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Exclusive: Q&A With 7th District Democratic Candidate, Abigail Spanberger

Jo Rozycki | June 27, 2018

Topics: 7th congressional district, abigail spanberger, Democratic candidate, virginia, Virginia Democrats

Holding the Congressional seat for a district that spans from Culpeper to Blackstone means representing many different agendas and interests. Virginia’s 7th Congressional District holds a quarter of a million people, stretching from the rural areas of Orange to the suburbs of Richmond and Chesterfield. Since 2014, Republican Dave Brat has represented the 7th in Washington. As a textbook Republican, Brat has maintained his stances on striking out the Affordable Care Act, upholding the Second Amendment, and supporting legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood. In a trying time of complex politics, elections could not be more crucial.

Enter Abigail Spanberger. A Virginia-native, Spanberger has devoted her life to public service, first as law enforcement with the United States Postal Inspection Service and eventually the Central Intelligence Agency as an Operations Officer. Spanberger has now set her sights on the 7th District, hoping to remove the hard-line Dave Brat from office. 

RVA Mag’s Staff Writer Jo Rozycki and Deputy Editor Madelyne Ashworth caught up with Spanberger in her Henrico County office to chat about being the Democratic nominee for the historically Republican-held 7th District. And with the number of women in public office on the rise, Spanberger hopes to joins the new congressional wave of girl power that’s rocking American politics.

Rozycki: I perused your website, I looked through all of your issues. You mention on one of them that you want to cut wasteful spending when you’re in Congress. I wanted to know what does that mean? What do you consider wasteful?

Spanberger: I think, in terms of what our priorities are or what my priorities would be, I don’t have any predisposed or preconceived ideas of what it is that we do need to be cutting. Within the government, there are places where we could find waste or potential waste. In terms of specific things, I’d have to be aware of what money is being spent on different programs. There’s a notion of how the government budgets are laid out, how federal dollars are spent, or the use-or-lose programs where moneys are allocated and if they’re not used, you don’t get that money allocated again. I think there [are] larger questions about how it is government dollars are spent that would need to be a broader conversation.

I’m not looking to just redline programs because they seem wasteful to me. I think it’s important to recognize that within any large entity, particularly something as large and expansive as the federal government. What is most important for me is the fact that I acknowledge that there is absolutely wasteful spending within the government, within Congress I’m sure as well. Being ready to recognize and having conversations about what that spending, in fact, is or could be or where we could make smart cuts or not smart cuts. Just showing willingness to recognize that, those are conversations that we should at least be having to determine other issues.

Ashworth: Is that something you noticed a lot during your time with the CIA?

Spanberger: I wouldn’t say that, no. I think there are always places where you could find efficiencies. When I was in the private sector, when I was with the government, there were places where you should always be willing to have a longer-term conversation about what’s necessary [and] what’s not. I guess my whole premise is in anything, we should be having reasonable conversations about where we should or shouldn’t be spending our money. Particularly within the government, finding places where we can recognize what can be done in-house. When we outsource a lot of things, does that come with an extra cost to taxpayers, is a good question worth asking.

Rozycki: As a college student, I’m always very curious as to how we splice and dice our budget. It is the sort of thing you have to dive in and see for yourself.

Spanberger: What I think is most important is not be tied to “because we’ve done x, we should do x.” That’s the case in anything, but particularly when you start looking at budgeting. People start saying that once you begin to admit that maybe this isn’t as necessary as we might have otherwise thought, then do it with the whole thing. I was just looking at the Farm Bill that passed yesterday with significant cuts to SNAP. SNAP is one of the most effective anti-hunger programs that we have. Time and time again, it’s been shown to be an incredibly efficient use of government dollars to provide vital resources to families and children who need it.

Even when we’re looking at what we’re spending our money, if we’re spending our money on something incredibly efficient and provides a tremendous service and is, from a preventative perspective, really valuable, if you’re looking at what it costs, you’re not looking at the full picture. Even when you talk about looking at budgeting and what we spend our money on, what’s the outcome value? Something might have a tremendous price tag to it. But if the outcome value to it is important for healthcare reasons or ethical reasons or school productivity reasons or economic issues and reasons, it’s really important to look at the long term trajectory.

Rozycki: Recently, GayRVA released a piece on a group that focuses on the money bail system. That significantly comments on the outrageously high prison population system. There are many factors within the United States that contribute to that high population. Would you mind commenting on that really high prison population, those that are affected by it, and what can be done to change it?

Spanberger: When we look at the cash bail system that we have in the U.S., it disproportionately impacts socioeconomically disadvantaged Americans, and disproportionately impacts communities of color. So when you look at who’s languishing in our jails, it’s lower socioeconomic folks and communities of color. If you get arrested for something and you get the minimum jail and you don’t have the ability to make bail, then you lose your job and you might not be able to pay your rent. The cycle that it creates for people- that is the problem. The impacts are significant. I haven’t actually read any numbers to see what that turns into in terms of dollars or economic impacts on families, but in Fairfax there’s a judge who said he’s going to stop doing cash bail. Basically, his reasoning is, “I can’t ignore the disproportionate impact that exists because of the system that we use now. If someone is releasable, they’re releasable.”

There’s been studies that show putting bond up doesn’t make someone more or less likely to actually appear. If they’re a flight risk, they’re a flight risk. From a federal perspective, on the Senate side, [Kamala] Harris, and [Rand] Paul put forth a bill that would propose to reform the cash bail process in recognizing the inequities that exist within it. I think that’s something I’ve read through and read about the bill they put through on the Senate side and, in principal, I think it’s a really great bill and incredibly important.

Rozycki: How else do you think we could address the high prison population system?

Spanberger: There’s the Fair Sentencing Act that went into place a couple of years back. Also looking at changing the schedule of marijuana. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, which the parameters for Schedule I is highly addictive, which most people would accept that marijuana doesn’t meet that standard. I think Congress has a significant role in pursuing criminal justice reform, both with the population of individuals already in prison, but when we’re looking at sentencing guidelines and whether or not we should be pursuing sentencing guidelines, I think that’s an important conversation to have.The Congressional Black Caucus put out a brief called, “We Have a Lot to Lose.” It’s a response to when the President on the campaign trail said “What do you have to lose?” to the African American community. So they wrote a response piece. It’s tremendous because it lays out statistics focused on the African American community and also legislative efforts that have been before Congress that would positively impact the concerns laid out.

Ashworth: Where do you see the marijuana debate going in the next year?

Spanberger: I have no idea. Just from the conversations that I’ve had along the campaign trail and the things people want to ask about, we are firmly in a place, especially now that medical marijuana passed at the state level here in Virginia, people seem very inclined to have a conversation about medical marijuana and what that means federally. Medical marijuana and access to medical marijuana seems to be on the minds of a lot of people. I do think it’s important that in the states that have chosen to legalize recreational marijuana, that there be the ability to put those dollars into the banking system.

Rozycki: You were a former law enforcement officer. You had been around guns. You carried one every single day. You vouch for responsible gun ownership. But in a world where we’re basically waiting for the next news of mass shootings, what does that look like?

Spanberger: It’s an evolving conversation. At the core, we need to be able to have conversations about guns that are informed by research, a sense of responsibility, and some level of mutual trust, which in this conversation is a really difficult thing to do. I carried a firearm every single day, so for me I understand the responsibility of carrying a firearm. I understand the amount of training. Frequently, I have found that it’s either, “I love shooting and I don’t want to lose my gun,” or, “I’m afraid of what would happen with your gun.” And there has to be a conversation where we’re not talking about your fear or your love.

We’re talking about the real societal issues that are impacting our communities. How is it that I can say I have children, and my children are going to go on a playdate, it’s socially appropriate for me to say, “Do you have a pool? My seven year old is not a great swimmer. Do you have a dog? My nine year old is a little bit nervous around them. Does your child have a peanut allergy? We eat peanut butter all the time.” But the minute I say, “Do you have any unsecured weapons,” that’s a different infringement, where it’s really a safety issue. That’s sort of the cultural piece that would ideally, in my background in law enforcement and my comfort and training with firearms, be part of a conversation that I’d like to be in, because I understand why gun owners who like to recreationally shoot would like to recreationally shoot. I get it. But let’s talk about the actual issues and the violence that’s perpetuated with a firearm.

Ashworth: Without fear and without love is suggesting a conversation without emotion, but this is an incredibly emotional topic, especially for people who have relatives or friends who have been harmed by firearms. How would you begin that conversation?

Spanberger: It starts with admitting we have a problem. Guns don’t shoot people, but people in a point of crisis shoot people with a gun. You can’t shoot someone without a gun. That’s the tool of choice. Background checks are the first thing. The [gun] violence restraining orders, which are state laws that allow for people who are in a point of crisis to have their guns temporarily restrained. There’s federal legislation going called the GVRO Act that would incentivize states to put those forms of legislation in place. I think one of the big issues is people view universal background checks as raising the standard as opposed to just ensuring that everybody goes through the process.

Rozycki: Dave Brat has been on the media recently about immigration policy. He claims that Democrats are not coming forward and playing ball with him because Republicans have supposedly put out policies on immigration.

Spanberger: I think that his assertions do not take into account the fact that Democrats have tried in years past and made a lot of forward momentum on immigration issues, immigration reform. I think the real issue is that immigration has so many different questions, and to just say Democrats don’t want to play ball on immigration is not even a fair comment, because when we’re looking at families being separated at the border, that is a choice to pursue that policy and aggressively go after asylees who have a legal right.

Now, we’re conflating illegal immigration with people entering the asylum program process, which people have a legal right to do. Looking at the TPS (temporary protected status) and the president’s decision to just remove temporary protected status, it negatively impacts our businesses. Individuals who are here with TPS status have full legal authorization and they, across this country, are filling thousands upon thousands of jobs. So there are companies who are opposed to revoking TPS status, in addition to the national security threat that causes when you push people back to a country that had such humanitarian woes that put people here on TPS.

It needs to be a bipartisan solution. I think holding kids hostage at the border in order to be able to push through a budget bill and a farm bill and potentially make moves on other things is just inappropriate. It’s an incredibly complicated issue and if we’re trying to make impact, I think we need to chunk by chunk ask what are the different communities that were impacted, and what problems are we trying to solve? When we say we need immigration reform, do we fear that our borders are too porous? Do we fear that we’re not addressing the terrorist threat? Do we fear that we’re not bringing in enough highly-skilled workers? We’re not actually even defining the problem. We need people in Congress that are willing to sit down and define what problems it is that we’re actually trying to address. Just saying the liberals won’t play ball is an oversimplification of a really complex issue.

Rozycki: Do you have any response to the claims that Brat made that Democrats are not playing ball and that they have a more globalist perspective at the expense of Americans?

Spanberger: Democrats are Americans, and Democrats are working to pursue policies that will positively impact American workers, American citizens, and people who someday dream of being Americans. Doing that in the global economy is absolutely among the most American things you can do. I think he’s trying to scare people with this notion of globalists and Democrats and all the rest.

This interview has been edited for clarity. Madelyne Ashworth contributed to this report. 

Former CIA Agent Abigail Spanberger is on a Mission for Virginia’s 7th District

Landon Shroder | May 3, 2018

Topics: 7th District, abigail spanberger, dan ward, Dave Brat, Democratic Primary, Democrats, Republican, virginia

When asked about making the jump from intelligence professional to civilian politics, former CIA agent and Democratic primary candidate for Virginia’s 7th District, Abigail Spanberger, had a very distinct answer. “My whole role was to become a subject matter expert on a variety of different topics at a variety of different times.” As an intelligence professional, Spanberger had to use her analytical skills to cover issues like nuclear mitigation, science, technology, and narco-trafficking. 

While these skills on the surface might seem to apply only to the world of a professional spy, Spanberger explains how they have prepared her for life on the campaign trail. “What is the most transferable of these skill-sets is understanding really complicated topics that have inter-related challenges and then communicating them back to other people.” And as a legislator, this is how she would assess the most critical issues that her district and the US faces; as a series of policy initiatives that connect across issues.  

Campaign Mural

Spanberger, like her primary opponent Dan Ward, stands out in this election cycle because of the vast foreign policy credentials she gained while working abroad. A former law enforcement officer for the US Postal Inspection Service, Spanberger went on to become a core collector with the CIA, responsible for enlisting sources and gathering intelligence that informed national security policy. To obtain this position, recruitment can take anywhere between 12-18 months and includes extensive background checks and polygraph testing, along with medical and mental evaluations. 

RVA Mag caught up with Spanberger at her campaign office in Henrico to take the temperature on what is happening around the globe and how her experience abroad is playing out on the campaign trail. 

“My experience in foreign policy and in the intelligence world would be incredibly unique,” said Spanberger, when asked if she would tackle foreign policy in Congress. Indeed, her experience is unique and she is only one of two other women with these spooky credentials running for Congress this cycle. The other being Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat running in Michigan who was also in the CIA. Despite this, she was quick to clarify that her passion for serving was not only her commitment to country, but also helping people understanding complex things. 

My interests can easily pivot from North Korea nuclear policy to Latin American leadership issues to health care, tax policy, and mental illness,” said Spanberger.  

Nonetheless, a lot is happening in the world, and it is not often that one hears directly from a former CIA agent running for Congress about the dangers lurking in the shadows.

“We are at a point of strange instability,” commented Spanberger, expanding on her worldview and the challenges the US faces. “In particular for other countries, you could always generally always guess where the US was going to go as it related to foreign policy. You could always generally understand the ribbon that tied all of our actions together.” Like most, she was quick to comment on the President Trump’s Twitter feed, acknowledging that US strategy now varies “tweet to tweet”. She summed up this kind of foreign policy as “wholly phrenetic” and lacking the continuity that foreign countries need to “engage with us diplomatically.”

Because of the frenzied inconsistency of this strategy, foreign policy professionals have been at a loss for how to conduct business. Yet from a certain perspective, gains have also been made, such as the announcement that North and South Korea will officially end hostilities after 65 years. This presents a problem for Democrats running on foreign policy credentials, something Spanberger was pressed on in terms of how the administration should be credited. 

“This is more complicated than it outwardly looks,” she replied, before admitting, “It is to strange of a turn of events. There is a play somewhere and a variety of options as to what it can be, maybe that is a little too pessimistic. Normally I am an optimist.” 

Campaign HQ

One of the defining features of this political age is the way in which fringe messaging which borders on the conspiratorial has become mainstream, and this year’s election cycle in Virginia is no exception.  

In fact, the sitting incumbent for the 7th District, Congressman Dave Brat, has been called out more than once for re-tweeting conspiracy theories, most notably after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Spanberger has not been immune to this messaging either, being pinged by publications like The Gateway Pundit as being part of a “deep-state conspiracy” due to her CIA background. 

“So I have gotten the deep state narrative,” she said. “I would write something on Facebook about healthcare and they would write ‘you’re deep-state we shouldn’t listen to you’.” This messaging has only been emboldened by a roster of up and coming Democrats who have foreign policy and intelligence credentials, along with Trump’s attacks on the Justice Department claiming they are engaged in a deep-state conspiracy against his presidency.

Goals

“There are a couple of us running and the Washington Post ran an article about Elissa and me, and that got a lot of play and that’s when it picked up.” In an age of foreign-based social media campaigns, Spanberger was quick to point out that these were not Russia bots, but people living in Virginia’s 7th District. 

While foreign policy is built into the DNA of the Spanberger campaign, her focus still remains local.

Asking about her priorities if she makes it to Congress, she was quick to name three: financial stability, gun-violence prevention, and healthcare; something she spoke enthusiastically about, “We find ourselves in a place where premiums are continuing to rise, estimates are thousands of people in the 7th District are going to lose their healthcare.” Explaining how healthcare can be addressed, she commented on the need to bring back the individual mandate as a way of strengthening the Affordable Care Act, along with allowing Medicare to negotiate its own prescription drug prices. “There is a variety of things we can do to positively impact someone’s life as it relates to healthcare, and we need to be doing all of it.”  

Before closing out, Spanberger was asked what her message is to young people and her answer was reflective of 2018. “Everything is political. Whatever it is you care about it is linked to politics..nothing will change until the people who want it to change get involved.”

Photos by Landon Shroder

Congressman Dave Brat Skips Gun Violence Town Hall, Disappoints Students

David Streever | April 10, 2018

Topics: abigail spanberger, dan ward, Dave Brat, gun control, March For Our Lives, Parkland Students, schuyler vanvalkenburg, Town halls

On what’s normally a vacation week, four local high school students were hard at work organizing Town Hall for our Lives meetings around the area. The meetings, inspired by the Parkland student movement, are opportunities for students to talk to their elected officials about gun control and gun violence.

Chaz Nuttycombe, a senior at Hanover High School, put together the most recent event this past Saturday at Libbie Mill Library in Henrico, part of Congressman Dave Brat’s 7th Congressional District. He invited Brat, but the congressman declined to attend via an email sent to one of Nuttycombe’s co-organizers. “It looked like a form email,” he said, describing the email as one that characterized past town halls as rude and disrespectful.

“I was willing to work with him to make sure it would be a civil event,” Nuttycombe said. He even went to Brat’s D.C. office to invite him in person, an experience he described as disappointing. “I went to his office, I was polite. His staff was friendly, but it was clear from the looks on their faces that he wouldn’t attend.”

A seat was saved for Brat between challengers Spanberger, Ward

After Brat declined, Nuttycombe invited the Democratic challengers, former CIA operative Abigail Spanberger and 25-year Marine veteran Dan Ward. “That’s the etiquette. You invite your representative and if they decline you invite the competition,” he said. Both accepted his invitation, joining the 80 or so people in attendance.

Ward described the focus on school safety and gun control as central to his campaign. “We were the first to back the assault weapon ban,” he said. Ward said he’s running to address shortcomings in political leadership, adding,“We’ve abdicated our responsibility as the government to the NRA, and it’s been disastrous.”

He characterized Brat’s tenure in office as symptomatic of what he called a bigger problem; representatives who worry more about re-election than about serving constituents. “Everyone is taking the political temperature on issues that are clearly right or wrong, and we need people of courage to take the moral positions,” he said.

Reached by phone, Spanberger was full of praise for the students, and said it was an easy decision to attend their town hall. “Absolutely. It’s incredible how engaged and involved these local students are, I’m happy to be part of anything they are putting together.” She described the students as polite, mature, and “impressively well-organized.”

Both of the candidates thought Brat should have been in attendance, and pointed to what Ward called a pattern of not showing up. “That’s who he is. It’s his biggest problem, that he doesn’t come out and talk to his constituents.”

Spanberger said the problem was bigger than this meeting, but thought the absence was especially notable. “Of all the events that he hasn’t attended and all of the times he hasn’t made himself available, I think this one was particularly disappointing,” she said, noting that Brat hasn’t held a town hall since last spring.

While school safety was the focus, Nuttycombe also asked the candidates to sign a pledge to hold at least four town hall meetings a year. Both signed.

“We’ve done 79 meet and greets in the last nine months. Four town halls sounds easy,” Spanberger said about the request, before adding in a more sober tone, “I think it’s only fair to make sure that we’re accessible to every county in the district.”

Also in attendance was Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, a high school teacher first elected to represent the 72nd district this past November. “I think it’s important to show them support, and I agree with their cause,” he said about attending the meeting.

He said the meeting was important, but stressed that elected officials need to also work to address the more common incidents of gun violence across the nation instead of just the tragic outliers.

“My fear is that we get too narrow, we start talking about bulletproof glass and arming teachers,” he said, “but we should be looking at the front-end and asking how we can make our communities healthier and safer.”

Like Spanberger and Ward, VanValkenburg found the student work encouraging. “We’re already seeing a shift in the dialogue and the narrative, and the organizers should feel optimistic and motivated,” he said, adding, “But it is early days, people have to keep that momentum up.”

Asked to weigh-in on Brat’s absence, he described it as a missed opportunity for the congressman to hear from his constituents, adding, “Sometimes [town halls] can be unruly or unfriendly terrain, but as he noted when he ran against Eric Cantor, that’s part of your responsibility.”

RVA Mag tried to reach the congressman to ask him about his absence. As with the last time we reached out to his office, we received no answers to our specific questions, however, his communications director Mitchell Hailstone only provided what he called ‘background’ on Brat. The short response described him as a loving father who is concerned about school violence, and noted that he held “a roundtable discussion with school security officers, mental health experts, superintendents of schools, law enforcement officials and school board members,” which he noted was not covered in RVA Mag but in the Culpeper Star Exponent.

According to that newspaper, Brat proposed no specific legislation to address trauma, but was in favor of placing professional security at the front doors of schools and addressing mental health issues through a “holistic approach.”

Nuttycombe wasn’t surprised by Brat’s absence at the student-run event, he said, noting that he wrote two speeches; one for if Brat attended, and one for if he didn’t. He described the absence as proof that the congressman is out of touch with voters, saying, “He’s still voting like the tea party insurgent he ran as when he beat Cantor, and he hasn’t realized that the district has become more moderate. His constituents want sensible regulations on gun ownership, not someone who takes big donations from the NRA.”

Despite the lack of support from the district congressman, Nuttycombe is moving forward with his work. His next step is a town hall with Rep. Donald McEachin and Sen. Tim Kaine on Apr 21 at the Adult Alternative Program, an ex-offender re-entry program in Richmond, and a major rally the day before on Brown’s Island connected to the national walkout starting at 12 AM.

The rally will take place at noon with music, speeches, and a march to the State Capitol where Gov. Ralph Northam will speak following student leaders speeches from the steps of the state building.

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