John Massoud either never sleeps or somehow manages to clone himself about three days a week. John is Chairman of the Sixth Congressional District Republican Committee, an office to which he was elected just about a year ago. Prior to that, John served as Vice Chairman of the Committee.

John is a veritable whirlwind of activity. He is constantly on the phone with people around the district. He frequently shows up at local unit meetings. He talks with people at Republican events all over the district – and outside of it as well.

John’s responsibilities as Chairman include representing the Sixth District on not only the State Central Committee (SCC) but also on the Executive Committee of the SCC. You may remember that the SCC had some rather, er, vigorous discussions for the six months ending in May of this year. In addition, John took part in a number of conversations outside of the regular SCC meetings trying to create strategies by which we could reach a conclusion to an altogether much too absurd logjam.

Additionally, John is a member of the Strasburg Town Council where he has had an extremely important role in reducing the town’s budget, strengthening the police department, and defending our Second Amendment rights. He also has had a prominent role in increasing Republican voting percentages at a time when Democrats are moving to the town as a bedroom community to the Washington, D.C., megopolis.

John also makes that commute because he is Vice President of a very large company that took a huge hit during the quarantine. Even though receipts were down significantly, John took care of his employees at the same time he worked tirelessly to keep his company afloat through the nightmare that has been Covid. And he maintained his generosity. He never backed out on a financial commitment to non-business causes just because business was tight.

John is constantly on the phone with the people of the Sixth District. He does it in part because he genuinely likes people. But more importantly, he does it to figure out what the people of the Sixth need him to do as Chairman. Staying in touch and listening is one of the greatest attributes of a leader.

Another great attribute of a leader, at least in political circles, is recruiting people to do the work that needs to be done. John has worked tirelessly (there’s that word again) to make sure we have Republican candidates for every public elected office. He also consistently recruits volunteers to do the work that needs to be done in order to elect those candidates.

More importantly, and unlike some chairmen with whom I have worked over the years, John does much of the work himself – but then that is the point of this article. Some people show up at meetings, get recognized, accept the applause, and then take credit for other people’s work. John is the opposite. He downplays his role in the District’s success while giving credit to the many people who believe as strongly as he does that America is worth saving.

John is impressive in how well he knows what is going on around the District. His knowledge of people and their interactions as it relates to getting the GOP’s job done simply amazes people who recognize what goes into that kind of awareness about the intricacies of the job.

I could say more, but John will probably fuss at me as it is for even making him the subject of my article. If he does, I’ll probably just give him the raspberry in return.

I’m not writing this to curry favor with John. I don’t need to. I am blessed with having John as a friend, but more importantly, Republicans of the Sixth District, and indeed the entire Commonwealth, need to know John as well. He is a hard-working, intelligent, well informed chairman who does the people and the Party proud.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to meet him, show up at one of your local unit meetings. He will probably be there – unless there is another meeting or two the same night, then he might be at the other meeting instead. (I was kidding about John cloning himself. Imagine what he could get done if he did have clones.) John Massoud is a good man and a good leader. I’ve worked with enough people who are neither that I know how valuable that is.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

The people who operate the polls on election day get up very early so they can be at the polls by 5:00 (yes, a.m.) to get everything set up for the 6:00 opening. After the polls close at 7:00 p.m., they stay for another hour or so to call in the results, do all the legal paperwork, process the drop box, pack up the equipment, and go home. Well, everyone gets to go home except for the precinct chief and one other election official.

The chief has to check everything back in at the Registrar’s Office, and if something is not right, the chief will be called into the Electoral Board meeting the next morning to straighten out the problem.

The election official who accompanies the chief is along for one purpose. Under Virginia law, the drop box has to be supervised by two people at all times. That means two people have to be with the drop box, even on the drive back to the Registrar’s Office. Then the chief has to drive the other election official back to the polling place to get his/her car, after which those two can finally, after a very long day, go home.

And for primaries, polling places are usually lightly staffed – frequently as few as six. However, since two election officials must always be outside with the drop box, that leaves four election officials inside. And if one happens to call in sick – as happened in several precincts last week – that leaves only three inside, one of whom is the chief, whose job it is to make everything run smoothly and fix problems that come up. That makes things interesting when an official needs to take a bathroom break or wants to eat lunch.

But there are compensations. Election officials get paid for their day at the polls and the required training they attend prior to each election. It isn’t much, but it might meet Virginia’s new minimum wage standard – maybe.

Election officials also enjoy their interaction with the voters, most of whom are great people – many of them are friends and neighbors – but state law still requires election officials to check each voter’s ID no matter who they are.

And there are memorable voters. A number of voters will come in not knowing at what address they are registered because they have moved so many times since the last election. A few don’t even know whether they are registered to vote. They just wander in. These are the folks who get to chat with the chief.

Chiefs really do want to make sure that every person who is supposed to vote gets to vote (and that those who are not eligible to vote do not), but it has to be done according to the law. The chief is the problem solver. If there is a legal way for the prospective voter to vote, the chief will make it happen.

Primaries, like the one last week, are held solely to determine who will be the nominees from each political party in the November election. Some parties choose their nominees by other methods. This year, Republicans chose their nominees for statewide office at a convention in May. In a few precincts across the state, there were primaries to select the Republican candidate for House of Delegate seats and for local Constitutional Officers. In many other precincts, Republican voters came to vote, but discovered that there were no Republican candidates on the ballot in their precinct. One of the more common responses to that information was, “Well, where can I go to vote for Republicans?” The answer is “Come back in November.” Voters can only vote in the precinct where they are registered and for the candidates who are on the ballot assigned to their precinct. These Republican voters felt better after they understood that their nominees had already been selected, and they could come back and vote for them in November’s general election.

And speaking of only voting in your own precinct, this “head scratcher” occurred a couple of years ago. A man came into a particular polling place. The officials could not let him vote because his name was not on the voter list for that precinct. They did find him on the list for the next precinct over. He responded that he knew he was registered at the other location, but he happened to drive past this polling place on his way to the other location. When he saw the flags and signs in front of the first location, he thought he would check to see whether he could just vote at that location and save himself the extra mile he would have to drive to his assigned polling place. Some days can be a real adventure for election officials.

Think about becoming an election official. Many localities need more officials. And it really is an interesting job.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Just after our Sixth District GOP Convention in May of 2018, three complaints were filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) accusing then Chairman Scott Sayre, then Treasurer Hud McWilliams, former Treasurer Al Tucker, and the entire Sixth District Committee (with current treasurer Donna Moser the named respondent) of election law violations. The case was finally decided nearly three years from the date the complaints were filed.

The entire ruling is 19 pages in length. In it, “the FEC found no reason to believe claims” that the Sixth District Committee gave improper contributions to one of the eight Congressional candidates running that year. Likewise, the FEC “found no reason to believe” that Scott Sayre, Al Tucker, and Hud McWilliams violated federal campaign finance law in the way they allocated funds and reported income and expenditures to the appropriate election commissions. The FEC also chose to dismiss “as a matter of prosecutorial discretion” allegations that the Committee “used federally impermissible funds to pay for activity in connection with a federal election.”

Let me explain that last one. There are limitations on how much money individuals can donate to federal campaigns. Corporations cannot donate to federal campaigns at all. On the other hand, Virginia law does not limit donations to state and local candidates so long as all donations above $100 are properly reported and the donor is properly identified in the report. As a result, money donated to support federal candidates must be held in a “federal account” while money donated to support non-federal candidates should be kept in a separate “state account.” For events that concern both federal and state candidates, the expenses must be allocated on a percentage basis between the two accounts.

The complaint to the FEC alleged that money from the Sixth District’s state account was used to pay for federal campaign related expenses. While technically true, the Committee was able to demonstrate that the state account held more money that had been collected in a way that met federal election guidelines than had been spent from that account on all activities related to nominating our candidate for Congress in 2018. The FEC did admonish the Committee to be more careful about making sure that expenditures came from the correct account. The Committee has been doing that very thing since June of 2018.

The thing that bothered me is that if the three Republicans who made the complaints to the FEC had really been interested in getting honest answers, all they had to do was ask. They did not. Instead of keeping things in-house, as they should have done, they made a federal case out of it – literally. If they weren’t filing the complaints for political reasons, they would not have made a big deal about it in the week just prior to the convention about FEC complaints being filed against Scott Sayre, who was running for re-election at that convention as district chair. Federal election law also says that once a FEC complaint is filed, no one can make public statements about it. However, the fact that the complaints had not yet been filed allowed people to talk. The election was close enough that reports of the pending FEC complaints could well have made the difference.

And I think there was more to it than merely an election. Scott Sayre and the Sixth District Committee were the plaintiffs in the federal case that declared that Virginia’s Incumbent Protection Act (IPA) was unconstitutional. The IPA allowed incumbent delegates and state senators to select the method by which candidates would be nominated for the office they held. Incumbents almost always chose primaries because an incumbent has name recognition, and that helps them win primaries. When the IPA was struck down, Republican committees at all levels gained the authority to choose the method of nomination for the offices they administered. A number of incumbents were not happy with the outcome, and one or more of them might have wanted to punish Sayre and the Sixth District Committee for taking away that election perk. Filing complaints with the FEC might be a way to do that.

Sadly, Al Tucker did not live to see his name cleared. Ironically, one of the people who filed a complaint also did not live to see the outcome of the case.

Unfortunately, it cost the Sixth District Committee over $30,000 to defend themselves before the FEC. Think of how that money could have been spent to help elect candidates if Republicans had just talked to each other like decent human beings. Imagine how much better the Party would be if Republicans would choose to simply work out their differences rather than play political games. We might actually win statewide elections again.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Instead of pushing so hard to get public schools reopened, parents and government leaders would do far better to take a look at what the schools are actually teaching.

Most people somehow think that children are still being taught what we were taught when we were in school. For example, when I was in school, I learned that the U.S. Constitution was the basis of our freedoms as Americans. Today, children are taught that the Constitution is somehow the source of slavery. That is absolute nonsense since slavery is documented to have existed 4000 years ago, while the US Constitution was ratified only 234 years ago.

When I was in school, we were taught that everyone has equal value regardless of skin color and that everyone should attend integrated schools so that we could get to know and learn to get along with people of all races. (It is ironic that Democrats fought the hardest against integration and equal education, yet now falsely claim to be the Party of Civil Rights.)

These days, though, instead of being taught that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” our children are being taught Critical Race Theory (CRT). Most people have heard of it, but they have no idea what it is.

In a nutshell, Critical Race Theory teaches American children to judge each other based on their skin color – which is totally opposite of what they should be taught. CRT teaches that based solely on their skin color people should be labeled as either oppressors or as the oppressed. It makes race the lens through which every element of American life is to be judged.

Congressman Burgess Owens (R-Utah), a black man who attended segregated schools in the Jim Crow South, says, “Critical race theory preserves this way of thinking and undermines civil rights constitutionally guaranteed equal protection before the law, and U.S. institutions at large. This is the United States of America, and no one should ever be subjected to the discrimination that our laws so clearly prohibit.”

The Biden Administration has proposed giving preference on grant money to K-12 schools that have well established CRT curriculums. At the same time, Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) has proposed legislation to block federal tax dollars from going to schools that teach critical race theory. Roy says that CRT “like all its racist derivations, is a direct affront to our core values as Americans.” He adds, “As Americans we believe that all are created equal by God Almighty, regardless of their skin color. That self-evident truth, and the American promise that comes with it, are worth fighting for.”

Critical Race Theory has been foisted on us because the Marxist strategy of dividing people by economic class and then creating conflict between classes has failed in America. In America, the middle class is so large that people see no need for major economic change. All Americans have many opportunities to change their own economic class by using education to make themselves more valuable to employers, by starting their own businesses, and by choosing their own way of life as opposed to having it dictated to them by the government.

“Class warfare” led to revolutions in Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela, and elsewhere. This class warfare led to almost 100 million deaths of their own people. These revolutions did not lead to socialist utopias, but rather to the unleashing of some of man’s darkest brutalities.

CRT proponents know that identity-based Marxism won’t sell in America. Instead, they use phrases such as “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” They use the word “equity” instead of the word “equality.” The difference is huge. Equality gives everyone the opportunity to prosper. Equity calls for the suspension of private property rights, seizure of land and wealth, and the redistribution of property along racial lines. In effect, CRT calls for the overthrow of Capitalism. That’s why socialists are trying to sneak it into the minds of our children. Children don’t have anything by which to compare. But we do. We have seen the economic disasters in every country that has thrown out Capitalism. We must fight to keep Critical Race Theory from infecting our children, or we will lose America as we know it. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Virginia Republicans hosted an admirable convention on May 8, and they did so on many levels.

For starters, many Republicans who opposed having a convention claimed that a convention would disenfranchise Republican voters. Their claims proved baseless since about 55 thousand Republicans registered to be delegates at the convention. And of those registered delegates, over 32 thousand eventually attended and cast votes. Without question, this was the largest political convention ever held in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Republicans required delegates to show a photo ID in order to get their ballots. And contrary to what Democrats would have you believe, not a single delegate was turned away for lack of photo ID. Everyone who wants a photo ID can get one free of charge, so everyone had one. The only individuals who showed but were not allowed to vote, were those who had not properly registered as delegates, and there were very few of those.

Convention voting was held at 39 different voting locations around the Commonwealth. Fairfax County handled over six thousand delegates at a single location. A number of voting locations throughout the western part of the Commonwealth had less than a tenth that number, but with minor hiccups, every location provided a smooth voting experience for their delegates.

Republicans hosted so many voting sites so that no one in the Commonwealth had to drive more than an hour to vote. Many voted a matter of minutes from their homes. It was a very convenient process – which speaks to part of the reason that so many delegates showed up to vote.

The convention also featured Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) so that delegates only had to fill out one ballot. Nor did they have to stay around all day to vote in subsequent rounds of balloting. Voting was “one and done.”

Voting for the Republican nominees for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General was easy. Counting the ballots, took the time.

Because the Attorney General race had the fewest candidates and in order to make sure that the ballot counting teams knew what they were about, The AG race was counted first. Chesterfield Supervisor Leslie Haley came in with the fewest votes (14.08%) on the first round, so she was dropped from contention. The ballots that had marked Haley as their first choice were then divided to the other candidates depending on who was marked as second choice on those ballots. Former Supreme Court law clerk Jack White did not pick up enough votes on the second round to catch up to the other two candidates, so White was dropped from the running after the second round of balloting. As I expected, the race came down to former prosecutor Delegate Jason Miyares and former Judge Advocate General officer Chuck Smith. Miyares held the lead through every round of balloting and won outright on the third round with 51.7 percent of the vote to Smith’s 48.3 percent.

Ballots for the Governor’s race were counted on Monday. Former Roanoke City Sheriff Octavia Johnson went out in the first round, followed in the second round of balloting by former thinktank CEO Peter Doran. Former Army Ranger Colonel Sergio de la Peña went out followed by former Speaker of the House of Delegates Kirk Cox. When Cox’s votes were redistributed to the remaining candidates, Former venture capital CEO Glenn Youngkin got nearly twice as many of Cox’s ballots than did business entrepreneur Pete Snyder. Pete got twice as many as State Senator Amanda Chase who went out in the fifth round.

Chase had told her supporters not to vote for anyone for Governor other than her. She apparently did not understand how RCV works. She also was very opposed to Pete Snyder winning the nomination. Thus, I found it interesting that while 26 percent of her voters did not put down another choice, 39 percent of her votes went with Pete Snyder. The other 35 percent chose Glenn Youngkin. In the end, Youngkin’s lead throughout the balloting process for Governor was just too much for Snyder to overtake.

Finally, on Tuesday, the count for Lieutenant Governor moved from six candidates down to Delegate Tim Hugo and former Delegate Winsome Sears. Sears won with 54.4 percent of the vote. All in all, it was an excellent convention, and it elected some excellent nominees to run for statewide office in November.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.