Special election candidates for the House of Delegates in the 5th District discussed their views on redistricting, the popular vote, “right-to-work” laws and more during a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Arlington and Alexandria City yesterday (Sunday).
Democrat R. Kirk McPike and Republican Mason Butler attended the virtual forum, which was moderated by LWV Vote 411 Director Anna Weber. Candidates were each given two minutes to respond to questions.
Early voting began this past Saturday for the Feb. 10 special election and will last through Saturday, Feb. 7. The deadline to register to vote or update registration is tomorrow (Tuesday).
Tax proposals
After opening statements, candidates were asked how they would vote on several new taxes proposed in the General Assembly.
McPike noted that most of the proposed taxes are in a bill that has never passed a committee. He said he doesn’t believe a vote will take place for them soon.
“I do think it is important that our tax system be progressive and provide relief to people in the middle incomes while maintaining the services that we need to provide by raising taxes on higher income Virginians,” McPike said.
McPike said he could support a bill to raise income taxes for people who make more than $1 million per year, but “when it comes to broad expansions of taxation, I don’t think we necessarily need that.”
Butler said “I hope and pray that what Kirk said was correct — that this stuff never makes it out of, even committee, to the floor.”
“We’re talking about Virginia, who has just gotten through one of the worst RIFs, reduction in forces, in the history of the federal government,” Butler said. “We have out-of-work federal employees and contractors, and now is not the time to go raising taxes on Virginians, especially Alexandrians.”
Immigrants’ safety
Candidates were asked, “If elected, what specific actions do you plan on taking to ensure the safety of immigrants in our communities?”
Butler said “if you’re going to protest, protest peacefully,” and that “there is a legal process that [law enforcement] can follow that doesn’t involve shooting someone or killing someone — that, I am fully against in every way, shape or form.”
He added, “it’s about time we build some type of process for our immigrant population to become American citizens.”
McPike said he appreciated Butler’s reference, and that McPike’s employer, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, co-sponsored a pathway bill for undocumented people in 2015.
“That bill never got a vote because Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives would not allow a vote on it, and today, a Republican president is waging war — not just on immigrant communities in America, but on anyone who they think might be an immigrant or might be supportive of our immigrants,” he said.
McPike said he would join other Democrats to support “a series of bills to constrain the actions of lawless federal immigration officials.”
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Candidates were asked if they would support Virginia joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, as well as their thoughts on its pros and cons.
McPike said he would strongly support joining the compact.
“A voter in Virginia should be just as important as a voter in California, as a voter in Wyoming, as a voter in a swing state like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan,” McPike said.
Butler said “there are some cases where we do need to reconfigure how we elect people” and said he supports ranked choice voting. As far as the compact, Butler said he thinks it “has some time to mature.”
“I also think we need to have the ability to have traditional Republican states and traditional Democratic states come together and figure this thing out, because right now, it’s mainly just a Democratic issue,” he said.
Redistricting
Candidates were asked if they supported a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow for mid-decade redistricting in Virginia.
Butler said “this whole redistricting power grab seems like it’s tearing our country apart,” addressing both political parties.
“My birth state is Kentucky, so the motto in Kentucky is, ‘United we stand, divided we fall,” Butler said. “And those words were uttered by Governor Spanberger, that when you bring us together, we’re stronger.”
Referencing Republican gerrymandering, McPike said he thinks it is appropriate “to allow Virginia to respond to actions happening in other states.”
“Ultimately this amendment allows the voters to decide that — not politicians,” McPike said. “I think we should give the voters that choice.”
Utility costs
Candidates were asked to share their thoughts on the “best path to keeping utilities down.”
McPike said he is supported by Clean Virginia and does not take contributions from Dominion Energy. He called for “a major series of investments to build out an economy that can power ourselves into the future” with sources like wind and solar.
“We also need to make sure that large electrical users, like data centers and other new entrants into the electrical market, pay their fair share,” McPike said.
Butler agreed, and said, “there’s got to be a process that we use to invest in infrastructure,” after referencing Alexandria City Public Schools’ efforts to install solar, which incurred unexpected construction costs.
“We also need to be mindful that when we put unreasonable greenhouse gas emissions or Green New Deal requirements on new buildings and new construction that really prohibit it from being affordable to build,” Butler said.
Snow removal
Candidates were asked, “Given the ongoing issues with snow and ice removal, what do you plan to do to help residents after storms?”
Butler said he thinks “we can hold [contractors] to a standard where they’re able to get the [primary routes] in a period of time, the secondaries in a period of time, and then work on the tertiaries so that we can get people out of their house and into the office.”
Butler encouraged residents to check on their neighbors.
McPike said “the state can probably do more to help us in situations like this,” and mentioned how Alexandria, as an independent city, does not receive state support to clear arterial roads.
“We should be working with our state delegation in Richmond to ensure that in emergency situations, certain VDOT resources are available, even to independent cities, to help clear the snow challenges as quickly as possible,” McPike said. He gave a shoutout to the city’s Snow Buddy Program.
Election integrity
Candidates were asked, “How will you protect the integrity of our elections?”
McPike said Virginia has “incredibly fair elections” and praised Alexandria’s elections department for being “incredibly efficient.”
“You can trust that when you go and you put your ballot in that box, that vote, that ballot, is going to be counted correctly,” McPike said. “Of course, we can use more funding for this. Our election departments are sometimes understaffed in various parts of the state.”
Butler agreed with McPike on the quality of Virginia and Alexandria elections.
“I’ve been an election officer for three cycles, so I’ve hands-on seen it, because I’ve been the guy working the polls — you can’t say enough good things about how Alexandria does elections,” Butler said.
“We just need to get people out to vote,” he said.
Drug prices
Candidates were asked if they support legislation that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices for the most highly-used medications.
“In order for us to be a more affordable Virginia, we have to control the cost of health care,” Butler said, favoring the legislation.
“I’ve got some interesting ideas that I would like to see piloted that are relative to keeping the cost of prescription drug prices down,” Butler said. “If you can keep a BMI, body mass index, lower than, say, you know, 15%, you should be able to have things like a free general practitioner visit once a year.”
McPike said he supports the legislation, as well as Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s affordability agenda.
“I also believe that we need to look at our health care system in general and consider following in the footsteps of some of our northeastern neighbors, who are forming a sort of health care cooperative to recommend best practices on things like immunization schedules, because the federal health agencies have been overtaken by people who do not put science first,” McPike said.
‘Right-to-work’
Candidates were asked if they support the state’s existing “right-to-work” laws.
McPike said “absolutely not,” and that he supports efforts to repeal “right-to-work” in the General Assembly.
“Right-to-work is effectively the right to work for less,” McPike said. “When workers do not have access to unionization, it creates a completely un-level playing field between employees and their employers.”
Butler said he appreciated being a union member while working at UPS in college. When it comes to unions, he said he believes in a “hybrid approach.”
“There are some professions that require physical labor, and I think the unionization of those professions and those businesses, I think, will help protect workers,” Butler said. “But in other settings, where it’s an office setting, I’m not really sure that that would benefit Virginians as a whole.”
Party lines
Candidates were asked if they would “always vote with your party caucus, or with your own conscience?”
Butler said “that’s an easy one for me.”
“I would vote my own conscience, and that means that I would vote with Democrats, frankly,” Butler said, adding “I’m not interested in being a career politician. I’m interested in representing people, and I’m interested in making common sense decisions by going to my constituents and asking them for advice.”
McPike referenced a quote from Will Rogers, saying, “I do not belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
“I think that is actually sort of very true, if you see across the country, across Congress, across Virginia — there are a lot of different kinds of Democrats,” McPike said.
“I will be looking at each issue and asking, what’s good for the City of Alexandria, what’s good for the people I represent?” McPike said. “How do I feel about this, not just voting a party line vote.”
Photos via Kirk McPike for Delegate/Facebook and Alexandria Republican City Committee/Facebook.
