A conservative Republican majority in the Virginia Senate depends on voters in the 24th Senate District coming out to support Dan Moxley on June 9.[read_more]
Moxley, former chairman of the Augusta County GOP, is the most reliably conservative candidate in the three-way race. The other candidates are incumbent Sen. Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta), and Augusta County Supervisor Marshall Pattie.
This race is important because, with the pending retirements of Sen. John Watkins (R-Powhatan) and Sen. Walter Stosch (R-Henrico), Republicans finally have the opportunity to establish a critical mass of actual conservatives in the Senate for the first time in a long time. Together with Hanger, Sens. Watkins and Stosch form the infamous “Gang of 3” senior Republicans who routinely stymie a governing conservative majority in the Senate.
What do I mean by this, exactly? Here’s a sample, where Sen. Hanger extols the “conservative” virtues of the individual mandate (the main pillar holding up Obamacare, which is to force people to buy insurance they don’t need). This bit of sophistry is emblematic of a brand of self-described conservative leaders that want to tell you that black is white, socialism is freedom, and that their liberal voting record is actually conservative.
Hanger addresses Massanutten Patriots Tea Party Meeting – Harrisonburg – May 22, 2014
Watch it again. This man is a Republican legislator from a conservative district who says that the individual mandate (which by design is meant to socialize health costs by having younger and healthier people pay the freight for older and unhealthier people) is actually designed to advance the Republican tenet of individual responsibility. In other words, he’s saying the best way to exercise individual responsibility is to be forced into a collective arrangement run by the government. He’s also a legislator who has pushed for Medicaid expansion (although he calls it by a different name lest anyone back home get the wrong idea).
Black is white and white is black. Freedom equals government mandates. These aren’t the socialist lawmakers you’re looking for.
The sad thing is that Hanger and some of his colleagues in Richmond have in the past found great electoral success in playing these kinds of cynical Jedi mind tricks on the voters. This is why backing a genuine conservative is crucial in this race.
Although Marshall Pattie is a recent convert from the Democrat party (wherein he served as chairman of the Augusta County Democratic Committee), he was able to secure a solid victory in a supervisor’s district that leans heavily Republican, and comes highly recommended by many local Republicans. I’ve met him and he seems genuinely pleasant and sincere when he talks about his beliefs and how he’d vote if elected to the Senate.
However, be that as it may, it is hard to be certain that a Sen. Pattie would have the native conservative instincts necessary to consistently give our Senate Republican Caucus the full weight of its current majority. In that regard, in this very important race Dan Moxley is a surer bet as an alternative to Hanger.
Moxley’s background gives much to recommend him in his own right as well. He’s a successful small business owner, and comes to the party from the grassroots. And let’s not forget that he stood on a tough question on the side of the grassroots when he joined the as-yet unsuccessful challenge to the Incumbent Protection Act (something no other challenger has ever had the guts to do). He has an impressive list of endorsements from conservatives of all stripes. This is one of my favorites, from Middle Resolution PAC:
Mr. Moxley understands free markets and the importance of an individual’s right to prosper without government interference. Voters in the 24th Senate District would be well represented by electing Dan Moxley. He’s a solid conservative.
We are extremely impressed by Dan. He is a principled statesman who has been called to serve to protect individuals and families from burdensome taxation and regulations that limit their ability to provide for their families, achieve economic independence, own a home, or start a business,” Parker added. “Dan is committed to protecting the rights of the people of Virginia under the Tenth Amendment. He’ll work to stop Obamacare expansion from being forced upon us. In a time of unprecedented federal overreach, we need a new generation of principled leaders like Dan who will stand up for Virginians.
We urge voters to take a careful look at the candidates in this race. Dan Moxley is clearly the strongest, most principled candidate running in the Republican primary on June 9th.
(Emphasis mine).
Folks, the choice is clear in this race. No one who argues that the individual mandate is good conservative policy deserves the vote of the good conservative citizens of the 24th District. And as much of a nice guy as Marshall Pattie may be (and perhaps an up-and-coming star in another setting), right now a vote for him may as well be a vote for Sen. Hanger.
I urge all conservatives in the 24th District to rally behind the only chance we have to consolidate our conservative voice in the Virginia Senate: unify behind Dan Moxley.
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[…] for his penchant for voting like a Democrat, such as in his support for Medicaid expansion and his glowing endorsement of the Obamacare individual mandate. But, obviously, such stances can win him support from among Democrats. In places like the 24th […]
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I. I asked Senator Hanger these two questions – and got no good answers:
Question 1: Is the General Assembly of Virginia practicing de jure law or de facto law?
Emmett said that he was not sure what the question meant, and really did not answer it at all except by a succession of excruciating stammers, hems and haws.This is pretty shocking, because it would seem to me that if a legislator does not know the difference between legitimacy and
illegitimacy in the operation of government, then he has not a ghost of a chance of affirming and upholding the constitutions. But this may all be silliness on my part, because almost nobody else knows the difference either! But then again, hope springs eternal!
Question 2: What in your opinion is there in the public law that is the Constitution for Virginia that permits the General Assembly to go to enactment with the Medicaid Expansion?
After a long lot of cat and dog scrapping, Emmett finally said, “I guess you think we can’t.”
This is what Senator Hanger needs to know as applied to American constitutions – that American public law is law meant to apply to all persons equally. In a constitutional republic, it is ‘equality before the law’ – and not government run weirdly like a Byzantine souk, dispensing special privileges and favors to special interests (including special categories of people), and robbing Peter in order to pay Paul in order to do so. If this were not so, we would have started off in the 18th century with doing ‘social and economic justice’ from the get-go – and the devil with unalienable Rights, constitutions and worry over theft of property.
Mr. Hanger needs to visit a place in Virginia called Obscurity. It’s right next door to another place called Beyond Hope.
II. On another occasion, I also had a question for Marshall Patty:
Question: If a magistrate (supervisor, senator, delegate, etc.) accepts, receives mandates, grants, acts upon policy instruction, etc., of government (Washington or Commonwealth) for activities and
programs which are constitutionally proscribed (prohibited to those governments), is not that magistrate (supervisor, senator, delegate, etc.) by his active, willful consent guilty of aiding and abetting the subversion of the constitutions so violated?
Marshall Patty’s answer (as a sitting supervisor) is that he has to follow the Dillon Rule. Get it? The Dillon Rule trumps, supersedes sworn constitutional trust obligations. The Dillon Rule is ‘higher law’ and the constitutions are just window dressing!
P.S. If I can locate Marshall Dillon, maybe we can straighten out Marshall Patty. But don’t hold your breath.
IT IS A PLEASURE TO READ SUCH A COGENTLY WRITTEN ARTICLE AS THIS! THANK YOU MR. ALBERTSON!
Are there other instances where Hanger has taken a significant position that is inconsistent with what you perceive to be conservativism? I personally abhor government-managed healthcare and would love to indict politicians that embrace it. But at the same time, I can appreciate why many of these politicians elect to take conciliatory positions. Has Moxley weighed in on the issue?
Sen. Hanger consistently speaks out of both sides of his mouth. He is not someone to trust politically.
I tend to disagree with this summary above, but it is well written. When you are a ” native ” Virginian, from an extended Virginia family, people in Virginia are aware of it. As I understand it, Mr. Moxley is a businessman who came (not long ago) from Pennsylvania where he still has his business, in Pennsylvania. Isn.t this so ?
I ask you, how can someone from another state (who is not a ” native “) help solve or understand the needs of Virginia families ?
Mr. Emmett Hanger has been in Virginia a very, very long time and Mr. Marshall Pattie has been in Virginia for a very, very long time.
I would say people from Virginia know a true ‘ native ” when they see them. In my many years on this planet and in Virginia, we citizens of Virginia recognize an opportunist from another state no matter how he or she is re-packaged…… or as they say these days ” spin it ”
So I will have to stay with one of the two real ” native Virginians ” and I don’t know just yet who that is gonna be ” Thank you for your information posted here ~ signed ” a virginia republican “
What complete nonsense. Pennsylvanians have been moving into Virginia since colonial times, my own mother’s German ancestors made the trip in the mid 1700s down an early trail from Philadelphia to Roanoke that later turned into a wagon road and later still followed closely the existing PA turnpike and I81. My wife’s ancestors arrived even earlier so does this place us among the foremost experts on understanding and solving the needs of Virginia’s families? I DON’T think so! Politics in the 21st century is about ideas NOT geography. If you don’t like Mr. Moxley ideas then provide a critique of your own or of his opponents to justify your lack of support of his candidacy. To support others because they have been residents longer then him is frankly a boneheaded proposition. By the way I LIVE on the Shenandoah not use it as an anonymous comment tag.
So your decision is not based on the merit of ones ideas or accomplishments but where they were born. I thought that was the sort of thing we Virginians fight against.
It sounds to me like you are not so much a Virginia Republican or Virginia Conservative as you are a “nativist”. Well why stop there? Virginia is obviously not one big homogeneous blob of people. There are different cultures within Virginia. I guess by your theory we should vote for people based on how close they live to us rather than their ideas or positions.
If all Hanger (who supports Obamacare) or Pattie (a life long Democrat turned Republican to run for the Senate) has is that they were lucky enough to be born here, while Dan moved here, then that is a pretty poor case.
As for this Virginian, I am going to support the candidate that best reflects Virginia values of freedom and personal responsibility, and that is Dan Moxley
Dan Moxley has a grasp of the liberty inherent in a constitutional republic, which is what our government is supposed to be. Both Hanger and Pattie in their proven support of socialistic and unconstitutional rules of law obviously do not. As a native Virginian also, it should be most crucial to have a representative who is not willing to legislate counter to constitutional republicanism and by so doing will stave off the assaults of tyranny. Examining legislation in this light will ensure meeting the requirements of responsible governing as opposed to looking to government to fulfill needs of nanny-state citizens. After nearly 30 years, it’s time for Hanger to go. And the real flip-flop opportunist is Pattie trying to springboard into higher office by whichever Party will get him there first.
So it is better to have a ‘Virginian’ of longstanding who wanst to take your rights away than a Pennsylvanian who wants to restore and preserve them?
FWIW Ben Franklin was originally from Boston, then became a Pennsylvanian, and is closely associated with that state. Would his ideas also not be welcome in Virginia?
I tend to disagree ~