Why were Republicans added to the Democratic sample ballot in Virginia Beach mere days after making $1,000 donations to the Democratic Committee? Why would the Chair of the Virginia Beach Democrats try to put Republicans on the Democratic sample ballot in the first place, and why has she been undermining Democratic campaigns?
The accusations in this article are strong, but they are based on mountains of evidence. My sources consist of no fewer than five active members of the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee. Additionally, I was sent a 42 page PDF of grievances against the Chair, including a petition signed by numerous members of the VBDC calling for her removal, and dozens of screenshots of online conversations. Finally, I have listened to multiple recordings of conversations that took place regarding the problems with Carla Hesseltine’s leadership, including one where she damaged efforts to help a Democratic candidate facing a scandal.
Carla Hesseltine’s Republican ties have raised eyebrows since she became chair of the VBDC, with one Daily Kos blogger accusing her of being a Republican. Of particular note is her long-running support for Scott Rigell, the Republican who represented the 2nd Congressional District before Scott Taylor. Carla was pictured speaking at a fundraiser for Rigell, and even encouraged him to run for Senate.
Additionally, her public voting history includes votes in the Republican Primaries for both President and Congress in 2016. This was despite claiming to be a “lifelong Democrat” when she ran for Chair. This also means she lied when she became a Hillary delegate and stated that she never participated in another party’s nomination process. More questions regarding her loyalties emerged shortly after she became chair.
Fighting Democrats; Helping Republicans
At first Carla seemed to get along with most of her Steering Committee and in particular her Vice Chairs Lisa and Bill, who had run as her allies. However, behind the scenes she was actually working to undermine her own Treasurer, Mike Maskell, in his run for City Council.
Maskell was running against incumbent Republican Jim Wood. It turns out that Carla and Jim Wood have known each other for years, and that Carla is friends with Jim’s mother. Carla actually wanted to have Wood recommended on the official Democratic sample ballot over Maskell, but that idea was shot down during the Summer.
The sample ballot is crucial to a candidate’s success in City Council elections. City Council elections are “non-partisan” and candidates do not get a (D) or (R) next to their name on the ballot, so many voters only know who is supported by each party based on the sample ballots.
If you are shocked that the Chair of a Democratic committee would put a Republican on the official sample ballot over a Democrat, you better brace yourself, because we’re just getting started!
Selling the Sample Ballot
When the Steering Committee of the VBDC convened to create the sample ballot, they made a questionnaire, which was sent to all candidates, along with a rubric to score it.
However, once the results came in, Carla insisted on repeatedly changing the process, presumably because she wanted different results. It is now known that Carla wanted Ben Davenport — a Republican who took part in a fundraiser with Scott Taylor and has endorsed many Republicans — on the ballot, as well as Wood.
It was at this point that several members of the Steering Committee resigned because they felt that Carla was trying to get the results she personally wanted rather than representing the party. One of the key resignations was Emily Hoapili, who had been Outreach Chair. Here is what she had to say:
Eventually the Steering Committee had enough and decided to vote on a ballot guide, regardless of Carla’s wishes, despite the fact that Steering had become more friendly to Carla after the resignations. This vote resulted in a guide that left off Wood and Davenport, but included Maskell and all other Democrats.
However, this is not the end of the story. Another local Republican, Louis Jones, and Davenport had a trick up their sleeve. Jones wrote a $1,000 check to the Committee, as did Davenport’s parents. A few days later they were both on the sample ballot.
Jones was in direct contact with Carla regarding the donation.
Just how Republican are Davenport and Jones?
Davenport was a guest of honor at a fundraiser for Scott Taylor within a week of being added to the sample ballot. His presence was specifically used to advertise the event and encourage donors to give large sums of money so that they could “personally know Councilman Ben Davenport”.
Davenport has endorsed Republicans in the past, including Delegate Jason Miyares. Here are some choice highlights from Miyares’ endorsement list on his site.
Carla’s support for Louis Jones is even more stunning, because he is a well-known right-wing Republican with a history of racially insensitive remarks. On one recent occasion Jones had the temerity to victim-blame an unarmed black woman who had been killed by police in Virginia Beach, even though she did nothing illegal. He also endorsed Scott Taylor.
He is not exactly a new or unknown face, as he has served 36 years on the Council so far. His loyalties are proudly displayed by the Republican Party of Virginia Beach:
It was only at this point that the ballot guide, including Jones and Davenport, was announced to the whole committee. Jennifer Leister, a member of the committee, explains that the backlash was swift since “the general membership had never been consulted at any point throughout the process, and many knew that Davenport and Jones are Republicans”. Virginia Beach Democrats all over social media were in an uproar. Many demanded a vote, or at least a chance to express opinions, as had been the standard in the past. However, the ballot was announced during the last VBDC meeting before the election, so there was no chance for any general membership input or questions at any point during this process.
Several leaders stepped up at this point to try to democratize the process, creating a petition to demand an emergency meeting so that the general membership could comment. One member who signed the petition remarked that “We need to have a true dialogue. We need to have transparency. None of us have all the answers, and the only way we are going to move forward as a party is if we work together as a committee.”
As evidence came forth that both Davenport and Jones are Republicans, some members of Steering realized their mistake and were willing to take them off the ballot. The solution they went with was to only include VBDC members. This unfortunately left off other candidates who were uncontroversial, but not VBDC members.
At this point Carla Hesseltine totally blew up. Although she acted like she would go along with the new ballot at first, that same night she sent out an email to Steering insisting that she had the dictator-like power to unilaterally determine who would be on the sample ballot.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but the most important takeaways are that Carla doesn’t care what Steering thinks (let alone general membership), she takes their disagreement as a personal slight, and she is willing to sink literally every down-ballot Democrat to make her point. In the last screenshot, she is in fact threatening to leave off all down-ballot races, basically holding the sample ballot hostage until she gets the Republicans she wants on it. Additionally, several sources explained that Carla’s claim that School Board candidates wanted to be left off the ballot is untrue.
Carla began to stall for time as criticism and petitions started coming in. Eventually, she faced a rebellion within her Steering Committee, and some members sent out an email recommending down-ballot candidates including Mike Maskell. However, Carla stalled for more time by demanding that nothing be put on social media until the following afternoon. It was that afternoon that a new scandal broke, this time in Carla’s favor against Maskell, and that is a whole other story to tell in part 2 of this series.
What Next?
Regardless of whether Carla is a Republican plant of some sort, as many have alleged, she crippled multiple Democratic campaigns while boosting multiple Republicans as chair of the VBDC. This needs to be dealt with soon. Candidates for the 2019 races in Virginia Beach are already announcing, and the last thing we need as a party is a repeat of this disaster.
Carla needs to go. And the sooner the better. Members of the VBDC are attempting to address these concerns, and many are pushing to remove Carla from power. However, this is a difficult process. Whether this means the Democratic Party of Virginia itself needs to step in, or the Second Congressional District Committee, the Democratic Party needs to show that we do not tolerate this sort of behavior and cronyism.
This is only the first part of this story. Look out for Part 2, which will discuss how Carla sabotaged a member of her own Steering Committee running for City Council, threatened a local politician, made even more changes to the sample ballot, and shut out the voices of people of color. Part 2 should be out in the next several days.