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LGBTQ Virginians Have Cause To Worry About Daniel Gade

Jamie McEachin | September 30, 2020

Topics: Daniel Gade, E.W. Jackson, Election 2020, Equality Act, family foundation, LGBTQ rights, Mark Warner, Planed Parenthood, US Senate

Gade, the Republican candidate competing against incumbent Democrat Mark Warner to represent Virginia in the United States Senate, has a history of anti-LGBTQ views that should give LGBTQ Virginians pause.

A candidate with a history of anti-LGBTQ comments and a platform that supports discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is vying for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Daniel Gade, the Republican candidate running against incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner, opposes additional protections against discrimination, and has sought endorsements from anti-LGBTQ activists.

Gade hasn’t previously held political office, but spent years serving the U.S. Army in Iraq, where he lost his right leg and was awarded the Bronze Star. He retired in 2017 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. Gade worked on veteran’s issues, disability policy, and military healthcare in President George W. Bush’s administration, and was nominated by President Donald Trump to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but declined the position due to the “toxic political climate in Washington.”

Gade’s platform on LGBTQ issues contrasts with Warner’s platform and voting record in the Senate. Warner has a record of voting in support of LGBTQ rights 100 percent of the time, including co-sponsoring the Equality Act in 2019.

“Discrimination has no place in our nation’s laws, and it has no place in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Warner said in a statement. “I was the first Virginia Governor to ban discrimination in state employment based on sexual orientation, and I recognize that while we’ve made tremendous strides in the journey towards equality, work still remains. That’s why I’m a proud supporter and original co-sponsor of the Equality Act.”

Senator Mark Warner. Photo via Facebook

Gade’s rhetoric during his candidacy has made clear his opposition to equal protection for LGBTQ Virginians. He publicly opposed the Equality Act during a speech in Virginia Beach in January 2020, which included anti-transgender rethoric. 

“Freedom of worship, not freedom of religion,” Gade said. “And what does that look like? It looks like a bill sponsored by Mark Warner with the greatest name ever. I mean the Equality Act today. We’re all for equality, right? …but Equality Act would erase 50 years of women’s rights gains since the 1960s by putting men in women’s locker rooms, by putting men in women sports, just on their word that they now self-identify as woman. OK, it’s a bad bill.”

In 2017, before Gade declined his nominated position on the EEOC, Lambda Legal director of strategy Sharon McGowan told NBC News that Gade’s appointment alongside Janet Dhillon would be a “huge loss” to LGBTQ advocates and discimination cases. Gade and Dhillon testified before the Senate that they’re “personally opposed to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” but declined to confirm that they’d support the Obama-era EEOC policy that makes this type of discimination illegal under civil rights laws. 

In 2013, Warner voted against the amendment to permit employment discrimination by businesses owned by religious organizations, a policy that Gade expressed support for in a speech in August 2019, when he said that bakers should be legally permitted to refuse to bake a cake for gay clients, citing religious liberty. 

“Those principles may actually come in conflict with other people’s principles,” Gade said. “So if you’re a baker who doesn’t want to bake the wedding cake for somebody who’s violating what you believe are important spiritual laws, the left would make you bake the cake and they would make you bend the knee to that ideology.”

In response to an iVoterGuide questionnaire, Gade said that he “strongly disagrees” that sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression should be considered protected classes under anti-discrimination statutes. He “strongly agrees” that businesses and institutions should be able to engage in discrimination against people whose marriages fall outside the traditional “one man and one woman” standard. 

Additionally, Gade has said that he supports the removal of all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, a medical provider that not only supports women’s reproductive health access to abortions but is a committed primary caregiver of affordable healthcare to transgender individuals. Warner’s voting record on multiple bills shows his support of Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive health. 

“As Virginia’s Senator, I’ve voted against partisan attacks on Planned Parenthood, which would reduce access to health care in our country, and I’m proud to have earned their endorsement in the 2020 election cycle,” Warner said in a statement. 

Gade is endorsed by E.W. Jackson, a far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor who has said the “Homovirus” is destroying America and warned that if Pete Buttigieg was elected the country would become a “homocracy.” Gade and Jackson spoke at an event held by the Family Foundation, an anti-LGBTQ group that has opposed bans on conversion therapy and anti-discrimination measures. The Family Foundation is a donor to Gade’s campaign.

Gade’s anti-LGBTQ policies should be concerning to those who wish for equality. If Gade is elected to the U.S. Senate, he seems likely to be a destructive force against the rights of LGBTQ Virginians. 

Top Photo via Daniel Gade/Facebook

Poll of Virginia Voters Favors Biden and Warner; Shows Mixed Support For Mail-In Voting

VCU CNS | September 21, 2020

Topics: Donald Trump, Election 2020, election polls, Joe Biden, mail-in voting, Mark Warner

Biden shows a strong lead over Trump in Virginia, and Senator Mark Warner is on track for re-election, but mail-in voting remains a more divisive issue, split largely along party lines.

A poll released this week by the Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government shows presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner leading by double-digit margins in the commonwealth. 

The Richmond-based university conducted a telephone poll of just over 800 adults from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7. 

The results show Democratic nominee Biden ahead of President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points (53 percent to 39 percent). Warner, a Democrat who has represented Virginia in Congress for more than a decade, is ahead of his Republican challenger Daniel Gade by 17 percentage points (55 percent to 38 percent). The poll had a margin of error of 5.17 percentage points for all adults sampled and 6.22 percentage points for likely voters.

Biden is leading in the Northern, South Central, and Tidewater regions of the state, while Trump leads in Western and Northwestern Virginia. 

Sen. Mark Warner speaks with community members and legislators about food deserts In Virginia. Photo via VCU-CNS

Stephen Farnsworth, director at the Fredericksburg-based University of Mary Washington Center for Leadership and Media Studies, said that Trump’s message resonates with rural voters in the western part of the state.

“His focus on the message of Christian conservatives resonates well in rural areas,” Farnsworth said. “Trump has appointed politically conservative judges, and Christians have been well served by him.”

Farnsworth said that Trump tends to lose in suburban areas of Virginia such as Northern Virginia, where voters tend to be socially progressive but fiscally conservative.

The poll also provided insight into the demographics of Biden voters. 

“Something that was interesting was the strength of women as an indicator of support for Biden,” said Farrah Stone, who directed the VCU poll.

Women were more likely to support Biden over Trump by 22 percentage points (58 percent to 36 percent). Men preferred Biden over Trump by five percentage points (47 percent to 42 percent). In July, a Wilder School poll found that men were more likely to say they would vote for Trump.

The poll also shows Biden’s nomination of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as his running mate does not significantly affect his support among women or minorities. 

“If you’re looking at Kamala Harris, there aren’t significant differences between whites and minorities, or men and women,” Stone said. “What was significant was whether you were a Democrat or Republican.” 

Farnsworth said that vice presidential candidates often don’t change people’s votes, but they can help a candidate by increasing turnout among people who support the candidate but wouldn’t otherwise vote.

“If Biden’s pick of Harris ramps up turnout among African American voters, then that was a smart decision by Biden,” Farnsworth said. “This election is largely frozen in place; there aren’t many voters who are undecided.”

Donald Trump on the campaign trail in 2016. Photo via Wikimedia

Hillary Clinton secured a Democratic victory in the commonwealth during the last presidential race, beating Trump by over 212,000 votes. The 2016 turnout of registered voters was higher than in 2012, but lower than 2008, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. 

The poll also asked voters about an issue that has recently come to the forefront of election news: the reliability of mail-in voting. 

Virginians are split on whether mail-in voting is trustworthy. When combined, 50 percent of respondents are “somewhat or very confident” that mail-in votes will be accurately cast and counted, while a combined 48 percent are not too or not at all confident about the process. Trust in mail-in voting is affected by party affiliation, with a majority of Republicans finding it untrustworthy, according to the VCU poll. 

“The differences are significant across party lines, which line up with voting and support for Trump,” Stone said. 

Sixty-seven percent of Republicans said they were “not at all” or “not too” confident in the accuracy of mail-in ballots. 

“Trump has tried to increase public doubts about mail-in voting,” Farnsworth said. “No previous candidates have emphasized mail-in voting this much, but it’s never been this significant before.”

Written by Anya Sczerzenie, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Sen. Mark Warner advocates for stricter gun laws (Credit: Senate Democrats)

Making Orwell Blush: An Exclusive Q & A with Virginia Senator Mark Warner

Landon Shroder | August 19, 2020

Topics: Big Tech, china, Honest Ads Act, Intelligence, Justice In Policing Act, Mark Warner, national security, protests, Senator Mark Warner, Tech and Innovation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

With continued political turbulence in Virginia and throughout the US, RVA Mag reached out to Virginia Senator Mark Warner to catch the vibe in Congress on police violence, tech threats, and our role on the world stage.

Everyone should talk to Senator Mark Warner about something at least once. Because that something is going to branch into something else, and before long you will have covered everything from police violence in America to the global expansion of Chinese tech markets. With a casual demeanor and a conversationalist’s gift of persuasiveness, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is not only pragmatic about our current predicaments, but forward focused and at ease articulating the future challenges we will face at home and abroad.  

And in our age of perpetual political anxiety, this kind of clarity is needed now more than ever. 

Given ongoing political turbulence, RVA Mag wanted to catch up with Warner to chat about the state of play throughout the US. Over the course of two interviews, what soon became apparent is that the state of play for Warner is a vast interconnected system, which, with the right motivation, can be re-imagined into a new social contract: one that speaks to the challenges facing a new generation in political and economic transformation. Far from observing politics as a series of disparate events, Warner sees the modern policy landscape as a vehicle to develop new innovation and alliances, which can not only strengthen our individual rights, but bolster democracy globally.  

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

RVA Mag: I think we can start at the place that is most relevant right now — police violence. As a Senator that focuses on national security and intelligence, what’s it like to look around — not just in Virginia, but America, and see militarized police forces engaging civil society the way they have?

Warner: It is a little bit surreal. Especially when you see unmarked, unidentified federal officers in a city like Portland sweeping people into vans and having them disappear. When I was a kid, I was an exchange student in Argentina in the 1970s. The military there tried these same tactics. There was a group of grandmothers of these lost people who would show up every week in Buenos Aires to protest, and now, to have these pictures of moms linking arms in Portland with bicycle helmets trying to defend their children in the United States of America was maybe the most poignant thing of this. Obviously Black Lives Matter is an important movement, and the systemic racism that we’re seeing is why I am proud to be the original co-sponsor of the Justice In Policing Act. 

The notion that there are people in America who can be subject to that kind of unidentified policing is why Jeff Merkley’s proposed the legislation he has, which I and others support. If a governor, mayor, or local police chief needs federal assistance, let them ask for it, but let’s not impose this external activity when your local elected officials don’t want it — and in Portland, it has exacerbated the violence. 

RVA Mag: You cosigned a letter from “Intel Dems” demanding the answers to 26 questions from the Department of Homeland Security about the deployment of these federal officers. When you read the questions, it sounds like a list of requirements you would ask a CIA Station Chief. Are we at the point in this situation where this level of granularity is required?

Warner: That’s a great question. I hope we’re not at that point. But as we know in the intelligence world, there are protections put in place. We need to have those protections, god forbid, if we see these kinds of activities and use of these kinds of forces in the United States. I have been a little disappointed there has not been broader bipartisan support, because my Republican colleagues, for years, have been saying state and local government should have control and not be subjected to Washington over-reach. 

RVA Mag: One of the analogies which has been used is the idea of a “secret police.” Not actually secret, but a police force only accountable to the President. This does seem reminiscent of intelligence services from authoritarian countries. Is there precedent for this kind of police deployment? 

Warner: No, I don’t think there is. We had Director Wray from the FBI in the other day and we asked him if there was any FBI involvement. And he said no. So the idea that there are these federal protective services and other entities, who rightfully protect our federal buildings, but are not used in this kind of this context, is one more unprecedented area where this President knows no restrictions. 

RVA Mag: Where would the checks and balances against that level of authority and power come from?

Warner: The checks and balances usually come from career professionals at the Justice Department. They say no, but as we’ve seen, you’ve had 2,500 current and former justice department officials asking Bill Barr to resign. You have a president that has very little regard for rule of law, and unfortunately, an Attorney General who views his client not as the people of the United States but Donald Trump, so you’ve got a recipe for this kind of activity. Unless we can get the Majority Leader to let us vote on this bill — there are a number of more classically Libertarian Republican Senators: Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and the others; I would love to hear their reason for not voting for Merkley’s bill — I don’t know where they stand, but the chances are we’d get well over 51 votes. 

RVA Mag: When you listen to the concerns of younger people, myself included, there seems to be a growing fear that not only is our democracy under assault, but that the foundational core of the social contract is also at-risk. You don’t really have to look further than the president’s tweets about postponing the election or trying to invalidate mail-in ballots to see this. 

Warner: Luckily, you saw many Republicans push back when the president of the United States, in an effort to take people’s attention off of the fact that our economy contracted 36 percent, started saying he might try and delay the election. I think we have seen this president show a willingness use any tactic at all, which he thinks might deflect or remove people’s attention — so I was happy to see so many of my Republican colleagues step up after one of the great abuses of recent time, when military force cleared protestors out of Lafayette Square so that Trump could go hold a bible. That made me particularly angry, because I got married in that church 31 years ago! You saw [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General [Mark] Milley being manipulated, but you saw very quickly Milley and [Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper very much pull back. Because this is not the way we operate in this country. 

I don’t want to give you my full spiel of the future of capitalism, but I would argue this concern about democracy and the breakdown of the social contract precedes Donald Trump. 

RVA Mag: That’s interesting.

Warner: We had a social contract that existed since the 1930s to roughly around the year 2000. It wasn’t perfect, a lot of women and people of color didn’t do well. But generally if you worked hard, paid your taxes, you got a chance to move up in our society. And for 50 years, post-WW2 capitalism created more wealth than any system in the world. But starting in the late 90s, short-term profits became the overriding principle of everything, and where that was demonstrated most was the break down of the social contract. One of the structural changes that has come out of COVID is the idea that we can finally cover gig workers, independent contractors, sole proprietors with unemployment. 

Before, only about 50 percent of workers were covered by unemployment. So this whole notion of the social contract has to be redone. If you have the social contract fraying on one end and then your institutions of democracy fraying on the other, that combination comes together and that’s an explosive mixture — Americans by nature are always a little leery of power. 

RVA Mag: Do you think the American economy is still accessible? Especially for young people who are invested in a particular kind of economy that didn’t exist even five years ago?

Warner: I’m a classic born-in-the-50s baby boomer. But I also failed a number of times in business. However, had I not been a white guy with the right education, I’m not sure I would have gotten the chances I had. But it is stunning to me that in the UK and Canada, your ability to move from one economic status to another is easier there — the UK used to be the epitome of class structure. 

I was an entrepreneur and then a venture capitalist. 50 percent of all new jobs in the last 30 years were from start-up companies. Yet angel and venture capital deals are down 40 percent since 2016. Because if you are talking especially about tech — if your only options are to sell to Google and Facebook, then you can’t get to scale. This is hard. When I hear people say “Oh, Facebook and Google are great and free,” I remind them that they’re not free at all. They’re giant suckers of information. 

RVA Mag: Can America compete with countries like China nowadays? They are leading in green energy hardware, advancements in biomedical technologies, and artificial intelligence. Those are the economics of the future — not, as Republicans like to flaunt, coal. 

Warner: What the Chinese have done is what America did from around 1920 -1980. But they have done it in a way that was even more slightly sophisticated than we did. I have changed my view completely on China. Ten years ago, I was part of the school that wanted to bring them into the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization — the more you bring them in, the closer they’ll be. I think we were wrong. That was mostly revealed in the changes in the Communist Party under President Xi Jinping. My concern with China is not with the Chinese people; I stand with Hong Kong, and Chinese Americans. One of the things that Trump does is play on racial prejudice — so let me speak about the Chinese economic model, which is pretty wild. 

The Chinese allow massive competition in their domestic market for technology until a national champion emerges. And once that national champion emerges, they will end up getting about 70 percent of the Chinese market, which usually equates to about 25 percent of the world market. What we need is alliances that are technology-based, and I think we need a coalition of the willing. In the end, people still trust us to be the good guys, and what we’ve seen over the last three-and-a-half years is what happens when America exits the world stage. 

RVA Mag: I want to pick your brain about the place where tech, intelligence, and national security intersect, since this is something you have been super-focused on. How far along are we in our understanding of this intersection, given that bad actors both foreign and domestic are using media platforms to shape their own goals and objectives? 

Warner: In some sense, we have come a long way since 2016, when the Russians caught our intelligence community off guard. They generally caught the social media platforms off guard. They showed how vulnerable our whole society was to manipulation. The social media companies recognize this now. I don’t think they’ve gone far enough, but they recognize it. Our intelligence community literally has hundreds of professionals working to monitor this. So we are better aware. But on the other hand, Congress has made absolutely no progress. 

RVA Mag: Ah, there it is. Ok. 

Warner: We still have not passed basic privacy legislation. We have not done something when in any other time would have been a complete no-brainer — the Honest Ads Act, which had John McCain and Lindsay Graham on it. It’s basically saying, if there is a political ad on Facebook and YouTube, there would be the same disclosure requirements as an ad on TV or radio. I put out a white paper that had the theories of ideas on how we put guardrails around big-tech, and that legislation has basically gone nowhere. Almost all of this is bipartisan, so it is not broken down along those lines. It is almost to the point where big tech at first knee jerked reacted against any regulatory oversight, but now they realize this is in a global context. Even big tech realizes that having some national standards, rather than a patchwork of standards around the country and around the world, makes sense. 

We are seeing the big tech security issues moving from manipulation with social media to more nefarious contexts. When we look at the Chinese government combining facial recognition with their big tech companies to create a surveillance state, that might allow them to curtail COVID, but it allows them to spy on people [in ways] that would make Orwell blush. So there is the manipulation of social media, which has morphed into how big tech can be used as an agent of a surveillance state. 

RVA Mag: As the Vice-Chair of the Intelligence Committee, what do the threats look like in 2020? Have they evolved in the age of COVID?

Warner: I think technology is a positive force, but can be used as a mechanism of societal control. It goes back to the idea of alliances; what are the alliances of the future going to be? Post WW2, they were all military alliances, with a few economic trading blocs. But I think we are going to need these technology alliances amongst nations who have a basic fundamental belief in individual rights, democracy, and the rule of law. The asymmetric power that comes from technology with a ruthless CEO or ruthless government is daunting. Something that sneaks up on you can overcome your claims of investment in traditional defense technology. 

RVA Mag: Well, those are my questions Senator. Thank you for that great conversation.  

Warner: Thanks for letting me go on for so long! 

*Illustration by R. Anthony Harris

Sacrifice For Squalor

John Donegan | August 6, 2019

Topics: Armed Forces, Fort Lee, Hunt Military Communities, Mark Warner, military families, military housing, Tim Kaine

At Fort Lee and around the nation, military families are plagued by unsafe housing. Here’s how some Virginians are trying to solve the problem.

In the span of a career in the armed services, military families will move six to nine times. Each time, the family must reorient: new routes to work, new schools, and the various culture shocks typical for a cross-continental move. It can be exhausting. 

When Patricia Santos, her husband, and her three children moved to Fort Lee, they didn’t know what to expect. It was 2017, and this was their second move since Santos’ husband joined the Army in 2004.  

“When a young family comes into the service, they’re just happy to have a home,” Santos said. “They go throughout their daily life and take housing for their word. They don’t want to cause trouble.” 

However, when Santos worked as a temp at a military housing office a few years earlier, she saw glimpses of a darker side. “If they couldn’t find the move-in sheets, they’d throw it away,” Santos said. “If you refused to pay for a carpet stain that was there when you moved in, they would threaten to call the MP’s [military police].” 

The Santos family were hopeful that Fort Lee, 25 miles south of Richmond, would be different. Yet when they arrived, trash and debris littered their new home. Santos said Hunt Military Communities (HMC), who handle leasing for on-base housing at Fort Lee, insisted the home was cleaned — yet the family recorded six pages of damages during their inspection. 

Unfortunately, they had no place else to go. “It was a take it or leave it situation,” Santos said. “[HMC] said there were no other options.” 

A year later, Santos spotted a water leak and mold emanating from the water spout outside. Then her children got sick: her 5-year-old son developed dark rings under his eyes. She put in a work order. “They came, they turned it on, turned it off, said it was fixed,” she said. “They did nothing to fix the water spout.” 

A few days later, Santos discovered a major water leak entering the wall from the outdoor water spigot. She requested that HMC replace the floorboards and the wall ruined by water. Their request was denied. “He says, ‘We’re just going to paint over it,’” she said. “I said ‘No, this needs to be removed.’” 

In the meantime, the mold began to spread throughout the home. The housing office met with Santos and HMC Maintenance director Jeff Koch at the home. “He’s touching the exposed floorboards — no protection, no goggles, no gloves — saying, ‘Oh there’s nothing here.’” Santos said. “I said, ‘Sir, that black stuff, that’s mold.’” 

The leasing office at Fort Lee ultimately ordered Koch to remove the floorboards and siding, but with the mold exposed, the family couldn’t occupy the first floor. Families are typically provided another residence at an on-post private hotel during large maintenance, however, they must cover the cost. According to HMC’s Fort Lee Community Director, Charleen Herriott, there were no available accommodations. 

“They could not move us anywhere,” Santos said. “So we had to live upstairs the whole time it took for them to take everything out. It was about three weeks.”

During this time, the home was barely habitable. The family became severely ill, as did their babysitter. Santos dealt with flu-like symptoms, while her children — already on nebulizers — needed breathing treatments twice a day to combat upper-respiratory infections. 

A few days after the order was finished, Santos found a check for $100 in her mailbox. A HMC rep told her it was for, “Giving [you] a hard time on the mold.” She tossed it back in the mailbox. 

Under Virginia law, tenants in unsafe housing can exit their leases. They can make repairs themselves and deduct the cost from rent. They can notify their local agencies to enforce health codes. They can fight back. 

But on military bases, different rules apply. Tenants may not inspect homes prior to move-in; nor can they fight improperly-documented claims of damage reported when they move out. Tenants aren’t allowed access to the building’s history, and if issues arise and housing services refuse to act, service members can’t hold out on rent. 

“Military families don’t have recourse,” Shannon Razsadin, Executive Director of the Military Family Advisory Network, told CBS News. “They never even see the money. It immediately goes from [the military] to this privatized housing company. So they don’t have the ability to withhold rent when they’re dealing with a challenge.” 

In January 2019, the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) conducted a national poll for families who lived on base within the past three years, and received around 17,000 responses. The results were scathing: nearly two-thirds of respondents reported a negative experience with privatized military housing. Housing issues were reported at more than 160 military installations across the country, including at seven of the 10 largest military installations in the U.S. A third of respondents reported mold in their residences, and more than 1,500 reported problems with vermin or pest infestations. 

Families also reported that requests for repair are often denied or ignored — and when they report housing company reps to military command, they’re bullied into silence. Some even claim they received threats. 

“We were overwhelmed by the number of respondents that we had, and it really goes to show that these aren’t one-off issues,” Razsadin said. “This is a widespread problem, and it’s something that needs to be acted on.” 

Housing will push families to accept the home before even seeing it. And if they don’t accept, they have no alternative. For families with special needs or stationed for a short stay, on-base housing is their only option. 

“I want an apology,” said Leticia Lewis, a former Fort Lee resident. “My family wants an apology. Everyone here at Fort Lee is owed an apology by Hunt Housing.” 

Leticia Lewis and her family moved into a special-needs home at Fort Lee in April 2018. In the first few weeks, black mold accrued in her upstairs bedroom. Then mushrooms grew up from the floor. It took three weeks to remove it. 

“Would you allow your kids to sleep in a room like this? No. So don’t do it to someone’s family,” she said. “What we are all fighting for here is our health.” 

Meanwhile, her son was hospitalized in a pediatric ICU for three days, and had to be put on oxygen. “My son has missed so much school,” she said. “He needed to recuperate — he’s five years old.” 

What the Santos and Lewis families have experienced is not uncommon. Military families at Fort Lee and across the nation live in squalor: black mold, lead paint, faulty wiring, poor water quality, pesticides, and a slew of vermin, insects, and animals in their homes. And until recently, their concerns have largely been ignored. 

Fort Lee is the third-largest training post in the Army. One third of the Army’s soldiers will either train or be stationed at Fort Lee sometime in their career. The average stay for a family at Fort Lee is six to 12 months; few stay more than three years. 

“They are counting on us moving out quickly,” Santos said. “They are counting on the quick turnover rate, the high dollars they charge us for normal wear and tear. These profits come off our backs and our sacrifice.” 

A year into Amanda Vargas’s residency at Fort Lee, her carpets began showing clear signs of mold. According to her lease, the carpet was to be replaced by HMC every four years, but when Vargas contacted the previous residents, who lived there for four years, she learned the carpet wasn’t replaced during their stay. When she requested that it be tested, she was denied. 

“If I leave a water bottle out, I can see mold grow in it within hours,” Vargas said. Over the last year, Vargas’s five-year-old daughter has had constant upper-respiratory issues. 

“We live in these homes,” Vargas said. “These homes are not free, they come with a sacrifice. And our children pay the most sacrifice.” 

Hunt Military Communities, who runs the housing at Fort Lee, is one of America’s largest landlords. Of the 35 companies referenced in the MFAN survey, Hunt Military Communities was the third-highest cited of any property manager included. Several families have accused the company of fraud, conspiring to conceal dangerous conditions, breach of contract, and gross negligence. Service members describe feeling powerless, that they have little to no recourse. 

Housing privatization began in 1998, as an unofficial bailout initiative when the Department of Defense failed to provide adequate housing for approximately 200,000 military families. Competitions were held for developers to manage homes on more than 150 installations across the country; those chosen were signed to 50-year contracts. 

The initiative received wide bipartisan support, and worked at first with close attention from civilian and military leaders. But it was never projected to succeed — according to a 1998 pilot report by the Government Accountability Office, cost and earnings from privatization were overstated, and savings would not be as large as the DoD originally claimed. 

Despite these well-informed concerns, the initiative moved forward. But after a financial meltdown in 2008 and cutbacks in military staff in 2011, the military diverted its attention to other priorities, leaving housing companies without oversight. 

“I suspect that [military command] thought things would be better by putting it in the hands of private owners, but in the end they handed it over to a business. And like any other business, they’re out to make money,” Santos said. “They’re not truly fulfilling the mission that the army has entrusted them to do, and that’s taking care of military families.” 

Santos would like to see the DoD engage in more direct oversight of on-base housing and the companies that provide it. 

“I think it would make a difference, because it would make younger families have an idea, when they move in, [of] where their rights would stand,” she said. “That’s something that should’ve been proposed the first time they signed 50-year contracts with these people.” 

In response to the MFAN’s findings, Congress held hearings in February and March to address the concerns. “This issue seems to have caught us by surprise,” said Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Congressional leaders and top military brass toured homes and were appalled by the poor housing conditions and lack of responsiveness from housing providers. 

“We are deeply troubled by the recent reports highlighting the deficient conditions in some of our family housing,” stated Secretary of the Army Dr. Mark Esper. “It is unacceptable for our families who sacrifice so much to have to endure these hardships in their own homes. Our most sacred obligation as Army leaders is to take care of our people — our Soldiers and our family members.”

After the hearings, committee members drafted the Ensuring Safe Housing for our Military Act. The bill would require installation commanders to withhold the family’s rent from the landlord after notifications of potential health, safety or environmental hazards, until military housing officials and the families agree that it has been fixed. 

Senator Tim Kaine, a champion of the bill, stressed that it was the only way to combat malpractice by property managers. “There has been recent attention on the national scope of dangerous conditions in military base housing, including children poisoned by lead, and lapses in oversight that have put military families at risk,” Kaine wrote in an Op-Ed for the Daily Progress. “Military families make enormous sacrifices in service to our nation, and they deserve safe housing.” 

After Fort Lee completed its Congressionally-mandated assessment of on-post homes in March, work order numbers nearly quadrupled — from 194 to 850. As of the most recent town hall, 5,000 work orders had yet to be completed. 

Senator Mark Warner held a roundtable for military families in April. At the roundtable, Vargas and other Fort Lee families stressed their inability to hold HMC accountable, and their suspicions that important documents were being erased or withheld. 

“Hunt is to get work orders done within 10 days, but they rarely honor nor adhere to the appropriate response times for work orders,” Vargas said. “When they do come to do fix things, they leave jobs incomplete.” 

“My concern is, we may improve circumstances for all of you,” said Warner. “But if we don’t change the system, things will get better for a year or two and they’ll fade from people’s memories — and your successors will be sitting here, telling me the same stories.” 

Repairs to military homes nationwide could cost upwards of $386 million, according to a series of reports made between 2013 and 2016 by the Defense Department’s Inspector General. The report found these deficiencies stemmed from “a lack of adequate preventative maintenance and inspections being performed at the installations,” and recommended bi-annual inspections of all homes. 

But defense officials rejected the recommendations. They would “unnecessarily increase costs” and “impose more government intrusion into a private business enterprise,” the D0D said in its official response. 

Returning the responsibility of housing to the DoD (as it was before 1998) would involve enormous costs to U.S. taxpayers, and has potential to bring back the problems that led the government to privatization in the first place. Yet the current system is failing many families, and despite Congressional and military efforts to improve it, problems remain deeply entrenched. 

Many military families agree that a tenant’s bill of rights would be a good first step. But current legislative changes won’t take effect until 2020, and many don’t see themselves sticking around for it. Instead, they are leaving the service prematurely, for the sake of their families’ health. Vargas’s husband plans on leaving in July, on his 4-year anniversary of joining the military. For now, her daughter sleeps in a walk-in closet — the only room in the house without a mold-infested HVAC duct. 

Just before Senator Warner’s roundtable in April, Lewis got a call from the hospital. They informed her that TriCare, the Department Of Defense’s military health insurance provider, won’t cover her X-ray screenings for infections she contracted during her time at Fort Lee housing. But she doesn’t blame TriCare. 

“TriCare doesn’t need to be paying for my medical bills,” Lewis said. “Hunt housing needs to be paying for my medical bills.” 

Organizers Move To Protect Immigrants in the River City

Sarah Allen | June 28, 2018

Topics: abigail spanberger, Dave Brat, ICE, immigration, immigration ban, immigration laws in Virginia, Mark Warner, richmond, Tim Kaine

On Thursday, June 20, after facing extreme political pressure from both parties, President Trump signed an executive order to end his administration’s practice of separating children from their families as they cross the border. However, the administration has no clear plan to reunite the more than 2300 children who have already been taken from their families. In fact, many of the separations could be permanent.

The humanitarian crisis at the southwest border is drawing much-needed national attention and resources, and it has many Richmonders wondering how recent changes to immigration policy and enforcement are affecting our local communities.

Immigrants in Richmond Face Increased Pressure 

According to the American Immigration Council, more than one in eight Virginia residents is an immigrant. One in six Virginia workers is an immigrant, and immigrant-led households in the state paid $6.7 billion in federal taxes and $2.7 billion in state and local taxes in 2014.

“These are our neighbors, our friends, our children’s’ friends,” said Jennifer West, a local immigration attorney and partner at Roth Jackson. “It’s overly simplistic to tell people ‘just get in line, wait your turn, follow the rules.’ The people presenting themselves at the border for asylum are doing things the right way, and they’re being arrested and detained anyway. Others may be fleeing dangerous situations in their home countries and may not always have the luxury of waiting years for paperwork to go through. “

“The sentiment in our community is increased fear and uncertainty,” said Tanya Gonzalez, executive director at the Sacred Heart Center, a hub for Latino communities in Richmond that focuses on education, social integration, empowerment, and success. “Members of the Latino community in Richmond have had an increased number of incidents of discrimination and harassment, ranging from things like being told not to speak Spanish in a public place to bullying in schools.” A recent report from Virginia police show hate crimes are up nearly 50 percent year-over-year in the state, including ten anti-Hispanic crimes.

Reports of ICE Enforcement in Richmond Have Increased

While Richmond has not yet seen the kind of sweeping, large-scale, military-style immigration raids that have taken hundreds of parents away from children in communities in California, Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, and elsewhere, local immigration rights’ advocates have seen changes in our area and worry about what the future holds.

“In the last year or so, we’re seeing increased enforcement, more red tape, and much longer delays in general,” said West. “Both businesses and families going through legal processes have to wait much longer and jump through more hoops. Those delays can be a big hardship on a family waiting to be reunited and on local entrepreneurs who can’t find Americans to do their jobs.”

“We’ve heard several reports of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents arresting immigrants at courthouses or nearby, including arresting people they didn’t have a warrant for,” said Phil Storey, an immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center. “That’s a relatively new and troubling practice.”

“Things are changing for this community rapidly,” said Alina Kilpatrick, another immigration attorney in Richmond. “I have clients on appeal who have been going to regular and routine check ins with ICE or with DHS contractors every six to 12 months who are suddenly being told to pack their bags and leave behind children and spouses who are legal citizens. I’m also hearing about increased arrests and detentions at routine ICE appointments in addition to deportations.”

The majority of immigrants living in Virginia are legally allowed to be here. More than half the immigrants living in Virginia are naturalized, and many more are eligible for naturalization. Over 10,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients live in Virginia.

Fewer than one-third of all immigrants are undocumented, but it’s an issue that affects many families since nearly 100,000 children in Virginia who are legal U.S. citizens live with at least one undocumented parent. Therefore anytime parents are swept up in ICE enforcement raids, they’re often leaving behind at least one child who is a U.S. citizen.

Child of Abbie Arevalo-Herrera. Photo by Carlos Bernate

One human example of the often arbitrary line between documented and undocumented immigrants is a Richmond mother named Abbie Arevalo-Herrera, a woman from Honduras seeking asylum in the U.S after escaping domestic violence in her home country. Threatened this week with deportation and now taking sanctuary in Richmond’s First Unitarian Universalist Church (information made public by her legal team), if she goes back to Honduras, she will be leaving behind her husband and two-year old son, both legal U.S. citizens. Although she is fighting for herself and for domestic violence survivors everywhere, her future in Richmond is uncertain.

How to Help Your Neighbors in Richmond

There are a number of national organizations dedicated to helping immigrant families at the Southwest border, but for people who want to help here in Richmond, here are a few ways to help.

Support Local Organizations

Central Virginia has a number of organizations dedicated to working to support immigrants while promoting equity, civil rights, and empowered, integrated communities. The following is a partial list.

Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC):  The LAJC is a nonprofit organization with offices across Virginia, including Richmond, whose mission is to strengthen the voices of low-income communities and root out the inequities that keep people in poverty. In Richmond, they provide legal support, including individual representation, to communities facing legal crises, including immigrant communities. Statewide, LAJC is a leader in the creative use of litigation to demand the release of unaccompanied minors in detention and to push back on ICE practices such as so-called “collateral arrests.”

What they need:

  • Donations allow LAJC to take on more cases and represent more people, providing equal and accessible justice for all.
  • Pro-bono attorney volunteers
  • Volunteers to assist with clerical and administrative tasks.

Sacred Heart Center (SHC): SHC is a community hub for Richmond’s Latino community, and offers a variety of educational and human service programs to individuals and families, including educational opportunities for adults (including GED, ESL, computer, and leadership classes), programs for youth and children (including school readiness, school enrichment, summer camp, parenting classes and more), and strategic community partnerships (that help with food assistance, health care, support groups, tax preparation, and more).

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to their Family Protection Project, which seeks to prevent the separation of local families by offering low-cost or pro bono immigration services, assistance locating loved ones who have been lost or detained, and volunteer training.
  • Volunteers: opportunities range from cleaning to tutoring to photography to teaching ESL.    
  • Donations of gently used clothing, new stuffed animals and books, diapers and school supplies
  • Nonperishable food items for the Bainbridge Ministry Food Bank, open Monday through Friday, 9:15 am to 12 pm, Monday to Friday.

Central Virginia Sanctuary Network (CVSN): A project of the the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the CVSN is made up of interfaith congregational and organizational members, as well as individuals who volunteer through the Circles of Protection. Member commitments range from commiting to host guests facing deportation to supporting that work through fundraising, accompaniment, and hospitality.

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to the Sanctuary Fund, which provides for people fighting detention or deportation while in Sanctuary, and also covers bail and legal defense.
  • Volunteers: CVSN is looking for congregations and individual drivers (to take undocumented people who are not eligible for driver’s’ licenses to appointments), writers and communications professionals, legal resources, outreach, hospitality (arranging meals, entertainment, visitation, and counseling), accompaniment to court hearings (which often protects people from detainment), and other tasks.
  • Fundraising: Buy a t-shirt, tote bag, poster, or tank top with original artwork saying by Richmond artist Alfonso Perez reading “all are welcome here.”

Virginia Coalition for Immigrants Rights (VACIR): VACIR is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition of organizations that exists to win dignity, power and quality of life for all immigrant and refugee communities. VACIR gives grants to other organizations, often to small and under-resources local organizations who mobilize quickly to do rapid response in emergency situations. VACIR has supported naturalization clinics, “know your rights” seminars, and DACA assistance programs.  

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to fund member organizations initiatives.

Make Your Voice Heard Locally

Protests: There are a number of upcoming protests around Virginia aimed at fighting unjust immigration policies, advocating for reuniting the 2,300+ children who have already been taken, and ending the zero-tolerance policy that criminalizes and detains families.

Call your Senators and Representatives: Ask them to support common-sense immigration reform and insist on reuniting separated families. Check out Indivisible’s Guide on what to ask for when calling Republicans and Democrats.

  • Contact Mark Warner, Virginia State Senator:
  • Contact Tim Kaine, Virginia State Senator
  • Find your House of Representatives member

Be an ally to local immigrants. Here’s how.

Use your privilege. If you’re not sure what that means, start here.

Elect, donate to, and work for people who hold views on immigration that you support. Vote in every election that you can. Volunteer to canvass, phone bank, and drive people to the polls. Give money.

In Virginia, Tim Kaine is up for reelection against Corey Stewart, a neo-confederate candidate for U.S. Senate. In the 7th House District, which covers much of the Richmond area, newcomer Abigail Spanberger is challenging incumbent Dave Brat, a Republican who has a strong anti-immigrant platform.

What else are we missing? Leave your comments if you have other ideas to support and defend immigrants in RVA.

Photos by Carlos Bernate.

Senators Warner and Kaine Sponsor Bill Legalizing Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity

Lana Ferguson | May 23, 2018

Topics: Economy, farming, hemp, Legalization, Marijuana, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, virginia

Virginia’s agriculture industry might have a big win in its future.

US Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have cosponsored a bill that would legalize hemp and define it as an agricultural commodity.

The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 would effectively remove the plant from the list of controlled substances because hemp would no longer be grouped with marijuana. Which, despite it having so little tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in it, thus no narcotic capability, it was defined as marijuana in the Controlled Substance Act back in 1970 when President Richard Nixon was in office.

Because of its current legal definition, right now hemp is harvested for research purposes in the state of Virginia, but cannot be grown for commercial use. More than an estimated 25,000 products use the plant from textiles to furniture to construction materials, personal care items and more.

The 2014 Farm Bill allowed industrial hemp to be used for agricultural research purposes. Since its enactment, Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the University of Virginia, and James Madison University have been active in hemp research.

This new bill, however, is pulling support from both sides of the aisle.

In a Wednesday press release, Warner said the nation’s agricultural industry shouldn’t be held back by outdated restrictions, which by default prevent the creation of more jobs and hurt the economy.

“Hemp products are already bought, sold, and consumed right here in the United States,” Warner said. “This bipartisan bill will help Virginia farmers, manufacturers and small businesses benefit from the economic growth we have seen in this industry.”

In the same press release, Kaine said he is always looking for ways to support Virginia’s agricultural economy since it’s the state’s leading economic sector.

“Hemp was grown in Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, and research and input from Virginia agricultural stakeholders, agricultural scientists at JMU and Virginia Tech, and economic development leaders like the Tobacco Commission have shown that it is safe and holds economic promise for rural Virginia,” Kaine said. “I’m satisfied that this bill takes sensible steps to address law enforcement concerns and, in turn, that it makes sense to remove industrial hemp from the federal controlled substance list.”

The Hemp Farming Act will also give states the opportunity to be the primary regulators of hemp, make hemp farmers eligible to apply for crop insurance, and allow hemp researchers to apply for more federal grants.

The bill addresses law enforcement concerns regarding the similarity between hemp and marijuana by requiring states to submit hemp growth and production plans for USDA approval.

Warner has been serving on the Senate since 2008 and will keep his seat until 2021. Kaine on the other hand has served on the Senate since 2013 after his reign as governor. He just announced his bid for reelection early last month. 

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