Each congressional district in Virginia gets to elect three individuals to represent them on the Republican State Central Committee (SCC). In addition, the chairman of each district’s Republican committee serves on both the SCC and the SCC executive committee. The individuals elected as representatives are elected for four-year terms in presidential election years. The chairman serves for the two years of his/her elected term.
Additionally, each district in Virginia that has elected a Republican Congressman gets an “congressional seat” representative to the SCC. That term runs concurrent with the congressman’s term. Also, each district in which the Republican presidential candidate got the most votes gets a “presidential seat” representative to the SCC. Virginia’s First, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Districts each have both congressional and presidential seats on SCC giving each of them a total of six SCC votes. No other Virginia district earned an additional seat in 2020.
In the Sixth, our congressional seat representative, Jeff Adams, decided not to seek reappointment by the district committee. He has been a huge asset to our team with his fine legal mind and attention to detail. You may remember his name as the lead lawyer in the Sixth District’s lawsuit that once and for all got rid of Virginia’s unconstitutional Incumbent Protection Act. At our December district committee meeting, we elected former Augusta County Chair Curt Lily to fill the role of congressional representative going forward. Curt is an engineer by profession. He is well known around the district and is highly regarded by his peers.
The Sixth’s presidential seat representative, Anne Fitzgerald, also decide not to seek reappointment. We will miss her fourteen years of experience in Republican party politics, which was preceded by tenure as a legislative aide in the General Assembly. The District Committee appointed Karen Kwiatkowski to fill that seat. Karen is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and a farmer. She also serves as Secretary of the Sixth District Republican Committee.
Moving on to a much different subject, Fifth District Chairman Melvin Adams made me aware of a “dangerous policy” under consideration by the State Department of Education (VDOE). The Family Foundation memo that Melvin forwarded to me reads in part: “The VDOE has prepared draft model policies for the treatment of transgender students that are pretty outrageous. The public comment period runs through February 3, 2021. These model policies are meant for local school divisions to either adopt as approved or use as the basis for even more expansive (and dangerous) ‘transgender’ policies.”
The memo adds: “Click HERE to enter a comment on the townhall.gov website, and tell VDOE you do not approve of their proposed guidelines based on radical theories that eradicate all distinctions between male and female and indoctrinate our school children. You can read The Family Foundation’s blogs on the topic here and here.”
And as my final topic for this week, I ran across a saying that I kept posted in my office when I was teaching college. It seems appropriate for this coming year, so I present it here for you:
Risking
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by his own fears, he is a slave.
He has forfeited freedom.
Only a person who risks is free!
We have a lot coming at us this new year as Americans – much of it will be bad, considering the recent elections, but we cannot afford to pull in our heads and risk nothing. We have to consider which risks we are or are not willing to take in order to preserve our faith, our freedoms, and our country – and which risks we have no choice but to take.
Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.