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Richmond Turns Out for Governor’s Race

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RVA Mag hit the ground running at 6 a.m. this morning to take the temperature of Election Day throughout Richmond. Richmonders expressed strong support for Democrats and a great concern for the future of the Commonwealth.

“I think the Democrats have changed in a lot of ways with what they say and how they act,” said Church Hill resident, Gloria Nash-Allen. Standing outside of the East District Community Center, Nash-Allen and other community members endured the cold to inform voters on the candidates and show support for the Democratic Party.

Gloria Nash-Allen. Photo by Landon Shroder

Support for the Democratic candidate and sitting Lt. Governor, Ralph Northam, and the entire down-ballot ticket was consistent among the voters RVA Mag spoke with from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Commons all the way to the 4th Baptist Church in Church Hill.

“Gillespie ran an incredibly divisive campaign which completely disqualifies him from being a Governor for all Virginians,” said voter George Chieffo, who works for the administration of Governor Terry McAullife and was voting at Main Street Station.

Third party candidates have also played a role in this election, yet were received coolly by some voters. Libertarian Party candidate Cliff Hyra faced a tough reception at the First Baptist Church on Monument Avenue. “I don’t vote for Libertarians,” said Max Holland on his way to the ballot box. “They use cultural issues like marijuana and gun rights to bring voters in on an economic platform that hurts them.”

VCU students were early to the polls for the off-cycle election, showing support for Northam before their 8 a.m. classes. Student organizer Molly Salavantis said she voted for him in the primary, too, “Northam all the way — he’s going to be an amazing governor.”

Molly Salavantis and Friends. Photo by David Streever

By 9 am poll chiefs were reporting more than 200 voters at their various locations, reflecting a strong commitment to not only the state but also the city. “For a local election, this is a good turnout,” said Robert Hancock. “Whatever direction the government is going in, people want to see change.”

Robert Hancock. Photo by Landon Shroder

One thing which was clear is that voters want change at every level of government, with many voters pre-occupied with the Sheriff’s race. Most were eager to see Irving fill the position. “The Governor’s race is important but my number one thing is the city Sheriff,” said Vivian Green at the 31st Baptist Church. Green wasn’t alone in her concern for the Sheriff’s election. Voter Quiana McCormick felt the campaign for governor neglected to include voters like her. “They didn’t promote to me the way they should have,” she said. She came to the polls to vote for Irving, but when it came to the other candidates she knew very little.

“All I have to go off of is those [campaign] ads and they told me nothing,” said McCormick. “Last night I saw an ad for Vogel; it was dumb shit.”

Quiana McCormick and Her Daughter. Photo by Landon Shroder

Despite the negative ads and discussions of corruption, voters turned out because they believe they can make a difference. McCormick brought her 11-year-old daughter to the polls to teach her daughter the importance of fulfilling that civic duty.

VCU students also showed confidence in the democratic system, hoping that the true spirit of Virginia will shine through.“Virginia is a loving place, and we’re going to show that today,” said Salavantis. Her fellow campus organizers murmured in agreement.

 

Virginia Politics Sponsored by F.W. Sullivans

 

Marijuana, Drug Wars, and The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Time to Right a Devastating Wrong in Virginia

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In this year’s gubernatorial debates, Confederate monuments came up time and time again. Such a singular focus seems strange, considering that all the candidates in this election have essentially the same position on that issue – leave the decision up to local residents. But because it is a culture war issue, it commands attention. One candidate likes the monuments. Another does not. That tells us which team they are on in the ongoing culture war.

Some people are passionate about Confederate monuments. I understand that. But what a shame that the topic has sucked up so much of the oxygen in the room, leaving little time for issues that much more directly impact the material well-being of Virginians on a daily basis. As a lawyer and a believer in the importance of freedom, choice, and of our constitutional and civil rights, I see criminal justice reform as one of the top priorities in the Commonwealth. However, the topic never came up in any of the debates. Have the monuments been pushed front and center to distract and divide us, to keep us from reaching a bipartisan consensus on urgently needed reforms in other areas?

Virginia’s criminal justice system is unfortunately not very just and has many policies that are a legacy of an explicitly racist past, when state government enforced massive resistance to public school integration and banned interracial marriage. Its burdens weigh especially heavily on lower income Virginians and people of color, but all of us pay dearly — both through a loss of skilled workers and economic dynamism, and direct support of the system and affected families with taxpayer money. Each of us must come to terms with our association with an unjust and devastating system that shames us on a national level.

Virginia’s criminal justice system fails most dramatically where success is most critical — for our children. In a tragedy often referred to as Virginia’s “School-to-prison pipeline,” Virginia refers students to law enforcement agencies at the highest rate in the nation — nearly triple the national average, disproportionately black and disabled children. About half of criminal complaints are for children aged 14 and under. Schools are not required to report the reasons for the referrals, but anecdotal evidence abounds, with charges of “disorderly conduct” for behavior such as kicking a trash can.

The Virginia Department of Corrections reports that we pay over $120,000 per year to keep a child in juvenile detention, even though we utilize large juvenile prisons with severely limited programs for rehabilitation and recidivism reduction. Rehabilitation and reintegration into society should be top priorities for juvenile facilities, because the human and financial cost of losing an entire lifetime to the criminal justice system is astronomical. But our failure in this area is staggering — 75 percent of youths leaving juvenile facilities are reconvicted within three years.

While housed in these facilities, located over 100 miles away from Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia — our highest committing communities — youths pay $5 to $10 per phone call and earn 35 to 50 cents an hour in their institutional work program. Meanwhile, their families are forced to pay child support to the state to support the cost of their commitment.

Community-based alternatives not only exist, but are used successfully in other states, where research has proven their effectiveness. Functional Family Therapy, a structured family‐based intervention that uses a multi‐step approach to enhance protective factors and reduce risk factors for the family; Aggression Replacement Training, which uses repetitive learning techniques to help offenders develop skills to control anger and use more appropriate behaviors; and Multi-Systemic Therapy, which improves families’ capacities to overcome the causes of delinquency by promoting parents’ ability to replace deviant peer relationships with pro‐social friendships; have each been shown to produce net benefits of tens of thousands of dollars per youth. We need to bring those proven programs here to Virginia. Where secure facilities are necessary, they should be small, regionally-based, and focused on growth and rehabilitation under an independent ombudsman’s oversight.

But reform needs to go well beyond our juvenile justice system. Too many Virginians are languishing in prison for victimless crimes like drug use, away from their families and away from any productive work. Virginia spends billions of dollars each year on a criminal justice system that arrests 40,000 Virginians for drug crimes every year, with marijuana arrests accounting for 60 percent of those and mere possession well over 80 percent. The direct cost to incarcerate one person is about $30,000 per year, not to mention the loss of their productivity to the economy and the loss of their tax dollars, the fracturing of their family, and all the negative economic consequences for their families and for their futures.

Drug arrests disproportionately affect African American communities, even though research indicates drug use is no more prevalent there, and contribute substantially to the gaps we see between those communities and others in terms of educational outcomes and economic performance.

The number of drug arrests in Virginia has skyrocketed over the last 10-15 years, almost doubling — even though rates of violent crime and property crime are dropping, and even though rates of drug arrests are also falling rapidly in other parts of the country. The Commonwealth has ordered a study into marijuana decriminalization, but do we really need a study? 29 states and the District of Columbia already have legalized marijuana. We know that it works.

When marijuana is legalized, opioid deaths plummet and tax revenues soar. Surveys show that more than 85 percent of Virginians support some form of legal marijuana, and over 60 percent support full legalization. But because we have no ballot referendums here in Virginia, we are still waiting for action from a governor who cares about what the people of Virginia want. We don’t need a study, we need to stop wasting taxpayer money incarcerating productive citizens, separating them from their families and subjecting them to abuse, and depriving them of their ability to obtain stable and high paying jobs in the future. We need to legalize marijuana now.

Although legalization requires cooperation of the legislature, the governor has the power to grant an absolute pardon to any Virginian who is in jail only for drug use, after completion of a treatment or anti-recidivism program (if deemed necessary), so they can return to their families, expunge their records, and get a good, stable job. And until marijuana is formally legalized, the governor can order law enforcement to give laws against drug use the lowest possible enforcement priority. That would allow us to dramatically cut the $3 Billion spent on the justice system each year and increase tax revenues while strengthening families and improving relationships between police and the communities they serve.

Numerous other abusive criminal justice practices in Virginia should also be curbed. For example, arrest quotas should be made explicitly illegal, so that police officer promotion or awards cannot be predicated on making a certain number of arrests. The abusive suspension of driver’s licenses for failure to pay trivial fines and for minor drug offenses should end, to help keep at-risk Virginians employed.

Civil asset forfeiture abuse, also known as “policing for profit,” is a common practice in Virginia whereby police can seize private property based merely on a suspicion that the property was related to criminal activity, without any criminal charge or conviction. Victims are forced to sue the police department to get their property back, a costly, time-consuming, and, for most victims, impractical process. A criminal charge should be required before property can be seized, proceeds should be sent to the general fund and not directly to the police, and property should be returned to the owner when a criminal conviction is not obtained.

In Virginia, judges with little knowledge of the lives of the accused set bail levels at their own discretion and without relying on statistical evidence. Experiments with bail reform in other states have shown equal or better results in defendants showing up for trial, with much lower costs to the accused – many fewer poor people forced to stay in jail, sometimes for a year or more, just because they can’t afford bail.

The felony larceny threshold should be increased from $200 (the lowest in the nation) to the national average of $1,000 or more. Studies show that low thresholds waste valuable resources without any benefit in crime reduction.

Parole for non-violent offenders encourages rehabilitation and good behavior and reduces recidivism, and should be reinstated in Virginia. Restoration of voting rights should be made automatic after all sentences and probation are served, as in almost all other states. Trial by ambush should be ended, by requiring prosecutors to turn over police reports and other evidence to the defense before a trial. And, Virginia should implement the recommendations of the 2015 Governor’s Commission on criminal justice reform for improving our prison system, which could save Virginia $500 Million each year while improving effectiveness.

All of these reforms are badly needed and would save the Commonwealth billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs while allowing law enforcement to focus on serious crimes. They would also rehabilitate our reputation and make our state fairer and more just for all its citizens. Shouldn’t the Governor make these reforms a priority? Only one candidate has made them a priority on the campaign trail — that’s me.

 

*Photos by Landon Shroder

 

Virginia Politics Sponsored by F.W. Sullivans

 

Libertarian Candidate Cliff Hyra Holds Press Conference, Calls for Civility in Election

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Libertarian candidate for Governor Cliff Hyra held an impromptu press conference this morning to discuss his opponents’ negativity and to ask voters to look to him as the true voice of the people.

Criticizing his opponents for their aggressive attack ads, Hyra wants to bring meaning back to this election in the remaining five days of Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign. According to Hyra, Virginians care about the economy, health care, criminal justice reform, and education, not the vitriolic attack ads and discussions about monuments and Enron.

“From now until election day, please join me in focusing on real issues that have a meaningful impact on the material well-being of Virginians,” said Hyra, standing in front of the bell tower at the Virginia Capitol Square.

Citing a conversation with his seven-year-old daughter, who asked, “Do grown-ups really fight like that?” Hyra shared his concerns about the negativity not only as a candidate but as a parent. Over the past few months, the tone of this election has become one of anger and aggression and has steered away from the critical issues that need addressing throughout the Commonwealth. The name-calling and mudslinging have turned this campaign into a playground fight that has attracted national news, instead of a gubernatorial debate over substantive policy issues.

“Our political opponents are not demons,” said Hyra. “They are our brothers and our sisters, they bleed like we bleed, and they want, at a high level, most of the same things that we want. And I wish that the other candidates felt the same way.”

Like many Virginians, Hyra is fed up with the negative campaigns and concerned about where politics are headed.

Cliff Hyra at Virginia Capital Square

“I fear for the future of the Commonwealth and our nation when even the most staid candidates feel they have to [descend to] this level of discourse to win an election and are willing to do so,” said Hyra in conclusion.

After the press conference, RVA Mag got some one-on-one time with Hyra to discuss issues affecting our readers. One of our primary questions was how the other candidates have become so wrapped up in the vitriol of this election instead of focusing on what is important to Virginians.

“Well, I think they are convinced it’s effective and I think they there running a consultant-driven campaign and someone along the line told them if you want to win you have to do this,” Hyra said. “The most important thing to them is that they win, and I understand, I feel the same way… It’s important to win, that’s the way I feel I can do the most good for the people of Virginia. But not at any cost. Because there are bigger things at stake than just this one election. I think our whole culture and society have been heading the wrong direction over the past few years.”

When asked his message to young people his mood lightened, even though he made it clear that most young people (like himself) were really turned off by the tenor of the campaign, which he said his opponents probably wanted.

“I think strategically, they are trying to drive down the voter participation. I think it’s a real concern that people are going to stay home, and it’s a really important election for the future of Virginia,” he said. “The governor has so much power here, and there are so many things that we need to change. So I’m encouraging them to ignore all the noise you hear on the TV and the radio. Look at the positive statements the candidates are making based on the issues, and show up and vote based on that.”

Hyra concluded his one-on-one with RVA Mag by stressing that people should get out there and vote for a candidate who doesn’t engage in the mudslinging.

“If you don’t like the attack ads, if you’re not happy with the way the candidates are behaving, please be aware there is a third candidate who is not doing that, who represents a different kind of politics,” said Hyra. “If candidates see they are losing votes because of that, they are going to change, so if you want positive change and you want things to be different, come out and vote.”

*Photos by Landon Shroder

 

Virginia Politics Sponsored by F.W. Sullivans

 

RVA Mag Exclusive: Q&A with Libertarian candidate for Governor, Cliff Hyra

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In 2017, we all live a political lifestyle. One where politics dominates most aspects of our public and private lives; who we chose to interact with, be friends with, and associate with. The news cycle governs the direction of our conversations, while the intellectual contest between party affiliations has become a modern gladiatorial sport. The arena has never been more dangerous for those seeking public office.

Which is what makes Cliff Hyra, the Libertarian candidate for Governor, so interesting. While he is the underdog in the Virginia Governor’s race, the 34 year old lawyer from Northern Virginia is already having an impact. In Virginia’s contested gubernatorial race, where the margin of error remains competitive for both establishment candidates, Hyra’s support for the legalization of marijuana, criminal justice reform, and opposition to the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines has the potential to make or break either candidate.

RVA Mag’s Political Director, Landon Shroder, caught up with Hyra at Quirk Hotel in Richmond for a coffee and to chat about Libertarianism, young people in politics, and of course, marijuana.

Shroder: You are 34 years old. What compelled you to undertake the grueling punishment that is required to run for elected office?

Hyra: I’ve lived here my whole life in Virginia and have three young children, soon to be four. I am very invested in the future of the Commonwealth and I wasn’t too crazy about the other candidates that were out there. It is really important to me that there is a third option for people like me, who were not satisfied.

Some of the ideas out there, the other candidates were not talking about: regulatory reform, supporting small businesses, criminal justice reform. So this was a good opportunity for me to get my voice heard and try to improve things for everyday Virginians.

Shroder: Young people are drastically under-represented in politics. Given your age, and we’re roughly the same age, how will you better represent those of us who are looking for a new style of politics?

Hyra: I’m brought up here in Virginia. I run a business. I have a law practice and have young children. I understand what it is like to raise a young family in today’s age and I think I can do a better job representing the interests of other people who are in a similar situation as me. They are not retired, [don’t] have adult children, and are in the middle of their careers, in the middle of raising their family. So I understand what is lacking in Virginia and what we can improve, which maybe the other candidates don’t have that kind of perspective.

Shroder: For most people, Libertarians are just a reinvention of a certain wing of the Republican Party, a course correction from the worst excesses of what conservatism has become. True or false?

Hyra: I would definitely say that is false. I’ve never been a Republican. When I was a child I probably considered myself a Democrat. But I’ve pretty much been a Libertarian all my adult life. I don’t feel any kind of affinity for either of the other two parties. In my opinion, we are on a whole different axis. We are not about left or right. We pick issues pretty equally from the left and right. We are about economic freedom and personal freedom and there is a real consistency there that is separate from any concept of conservatism or progressivism. So I don’t consider myself part of any of the other two parties.

Both of the parties accuse us of drawing people from their parties, so I get it from both sides. That is a pretty good indication that we are really in the center now and more mainstream.

Shroder: Do you find that young people are receptive to the Libertarian message?

Hyra: I think so. They seem to be receptive. I think they [young people] are less socially conservative. And of course personal freedom is also an important part of Libertarianism, and they are drawn to that.

Cliff Hyra. Broad Street, Richmond

Shroder: You ready for some hard questions?

Hyra: Oh yeah, let’s do it.

Shroder: On taxes, you propose an exemption for the first $60,000 of household income. Kansas proposed a similar plan and it almost bankrupted the state. Their legislature just voted to resume collection of income taxes, so why would your plan work in the Commonwealth?

Hyra: I am not sure how similar the plans is in Kansas. But we have an outrageously bad tax code here in Virginia. The top tax rates starts at only $17,000 a year and that is out of step with the rest of the country. If you look at someone who is making $30,000 a year here in Virginia, they are paying more than twice as much here as they would pay in California, which is known as a pretty high taxed state – if not the highest. So there is a lot of change that is needed in the tax code.

It is not that big of a hit fiscally. It is only between three and a half and four billion dollars, which is about 8 percent of the budget. Of course the budget has increased by 20 percent over the last few years. So even rolling it back by that amount, we would be back to 2014 levels of spending.

And I have a plan on how I would pay for it. Of course in Virginia we are constitutionally required to have a balanced budget, but we’re expected to have some natural growth in revenue over the next couple of years as a matter of population and economic growth – a couple billion dollars just from that. There are a number of tax loopholes that are also costing the Commonwealth about 600 million a year in tax revenues.

I’m also proposing to legalize marijuana. If we are drawing from the experience we’ve had in Colorado, we can estimate that we’d have about 200 million in additional tax revenue from that. And I’m also looking at comprehensive criminal justice reform…the estimated savings are between 500 million and a billion.

Shroder: Since you just brought it up, you’re a serious proponent of criminal justice reform and one of those planks is not just decriminalization, but legalization of marijuana?

Hyra: Decriminalization is a start, but we have some form of legal marijuana in 29 other states and the District of Columbia. And we’ve seen the results, and they are very promising. This is not an untried experiment. I have no interest in turning Virginia into some kind of hotbed of libertarian experimentation. I would be satisfied with being a little more innovative, a little less hidebound, and take some of the policies that have been proven to work in other places, so we can experience some of the same benefits that other states have.

There are a lot of benefits you have from full legalization. Of course you have additional industry in people growing, manufacturing, and turning hemp and cannabis into usable products. So you get the whole business aspect to it, in addition to the tax revenue. There is no reason, in my opinion, for it to be criminalized.

Shroder: Do you believe racial disparities and systemic racism plays a role in the Commonwealth’s over-imprisonment and the way marijuana laws are enforced? I did not see that mentioned in your platform.

Hyra: It is hard to separate it out, what is the result of racism. Certainly there is disparate impact on African American communities, minority communities, and disadvantaged communities. This is a huge aspect of the issue for me. The most effective way of addressing that is with comprehensive reform.

It is to hard to regulate at a micro level. You have this issue with marijuana, where African Americans are arrested at two or four times as high a rate as white people, yet surveys show the rate of use is about the same. Obviously that is a problem. I can’t say conclusively what’s the reason for that, I have not read any studies. Is it because the police are racist? I don’t know. But if you make marijuana legal, it solves part of the problem. There are certainly other aspects which are more targeted to that, such as sentencing disparities and reforming some of the felony classifications.

You can make things better for everyone without turning it into a culture war issue, which makes it more difficult to achieve real results.

Shroder: You took a position on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Do you support eminent domain for projects that surround critical infrastructure development?

Hyra: I’m not sure that’s the way I would phrase it. We have eminent domain in the Commonwealth, but it was reformed after [Kelo] which was a Supreme Court decision that confirmed the government could seize private property and give it to a private company if they think it will create jobs.

Many people were not happy about that. You are taking away property from disadvantaged communities, a lot of whom are less politically powerful. And it is amazing how often things don’t pan out and the company ends up building nothing and no one gets any jobs. We need to narrow the scope of what is a public need and a public use. That’s the whole idea. If you are going to take someone’s property against their will without their consent, then there needs to be really compelling need for it. It needs to really benefit the public. In most cases pipelines don’t satisfy that requirement.

A road can be described as quote-unquote “critical infrastructure.” It is something the public uses and no one owns it. Electrical power is something that is critical and everyone uses, and if it is owned by anyone its a government regulated utility. When talking about a pipeline, only a private company is going to use it and there is no guarantee that there will be any benefit to the people of Virginia – any direct benefit. The whole idea is that they are building this pipeline to carry natural gas to a port so they can ship it somewhere else. I don’t think that qualifies.

I have no objections for eminent domain for narrowly tailored public needs and uses. For this, I don’t think it is appropriate. The only reason it is legal is because the federal government is doing it, and they did not enact the same reforms that Virginia did. Virginia would not be able to do this under Virginia law.

Shroder: Would you come out and say you are against the pipeline?

Hyra: I am against the pipeline, absolutely. ACP and MVP, I am against it. I was just in Glassburg this weekend and of course there are a lot of people out there who feel very passionate about it. One of the issues is that from the standpoint of Virginia, our role is to review the environmental concerns. And I think [with] the use of eminent domain across a huge part of the Commonwealth, you should be making sure that these companies are not being cut any special breaks.

That is one of the biggest concerns. Dominion Power is so big in Virginia and has donated to so many political campaigns, and large amounts of money to both of the other candidates. The concern is that they are getting special treatment. There is good reason to believe that.

Shroder: How come climate change is not one of your main priorities?

Hyra: Well climate change is something that requires a lot of coordination. It is something that is difficult to do at a state level. So it is an important concern, but the better the situation we are in economically, the better the position we are going to be in to address that [climate change]. If there are cutbacks and regulations that need to be made to reduce pollution and cut Co2 output, then we will be in a better position if our economy is stronger. That is what I have focused on.

Shroder: But sea level rise in Coastal Virginia is at a rate of 3 to 1 above the national average. The Navy is already saying that they might have to pull out of Norfolk  because of it. Doesn’t that constitute both an environmental and economic crisis for the Commonwealth?

Hyra: Absolutely it does, but there are local issues that are a result of global warming – the most prominent being flooding. That is something that needs to be addressed and is something I am working with our House of Delegates candidates in the Norfolk area on, to come up with a plan to address. In the past we’ve not always had developers, city governments, and property owners on the same page. As far as developing in a smart way that is going to have less exposure to flooding, we need to make sure infrastructure is done in a way to accommodate that.

As far as root causes, we only have an infinitesimal portion of the responsibility for that. Any change we would make in terms of reducing the amount of pollution made in the state of Virginia is going to have a vanishingly small impact. We are interested in the practical impacts resulting from climate change and our role is to mitigate that for the citizens of Virginia.

Shroder: One of the big questions voters want to know is, what level of participation should the Commonwealth have with President Trump? Should Virginia be as flexible as possible to current policies?

Hyra: The Trump question is a very strange one to me. I get people all the time asking me if I support Trump. That is a weird question to me. What does that mean? I don’t support anyone without reservation, no matter what they’re doing. I support people when they deserve support and oppose them if they are doing something I oppose, even if they are a good person. A big part of my philosophy and why I’m a Libertarian is respecting people who are different from you – even if you have a different background or belief, even if you disagree with what they’re doing. Respecting their right to make their own choices about their life has drawn me to the party.

This is also something I try and cultivate in my personal life, and is something that I dislike about Trump. I don’t think he is respectful. I don’t think he has a respectful tone or treating people with respect, which is discouraging. A lot of his positions are wrong, but at the same time I am trying to be charitable to those I disagree with and people I don’t like. I can disagree very forcefully with their policies without necessarily making it about them, personally.

What I think about Trump personally is not really an issue, but I’m gonna work with him if I can on something that makes sense. And if there is something that doesn’t make sense then I’m gonna oppose it as forcefully and strongly as I can. At the same time, for something that I think is a good idea, it would be crazy to turn it down just because of the person associated with it, or behind it.

Shroder: You have a campaign plank about food and beverage in Virginia. Do the current laws stifle job creation and economic growth? You’ve talked to a half dozen people in this town and they’d all have investment if it wasn’t for arcane liquor and food laws.

Hyra: I do think so. What I have heard from some people is that many years ago when prohibition was ending Virginia was a much more conservative place. So they were trying to craft some rules that would discourage what they considered scandalous behavior. These are rules that have been on the books for a long time. So even if you were very socially conservative, and agreed with those goals, they would be a bad way to achieve them. Obviously at that time they did not have the sophisticated analysis that we have today, where they can look at the impact of these rules.

I’m not sure why we still have them. I know with criminal justice there is a perspective of not wanting to look soft on crime. And you have a few Republican legislators that are very prominent and have chairs on important committees, and they can prevent this. But the other side is, what is the constituency for that? It may be competing industries. I’ve heard sometimes the restaurants will support these regulations because they make it harder for bars to compete with them. Once something gets entrenched, people come out of the woodwork to support it because it favors them in some way. But I absolutely think there are vestiges and holdovers from an antiquated era and we have a lot of them in Virginia. We are one of the oldest states and we have a lot of old-timey things that are way out of step with the rest of the country. That’s why I wish we could be a little more innovative.

Shroder: Any final message for our readers?

Hyra: If you’re interested in my campaign, we are as open as we can to the public and we want people to reach out. I hope to meet all of you out there, and meet constituents and what is of concern to you. Sometimes people have really great ideas, and I incorporate them in my platform.

*Photos by Landon Shroder