In the “I can’t believe this” category, I’m adding the fact that Virginia has no limits on campaign contributions.
There are no contribution limits in Virginia. Summary of Laws and Policies Candidate Campaign Committees, CHAPTER 3 –Schedule A: Cash contributions, Section 3.1 – Limits on Contributions, Page 17
No limits on campaign contributions. Not even out of state contributions. Wait, wait, what?!?! How are the State and National Democratic Party using this to their advantage? Um...well, I can’t see how they are, but I sure think they should be.
Republicans focus laser like on state legislatures and governships and as a result they own the majority of them.
I’m not even remotely suggesting that Democrats could or would focus, but they could at least pay attention.
If Democrats could buy a state (and according to Virginia’s Department of Elections, they can), this is some of what the people in Virginia and the rest of America would gain from the purchase:
~Virginia’s 13 electoral college votes, which Trump is reported to have his eyes on.
“Tell them we think Virginia is in play and that I’m going to be there,” Trump told the vice president, according to one person familiar with the exchange.
www.dailykos.com/...
~So far 37 states have ratified the ERA, 38 are needed, Virginia could be #38. Right now the Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the state house and a 21-19 majority in the State Senate. If Democrats win both house and senate they’ll have a trifecta!
~Cutting off the head of the confederacy — send a clear message to neo Nazi's and the concept of white supremacy represented up and down Monument Avenue that we don’t want their shit in our country; this is our country, the UNITED States of America.
~Send the big power company a message that they don’t own VA, the people do. Instead of being underserved and overcharged, wind mills could be built and solar panels installed. (Currently if you have solar panels up you can’t sell the energy back to the company as is done in other states, the power company blocks that.)
~Rethink the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
~ Get the agricultural industry growing hemp and marijuana instead of cotton, which harms the soil and tobacco, which harms the citizenry.
~Did I mention ratify the ERA?
90for90 promotes Dr. Reid’s philosophy that votes, not money, win elections. Since 2015, when 90for90 started, 1.2 million new voters have been registered in VA. Now, money may not win an election but donations to candidates can sure help get out the vote.
hat tip to Angela Marx for tweeting this!
We know that the people we call “The Party” are not doing the job the way we want it done but we keep calling them The Party. We are the Party, let’s do our job. Some of us have little money and can give only $1. Some have a boatload of money and can give thousands. Remember you can give as much as you’d like in VA.
Some of us are millionaires or may know millionaires, so let’s reach out to them and ask them for money.
There are two positions we should really contest, we want to scare the top 2 Republicans in the Assembly— Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. We want to fill the coffers of the two Democratic challengers.
We want the Republican Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House to be stingy with their money, we want them protecting their own asses instead of spreading their wealth around. Less help from their leaders will make vulnerable Republicans in flippable seats become even more vulnerable.
From the Washington Post — these are biggest Democratic donors in the state — a hedge fund billionaire and his wife. In the linked article they say they want to support black candidates and female candidates. Except, so far, they haven’t donated much of anything to the kind of candidates they are asking others to support. (Oddly they’ve mostly given money to Dems running against Dems but not to Dems running against Repubs). Time for these folks to put their money where their mouth is and send some of their millions.
And let’s ask others to send some of their wealth, let’s start with rich folks in VA.
Dave Grohl
Mark Ruffalo
Wanda Sykes
Dave Matthew
Eric Schmidt
Pharrell Williams
When we’ve tapped the resources in VA, we can move out from there:
Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Reid Hoffman, Tom Steyer, Susie Thomkins-Buell, Laura Ricketts, Sheila Johnson, Mike Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey... I can just hear her, “you get a district and you get a district. Millionaires everywhere, look under your seats, come on down it’s Virginia, anything goes."
Please feel free to add other names in the comments and please, oh please, share these contacts with the Virginia Democratic Party, they need our help.
Susan Swecker — Chairwoman, Democratic Party of Virginia
Tyler Bishop — Vice Chair, Finance, Democratic Party of Virginia
