Many of you may remember that in 2017, Daily Kos helped get Cheryl Turpin elected in Virginia. (Thank you David Nir!) From the way back machine:
My sources on the ground in VA politics, got a call. There was some question about where all these donations of less than $100 were coming from. Were nefarious forces at work?
Well, yeah, sort of. Daily Kos was at work. My source took them to our site and showed them all the pieces about Cheryl Turpin and the upcoming Special Election January 10th, 2017. Especially this one by David Nir.
When the authors saw over 3500 donations totaling over $55,000, from all over the country, all through OUR website, they understood the power of Daily Kos. They understood why Dr. Ferguson Reid of 90for90 said we could be a “formidable force”.
That was a fair election. When candidates get chosen by fat cats in smoke filled rooms charging $5,000 to play, that’s not fair. Let’s help the voters of Virginia decide, outside of the smoke-filled rooms.
This portion of Josh Stanfield’s article is being reprinted with permission of the author. You can check out the whole sordid story here.
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Two Candidates File, One Candidate Appointed by Josh Stanfield
At the moment, both former Virginia Beach Delegate Cheryl Turpin and Councilman Rouse have filed for next year’s state senate race in the newly drawn Senate District 22. Turpin, who ran against Jen Kiggans in 2019 in Senate District 7 and lost by less than 1%, is therefore an obvious potential candidate in the special election. Indeed, she announced last week that she intended to run. There are other people in the district who were considering running for the nomination in the special election too - until the terms of the Call to Caucus were released.
Turpin, despite being abroad visiting family and returning to Virginia this weekend, was able to electronically file the required paperwork to Sandra Brandt by the deadline in the Call to Caucus. Yet in lieu of the $5,000 filing fee, she submitted a letter, the end of which addresses the fee:
The Call to Caucus referenced above also requires a “$5,000 nonrefundable certified or cashier's check (cash or money order not accepted) payable to the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee”. This filing fee is over 1300% higher than the filing fee required from primary candidates according to 24.2-523 of the Code of Virginia. I believe such a filing fee to be unconstitutional and I refuse to pay.
Thank you,
Cheryl Turpin 11.17.22
Aaron Rouse presumably also filed the required paperwork and paid the $5,000 filing fee.
CD2 Chair Sandra Brandt, less than 20 minutes after the 4:00pm deadline to file, declared that “Cheryl Turpin has not met the requirement outlined in the Call to Caucus under the section Candidate Filing for filing a check for $5,000. Therefore, your filing is considered incomplete.”
As a result, the election was canceled, and Councilman Rouse was appointed the nominee without a single Democrat casting a vote.
Potential Litigation
As reported in the Virginia Scope, Turpin has reached out to lawyer and former Democratic Party of Virginia Chair Paul Goldman to explore her options. Goldman told me earlier today: “Iam unaware of any federal case that has upheld a $5,000 mandatory fee to get on the ballot for an office with a salary under $20,000 a year. They ought to read the 'white primary' cases which were explicitly intended to prevent issues like this.
"There is case law on the question of excessive filing fees; see, for example, the 1972 SCOTUS case Bullock v. Carter. Yet it’s not quite clear if, when, and where a lawsuit will be filed - and whether or not they would also challenge the state statute that imposed the five-day timeline on the party to nominate in the first place. It’s also not clear if other SD7 voters would join the lawsuit, as case law suggests they may have standing too.
The Republican Connection
Aaron Rouse announced with a photo and list of endorsements capturing the who’s who of Hampton Roads Democratic Party elite (not to mention NOVA Senators Saslaw and Surovell) on Monday, November 14. The next day, in what Virginia Mercury reporter Graham Moomaw called “an unexpected display of bipartisanship,” Governor Youngkin and Senator Lucas issued writs to call the special election.
What explains this surprising bipartisanship? One running theory amongst local Democrats concerns a $10,000 contribution from Councilman Rouse’s PAC to “Friends of the Elephant.” Friends of the Elephant is a Republican PAC based in Virginia Beach that, for a little over a decade, has been funding Republicans at all levels of Virginia government (including Jen Kiggans). Here’s just a taste of politicians to whom the PAC has funneled contributions
So why is Aaron Rouse one of their top three donors? Does this “in” with Republicans explain why the Governor was quick to work with Senator Lucas on setting an election date?
Readers familiar with Hampton Roads politics, especially south of the James River, might recognize the uniquely bipartisan political machinery usually at play. In so many ways, there’s no team “red” or team “blue” - there’s team “green” with money on the mind, always able to transcend partisan politics if the price is right
Voters Cut Out
When it comes to the people of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, most of this political intrigue is background noise at best - they’re busy living their lives. Inherent in this reality is a quasi-masochistic trust we put in political leaders to act in good faith, to take the process seriously, and to generally try to be fair.
For the rank-and-file Democratic voters of Senate District 7, well, they don’t get a say in who will be their nominee. They’ve been totally cut out of the process. And there’s plenty of reason to believe that this was by design.
When Jay Jones resigned last year, he and many of the same current endorsers of Aaron Rouse endorsed Alicia Smith right out of the gate. Controversy aside, “certified doer” Jackie Glass entered the snap nominating contest and emerged victorious. The machine couldn’t overcome (now Delegate) Glass and her passionate supporters in the community.
Apparently, no lessons were learned. Or maybe one was: don’t risk an actual election.
Some of the most perverse proclivities of the Byrd Machine remain in contemporary Virginia; elected leaders play musical chairs with public office - cutting deals, cutting checks, and cutting voters out of the process.
So, over the next couple of weeks, we’ll see how Turpin and disenfranchised Democrats in SD7decide to proceed. Regardless of who becomes the Democratic nominee, regardless of who wins the special election in January, there’s tremendous value in candidates and voters speaking out. If Democrats want to be taken seriously as advocates for democracy, they need to first insist on democracy within the Democratic Party. And if Virginia is to truly overcome its anti-democratic origins, it’ll be first and foremost because everyday citizens finally decide they’ve had enough and they’re willing to do something about it.
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Thank you Josh Stanfield!
Seems like it’s time for Daily Kos to show what a formidable force we can be. Please call the Democratic Party of Virginia and ask them for a fair election.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF VIRGINIA
804-644-1966
