaign of 1976.

Allen goes on to say that Reagan “knew that to unleash America's potential, people must be unburdened by government interference, unrestricted by onerous taxes and obstacles to innovation and creativity, and unobstructed by incentive-sapping laws and regulation. By using Ronald Reagan's faith in foundational principles we can confront the challenges we face in our nation, state and local communities and again unleash the unique potential of the American Dream.”

Jamie Radtke
Allen’s only announced rival for the 2012 GOP Senate nomination, former Tea Party leader Jamie Radtke, also released a statement on the occasion of Reagan’s 100th birthday.

“Just as President Reagan kept alive the ideals of the Founders,” Radtke says, “the modern-day Tea Party movement has revived the ideals of Ronald Wilson Reagan, even as the political party he led wandered from those principles, with disastrous results.”

Taking credit for a return to Reagan’s values, Radtke goes on to say that “the Tea Party movement, of which I have been a proud member, has driven a resurgence of the Republican Party in Washington centered around Ronald Reagan's principles of smaller, Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, free markets and virtue and accountability.”

There have been reports that other candidates who may enter the 2012 Senate race in Virginia include Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) and Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 6, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Openly gay Navy veteran rejected for judgeship by Virginia legislature

Openly gay Navy veteran rejected for judgeship by Virginia legislature
May 16, 2012 1:40 AM MST

How often does a state legislature’s vote on the appointment of a local traffic-court judge win the attention of the New York Times, MSNBC, Washington Post, and other national news outlets?

Not often (if ever), except when, as in the case of Virginia judicial nominee Tracy Thorne-Begland, the proposed judge is openly gay and the only one of dozens of similar prospective judges rejected by the state House of Delegates.

Thorne-Begland, a prosecutor for the past decade in the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, was sponsored by Republican Delegate Manoli Loupassi and two colleagues to fill an open slot in the city’s General District Court, which has jurisdiction over traffic offenses, small claims, and petty crimes.

Bob Marshall intervenes

Thorne-Begland’s nomination was vociferously opposed by U.S. Senate candidate Bob Marshall, who represents Manassas and parts of Prince William County in the House of Delegates. Marshall said that Thorne-Begland, a Navy veteran who served as a pilot during the first Gulf War, was unsuitable for the job because of his previous activism on behalf of the civil rights of gay citizens and because he is legally married to his same-sex partner even though Virginia’s constitution forbids same-sex marriage.

Marshall argued that Thorne-Begland could not be trusted to uphold the law in a neutral, judicious manner because, like Marshall himself, he is outspoken on gay-rights issues.

Thirty-three legislators voted their approval of the nomination, which had sailed through the Republican-dominated Courts of Justice Committee without controversy. Thirty-one voted against the nomination, while ten abstained and 26 were absent for the 1:00 o'clock a.m. roll call. A majority of 51 votes was necessary for the nomination to succeed.


Social media outrage

Virginia lawmakers and voters took to social media to register their outrage at the vote.

Shortly after the vote, at 1:16 a.m., Delegate Mark Keam (D-Fairfax County) tweeted a photo of the vote display board in the House of Delegates and said, “VA House voted down Tracy Thorne-Begland as a General District Court Judge. First nominee rejected in my 3 years here.”

State senator Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) posted on his Facebook wall:

“I'm glad this is being noticed and criticized widely! My worst day in nine years in the General Assembly. I can't imagine how Tracy Thorne-Begland feels.”

State senator Mark Herring (D-Loudoun County) also posted on Facebook:

“The treatment that Mr. Thorne-Begland received by the General Assembly, well after midnight Tuesday morning, was disgraceful and offensive... Together with many of my fellow Virginians, I am embarrassed by what I witnessed take place early this morning.”

Elsewhere on Facebook, Richmond City Council member Charles Samuels wrote:

“It’s rare that I comment about the decisions of other elected bodies, but I have to say that the decision to vote down the judicial sponsorship of Mr. Tracy Thorne-Begland in the General District Court for the City of Richmond surprises, disappoints and frustrates me.”

Delegate Jennifer McLellan (D-Richmond) posted her floor speech on the matter on YouTube, noting that Thorne-Begland "was willing to fight and die for his country but he was not willing to lie about who he was to continue to serve."

On Twitter, the Virginia ACLU stated:

“We don't take positions on judicial [appointments], but shame on [Virginia] House for rejecting Thorne-Begland [because] he's gay.”

Lawyer Brian Schoeneman, a 2011 candidate for the House of Delegates, headlined an article on the widely-read Virginia politics web site, Bearing Drift, “Vote against openly gay judicial nominee another black eye for Virginia.”

Schoeneman wrote that “the vote last night was wrong. We let irrelevant issues cloud the real question – whether Thorne-Begland was qualified and would be competent in doing the job of a General District Court judge – with conjecture and character-assassination. Those are the only questions that matter, and we ignored them by bringing his past activism into play, especially when it would have little impact on the job.”

That article, published on a conservative web site, drew 71 comments by late Tuesday evening, a few favoring the negative vote against Thorne-Begland but most agreeing with the view that the vote was shameful.

Based on those comments and others, many Virginia political activists anticipate that this legislative vote will result in ridicule by late-night TV comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jay Leno.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 16, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Bob Marshall cites ‘rainbow spectrum’ of support for his legislation

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Bob Marshall cites ‘rainbow spectrum’ of support for his legislation
April 10, 2012 11:27 PM MST

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Marshall cites three specific pieces of legislation when asked how he will earn the votes of libertarians.

Marshall is one of four candidates in a June 12 GOP primary that will select a nominee to face former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine in the fall. The winner in the November election will succeed Senator Jim Webb, who is retiring from Congress after one term.

In an interview on April 10 with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Marshall explained how he plans to attract the votes of libertarians in the primary (or, should he get that far, in the general election), he named “three things.”

Getting the libertarian vote

He noted that “Robert Dean, who heads the Libertarian Party of Tidewater, is 110 percent behind my preventive detention bill,” which was the General Assembly’s response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and will likely be signed, with amendments, by Governor Bob McDonnell later this month.

He mentioned HB 10, a 2010 law he called “the anti-Obamacare bill” but which is also know by its formal title, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act. That law was used by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in suing the federal government to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one of the cases heard last month by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marshall also cited “the anti-Real ID bill” he introduced in 2009, which responds to federal regulations about driver’s licenses and other identification cards.

“What I said in my bill is, If we cannot be certain that the encrypted data on those licenses is not secure, we’re telling the federal government, you’re on your own, we’re not participating.”

Summarizing, Marshall reiterated that he has “done three things that should appeal to people for whom liberty is a paramount concern and again, two of those passed into law, the third one is going to pass into law in a few days because the governor agreed to an amendment last night and I believe the House and Senate will accept that.”

Libertarians, he said, “are right to be concerned about liberty” and in these bills he “had support from John Birch and the ACLU,” two organizations that are “as far apart as you can get.”

He described that coalition as “really the rainbow spectrum” supporting legislation he introduced as a “conservative Republican.” To pass those measures, he said, “we dropped all our other differences – and they are considerable – to focus on this and we’ve succeeded.”

Oddfellows

Marshall also talked about political figures he admires.

Without hesitation, he listed “Jefferson, Madison, and Ronald Reagan” and then, in response to a question about politicians with whom he disagrees but nonetheless admires, he paused to think before naming Joe Morrissey, a Democratic member of the House of Delegates from Richmond.

“Joe Morrissey,” Marshall said, is his “exact, 180-degree opposite” but “he gets in as many fights as I do, I think for his own right reasons. We differ but we respect each other. In other words, I respect persons, not views. I think Joe’s crazy on some of his views. He thinks I’m crazy but amazingly we get along.”

Later. Marshall added that he also gets along with state Senator Adam Ebbin, the only openly gay member of the General Assembly. The two of them served together for several years in the House of Delegates before Ebbin, an Alexandria Democrat, was elected to the Senate.

In part one of this interview, Marshall discussed HB 1160, his state legislative response to the National Defense Authorization Act’s preventive detention provisions, and why he decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 2012.

Suggested Links

Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate
Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert
Congressman Scott Rigell on the challenge of reaching independent voters
Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman mulls GOP outreach to libertarians
Libertarian Party praises Virginia legislators for anti-NDAA bill

From the Archives: Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate
April 10, 2012 7:16 PM MST

Delegate Bob Marshall is one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Senator Jim Webb in a primary election on June 12. In the 2008 U.S. Senate race, Marshall came within a few votes of defeating former Governor Jim Gilmore at a state GOP nominating convention.

Marshall is the author of HB 1160, a bill written in response to the passage last year of provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permit the president to detain indefinitely, without trial, American citizens suspected of ties to terrorism. HB 1160 passed both chambers of the General Assembly with large majorities.

After the legislator spoke to a group of conservative political activists in Richmond on April 10, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked Marshall about the significance of that bill, which is likely to get the General Assembly’s final approval later this month after it considers a few minor amendments from Governor Bob McDonnell.

Freedom or serfdom

“It’s the significance of being a free citizen and being a serf,” Marshall said.

“I introduced House Bill 1160, which was a response to a statute that Congress passed [NDAA] that basically said the President (or any president) can take American citizens off the streets, not charge them with anything, not give them opportunity for counsel, not go to trial, not face their accuser – this is unprecedented in American history and the ostensible reason was, ‘Well, there are people committing treason out here for al-Qaeda.’”

Rick Sincere and Bob Marshall

That reasoning, to Marshall, was insufficient justification for giving the President this new authority.

“The Constitution has a specific provision for how Congress is supposed to treat Americans charged with treason,” he explained, noting that James Madison in the Federalist Papers had “said Congress was limited in how it prosecuted treason because treason in England was a recipe for going after your political enemies.”

The Framers, he continued, wanted to restrict the authority of Congress with regard to treason.

“There is a constitutional remedy for treason,” Marshall said.

The NDAA provisions were passed by Congress despite reported objections by the Obama administration although, Marshall said, President Obama is “on both sides of this issue,” because while “he wanted any provision in there that prevented him from detaining people taken out,” when he signed the bill he said, “‘Well, I won’t use this power you’ve just given me.’ That’s hard to fathom.”

Why run for Senate?

With regard to his decision to run for the U.S. Senate this year, Marshall said that “the fact that I ran in 2008 and came so close was an incentive for me to consider it but I really couldn’t do it until after I ran the House of Delegates race” in 2011, where he was running in a district that was at half new to him.

In that campaign, he said, “I had to introduce myself to voters. I do this at the ground level, knocking on doors, and I didn’t want them to think that I’m just doing this as a stepping stone” to higher office.

Although Marshall had been in elected office for 20 years, many of his new constituents “didn’t know that,” so he postponed a decision about the Senate race until after he had secured his re-election to the House of Delegates.

After last year’s election, he added, “I called around the state to see” whether there would “be support for a candidate like myself. When I found out there was, I decided to enter it.”

In part two of this interview, Bob Marshall explains how he intends to earn the votes of libertarians and talks about political figures he admires.

Suggested Links

Libertarian Party praises Virginia legislators for anti-NDAA bill
Environmental activist David Rothbard says 'lift up people and nature together'
Virginia 5th District candidate John Douglass calls for ‘new policies’
Senate hopeful E.W. Jackson claims libertarian backing, unique qualities
Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert

Is Bob Marshall trying to undermine his own same-sex marriage amendment?

In 2006, Virginia voters approved an addition to the state's constitution intended to prohibit same-sex marriage and anything similar to it within the Commonwealth, including marriages that were legally contracted in other states or foreign countries.

Known as the "Marshall-Newman Amendment" after its two principal patrons, Delegate Bob Marshall and state Senator Steve Newman, the ballot measure became Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution, reading:

That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.

(Section 15 is entitled, "Qualities necessary to preservation of free government."  If you're puzzled as to how a ban on gay marriage fits into that category, you're not alone.)

One of the big issues under consideration by the General Assembly in its 2014 session is ethics reform, sparked by last year's revelations about questionable and large gifts made to former Governor Bob McDonnell and his family by former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams.

It happens that Delegate Bob Marshall -- the same Bob Marshall who sponsored the anti-marriage provision of the Virginia Constitution -- has introduced a bill that expands the categories of familial relationships that should be affected by ethics rules.  Basically, if a person falls within one of these categories, that person is subject to limits on gifts based upon the individual's relationship to an officeholder.

In HB 15, Marshall proposes this new clause amending § 2.2-3117, § 30-111, of the Code of Virginia:

For purposes of reporting gifts pursuant to Item 5 and Schedule E, "immediate family" also includes (a) the officer's or employee's or his spouse's parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, and sister and (b) any person with whom the officer or employee has been habitually cohabiting in a relationship analogous to a marriage.

The Marshall-Newman Amendment, now part of the Virginia Constitution, states clearly that the Commonwealth "shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage."

Rick Sincere (left) and Bob Marshall, April 2012

Yet Marshall wants to extend ethics law to cover people "in a relationship analogous to a marriage."

Relationships "analogous to a marriage" have no standing under Virginia law, in large part because Bob Marshall wanted them to have no such standing.

Now Bob Marshall wants to give such relationships legal status for purpose of ethics legislation.

Does Marshall want to have it both ways?  Either relationships "analogous to a marriage" exist under Virginia law, or they don't.

If individuals are subject to equal treatment under the law in one case -- that is, limiting their ability to accept gifts because they are in a relationship with a public servant -- shouldn't they also be treated equally in all cases?

If Delegate Marshall is trying to set a precedent that will upend his own amendment to the Constitution, we should welcome it.  If he wants to recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships among gay couples, he should say so clearly and persuade the General Assembly to change the laws restricting such relationships across the board.

Of course, it could be that Delegate Marshall is oblivious to how HB 15 contravenes Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution, though I doubt it.  He's far too intelligent and clever for that to be the case.

Here's a reminder of Marshall's stance on gay marriage, when he was running for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2012, answering a question about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) along with George Allen, E.W. Jackson, and Jamie Radtke:

So here's the question:  Has Bob Marshall had a change of heart?  Is he now open to gay relationships being recognized under the law but too shy to say so?

What do you think?  Leave comments below or tweet your thoughts to me at @rick_sincere.