Annoucement

Good morning.

Today, I announce the formation of an exploratory committee for the Constitution Party nomination for the House of Delegates from the 4th District.

Patrick Henry, that great Virginia patriot, once said long ago, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Since the heady days of the first colonists at Jamestown, to the House of Burgesses in Colonial Virginia to the House of Delegates today, Virginians have prided themselves on self-governance. It is to that end that I have decided to run for the House of Delegates.

I proudly run on the platform of limited, Constitutional government, low taxes, and family values that have made this nation AND this Commonwealth so great.

This will be a campaign of issues and ideas, not of personalities and perks. This will be a campaign of vision, not obfuscation. This will be a campaign of honesty and plain talk, not overhyped political rhetoric. In short, it will be about the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

One of my first priorities as Delegate would be to patron a bill, affirming Virginia’s rights under the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution that states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Too much authority has been usurped by the Federal government from the states. The issue of education is one such area. I therefore will patron a resolution to ask the Federal government to dismantle the Department of Education and to relinquish its authority and to return said authority back to its proper venue, the states and local school boards as required by the 10th Amendment. First and foremost, education begins at home! Parents should be allowed, without penalty, to send their children to a school of their choosing or to home school their children as they see fit.

I will also support the elimination of the personal income tax in Virginia. The concept of an income tax, by nature, is confiscatory and unreasonable given the power of the United States Congress to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and the ability to levy tariffs on goods imported into the United States. I stand for the repeal of the Virginia income tax and will use every opportunity to speak out in favor of its repeal. I favor the FairTax, as proposed by Americans for Fair Taxation, as the main source of federal revenue. Virginia will continue to have the right to place local sales taxes as determined by local Boards of Supervisors and Town Councils.

I believe in the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, except in cases of extreme malice. These cases would include, murder, murder of multiple individuals, and murder of a pregnant woman carrying a child to full term. I am dead set against so-called “hate crimes” legislation. This legislation is deeply flawed. All crime comes from some manner of hatred. Why protect a special “class” of people who have made a lifestyle choice?

I also believe that the men and woman of our Virginia National Guard should be exempted from tuition at Virginia’s public colleges and universities. These fine Virginians serve willingly and have served with distinction and with honor in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their Commonwealth owes nothing less to its finest citizen-soldiers.

There will be occasions when sacrifice will need to be made. The solutions to the problems that face Virginia will require attention to detail patience and yes, sacrifice. There will be services that need to be cut or eliminated completely in order to ensure fiscal solvency of our wonderful Commonwealth. Before any serious tax reform is contemplated, spending reform should be the top priority. To that end, I will propose changes to House rules that will mandate that every agency clearly explain where its expected source of funding will come from, and what manner of effort is being made to trim costs to the budget. Also, I support Delegate Marshall’s legislation that puts the Transportation Fund into a “lockbox” that states the Fund can only be used for transportation.

This campaign is not about parties, or partisanship, or even bi-partisanship. This campaign is about the working families across the Commonwealth who has long been forgotten. This campaign is about the small farmer who struggles under the heavy load of federal and state regulation. This campaign is about the men and women of the Virginia National Guard who continue to serve their Commonwealth with pride and honor. This campaign is about YOU, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia.