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October 31, 2018
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Our 201st year
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Vol. 201, No. 44
SENATE
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www.Fauquier.com
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$1.50 5TH DISTRICT
1ST DISTRICT
Fast
Sen. Tim Kaine (D)
Corey Stewart (R)
Vangie Williams (D)
Rep. Rob Wittman (R)
Leslie Cockburn (D)
Denver Riggleman (R)
1. Do you agree with the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy on border crossers that has led to family separations?
No Yes** No No
2. On the Affordable Care Act, would you: fix it, repeal and replace it, or just repeal it?
Fix Repeal Fix Repeal Fix Repeal and Replace and Replace and Replace
3. Are more laws needed to prevent gun violence?
Yes
4. Is it possible to combat climate change with new legislation?
Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
5. Where do you stand on abortion rights?
Pro-abortion Anti-abortion Pro-abortion Anti-abortion Pro-abortion Anti-abortion rights rights rights
No
Yes
Yes
No No
Yes
No
**Stewart supports Trump’s immigration policies but does not support separating families.
WHERE THEY STAND:
Candidates split on health care, abortion; but all oppose separating migrant families By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
Virginia’s two candidates for U.S. Senate and the four candidates vying to represent parts of Fauquier County in the House of Representatives appear most deeply divided about the Affordable Care Act and wheth-
er women should retain the right to have an abortion. But despite their disagreements, all say migrant families should not be separated at the border and most see possible legislative fixes for climate change — even if they disagree on which policies will help. On gun violence, the Democratic
candidates and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, see room for improvement in the nation’s gun laws. While Republicans Denver Riggleman, who is vying for the 5th District congressional seat, and Corey Stewart, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, said no more laws are needed. “We don’t need more regulations
on lawful gun ownership; we just need to enforce the laws we already have,” Stewart said. “More can be done, however, to allow individual citizens to defend themselves. Additionally, we must take action to secure our nation’s churches, schools and other currently-soft targets.”
See CANDIDATES, page 2
Love it or hate it, Warrenton’s first roundabout opens By James Ivancic Times Staff Writer
Warrenton’s new mini-roundabout has gotten mixed reviews so far from drivers who’ve driven it. “Too small” and “too tight” are most often the complaints describing the traffic circle at the intersection of Falmouth Street and East Shirley Avenue. It opened last week. “Way too small and hard to get in the lane to go to Walmart;” “Just watch a school bus navigate it;” and “Those can cause accidents if not done properly;” are a sample of posts concerning the roundabout on the Fauquier Times Facebook page. But drivers, not the design, are to blame, acINSIDE Business.............................................11 Classified............................................34 Communities......................................26 Faith...................................................30
cording to an opposing post: “I think the problem is not the traffic circle but the drivers who have no idea how it works … It is not that hard, people.” Warrenton At-Large Councilmember Sean Polster has seen the pro and con reviews. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It’s something new and people haven’t gotten used to it.” The mini-roundabout is meant move traffic more efficiently and with fewer potential points of contact between motorists. It’s doing that, he said. “When VDOT [Virginia Department of Transportation] presented it to us it was described as safer and for the same money” over time as a traffic signal, which would require maintenance, Polster said.
See CIRCLE, page 4
Family Time........................................19 Libraries.............................................29 Lifestyle..............................................21 Opinion.................................................7
Obituaries...........................................31 Puzzles...............................................10 Real Estate..........................................25 Sports.................................................14
Warrenton’s new roundabout has opened to mixed reviews from drivers. TIMES STAFF PHOTO/ KAREN CHAFFRAIX
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FROM PAGE 1
Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | October 31, 2018
Candidates split on health care, abortion; but all oppose separating migrant families CANDIDATES from page 1 What about health care?
National polls suggest health care is top-of-mind for voters, and the candidates are divided along party lines about what to do about the Affordable Care Act, parts of which were scaled back by the federal tax-reform law approved last year. There’s no longer a tax penalty for not having health-care insurance, sometimes called the “individual mandate,” and federal subsidies to insurance companies have been scaled back since the law first took effect. Democratic candidates say the changes have amounted to undermining the health-care law. They are
ISSN 1050-7655, USPS 188280 Published every Wednesday by Piedmont Media LLC How to reach us ADDRESS: 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, Virginia 20186 PHONE: 540-347-4222 FAX: 540-349-8676 HOURS: 8 a.m. 5 p.m. weekdays, 24-hour answering service Publisher Catherine M. Nelson, 540-347-4222 cnelson@fauquier.com NEWSROOM Editor in Chief Christopher Six, 540-212-6331 csix@fauquier.com Managing Editor Jill Palermo, 540-351-0431 jpalermo@fauquier.com Web/Copy Editor Amanda Heincer, 540-878-2418 aheincer@fauquier.com
calling for the ACA to be restored and improved by adding a public option, such as Medicare, to the healthcare insurance exchange so people under the age of 65 can buy into the federal health-care insurance program if they want to. Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic incumbent, and both Leslie Cockburn and Vangie Williams, Democrats vying for the 5th and 1st District congressional seats, say they would favor such a change. “I … believe we should do more to expand access and improve quality, which is why I’ve proposed a plan called Medicare-X, which would allow all Virginians to have access to a plan similar to Medicare,” Kaine said.
Community Editor Anita Sherman, 540.351.1635 asherman@fauquier.com Associate Editor John Toler, 540-351-0487 jtoler@fauquier.com Staff Writers Karen Chaffraix kchaffraix@fauquier.com James Ivancic, 540-878-2414 jivancic@fauquier.com Jonathan Hunley, jhunley@fauquier.com Sports Editor Peter Brewington, 540-351-1169 pbrewington@fauquier.com Sports Staff Writer Jeff Malmgren, 540-874-2250 jmalmgren@fauquier.com ADVERTISING Ad Manager Kathy Mills Godfrey 540-351-1162 kgodfrey@fauquier.com Classified Sales Consultant Jeanne Cobert, 540-878-2491 jcobert@fauquier.com
Chairman Emeritus George R. Thompson To place Classified and Employment ads: Call 540-351-1664 or fax 540-349-8676, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday — Friday or email fauquierclassifieds@fauquier.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Call 540-347-4222 Help with your subscription? Call 540-878-2413 or email CirculationFT@fauquier.com Missed your paper? Call 540-347-4222, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays Subscription: $69.68 per year within the United States. POSTMASTER: Send address 41 Culpeper St., Warrenton, VA 20186. Periodicals postage paid at Warrenton, Va. and at additional mailing offices
Cockburn has said she supports Virginia’s move to expand Medicaid. The ACA must be stabilized, she said. “You need to put back the individual mandate. You need to bring back the subsidies for insurance companies so you have a healthy exchange,” Cockburn said in an earlier interview. “Then, I support, first, putting Medicare on that exchange so people can buy into it. ” Riggleman opposed Medicaid expansion in Virginia and doesn’t think a government-run health care system is the answer. “The thing that scares me the most, when talking about Medicare for all, is a big government takeover of any type of health care,” Riggleman said in an interview. Stewart said he favors a return to a time when government played a smaller role in health care. “I strongly favor health savings accounts, as well as the restoration of short-term and low-cost ‘no-frills’ plans,” Stewart said. “We should allow insurance plans to be sold across state lines (more competition is healthy).” Wittman, a five-term Republican incumbent, voted in favor of the House replacement for the ACA in May 2017, which critics said would have made health insurance more expensive for those with pre-existing conditions. The measure failed in the Senate. “I support a path forward for repealing and replacing the ACA with patient-provider centered reforms
that expand choices for consumers, increase access to care and reduce healthcare costs, all while preserving coverage for folks with pre-existing conditions,” he said.
Immigration
On immigration, all six candidates said they oppose the Trump Administration’s temporary move last spring to separate migrant children from their parents under the president’s “zero tolerance policy” for border-crossers. Kaine, who earlier this year backed a bill to provide $25 billion for border security while creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants without a criminal records, said he would continue to “fight for comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border and treats immigrants humanely and fairly.” Stewart’s campaign spokesman Nathan Brinkman said Stewart supports the presidents’ zero-tolerance policy on border-crossers but also agrees with the administration’s move to stop separating families. “Nobody wants to see families divided,” Stewart said. “We must discourage illegal migration to begin with — that’s why I favor building a real border wall and enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.” Cockburn called the separation of families “barbaric,” while Riggleman said simply: “Protect the borders but don’t separate families.” Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@ fauquier.com
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NEWS
Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | October 31, 2018
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With 8,000 postcards, ‘Indivisibles’ aim to sway midterms their way By Karen Chaffraix Times Staff Writer
The walls cast a pink glow at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the back room at McMahon’s Irish Pub in Warrenton. The tables were full. Heads were down, and pens danced across little white cards. Meet the folks who comprise Fauquier Indivisible, on this last postcard-writing night before the mid-term elections. Tonight’s postcards urge voters in Virginia’s 8th District to choose Democrat Carter Turner, and in the 1st District, Democrat Vangie Williams. On Thursday, Oct. 28, between those collected from the Upperville Progressives, an arm of the Fauquier Indivisibles, and this Warrenton group, 8,000 postcards were carried to the post office. “It took two bins and three shopping bags to get them there,” Upperville group member Pat Reilly said from her place in Marshall. “We get the addresses from an online site.” Reilly first heard of the merits of postcard-writing at “the Women’s Summit,” a progressive political-strategy and team-building event held in Herndon last July sponsored Network NOVA. “I was skeptical, but there’s a study that says postcards are as effective as canvassing. Women went into postcard-writing particularly strongly, because calling is harder.”
Cecilia Carr (in blue sweater) started the Fauquier Indivisibles, then passed the baton to Donna Cywinski. TIMES STAFF PHOTO/ KAREN CHAFFRAIX
visible, Cywinski piloting its Facebook page, “the group’s main hub,” now up to 668 members. Cywinski, 63, an attorney by training, teaches history at Lord Fairfax Community College. The Catlett resident said she was “traumatized” after President Trump was elected. “I couldn’t underTimeline stand how people could vote for such a man. I The Warrenton group that morphed into Fauqui- kept thinking, ‘How am I going to get through the er Indivisible was begun in January 2017 by Cecil- next four years?’” ia Carr, a Prince William County English teacher. That lasted until the Women’s March in WashPolitically involved “in small ways,” prior to Pres- ington, D.C. in January 2017, she said. “We realident Donald Trump’s election, things now felt ur- ized how many felt the same way, and that people gent, she said. Personal reasons caused her to move needed a way to get involved.” decisively. The week after the Women’s March, Cywinski A Warrenton resident for 17 years, Carr, 52, is attended the Rally for Unity in Warrenton. “[State among tonight’s post-card writers. She’s wearing Del.] Elizabeth Guzman was one of the speakers, a blue sweater, and her running in my district. I smile lights up her face. had been heavily involved Carr started the group to “The good old boys deciding in the Hillary Clinton distract herself from an legislation — that’s done with.” campaign, but hadn’t done impending medical diaganything since. I wanted DONNA CYWINSKI to get involved.” nosis. Calling it, “Straight Fauquier Indivisible Outta Warrenton — FauHearing about a local quier Resistance,” Carr arm of the Indivisibles registered the group with starting up, Cywinski went to the gathering at Indivisibles.org (a national progressive “how-to” Deja Brew where she met Carr. “Every day there site, itself a reaction to Trump’s election), created were more shenanigans coming from the White a Gmail address, bought a domain name and start- House. I signed up.” ed spreading the word. The genesis of the “Indivisible” movement was The group’s first event was the Rally for Unity a Google-doc full of typos uploaded to a group of in Warrenton in February 2017. “We were pro- progressives by a young husband and wife team, testing the President’s Muslim travel ban and congressional staffers upset by the results of the demonstrating that there are plenty of people in 2016 election. Tea party tactics had routed Leah Fauquier who think differently. After the rally, we Greenberg’s boss, Democrat Tom Perriello, from held our first meeting at Deja Brew. It was stand- Congress in 2010, so she and husband Ezra Levin ing-room-only and overflow out the door.” Ten understood the effectiveness of tea-party activdays later Carr got a positive diagnosis. ism. Contact with legislators at the local level “Many people stepped up to help, and eventu- was imperative. They titled their 23-page how-to ally, I handed the whole group off to the amazing for progressive activism, “Indivisible: A Practical Donna Cywinski and headed to NYC to have sur- Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.” gery,” Carr said. This coming summer she faces Within days of its internet upload, former U.S. another. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, among others, Cywinski took over in April 2017, eventual- were praising its tenets and the whole thing took ly appointing four additional “administrators,” off. Profiled by magazines from The Nation to the Miggy Strano, Kim Gibson, Mara Seaforest and New Yorker, Invisibles is now a movement with Carolyn Darrow. Together they run Fauquier Indi- “at least two groups in every congressional dis-
trict in the country, and more than 900 groups in California alone,” according to one article. Locally, Fauquier Indivisible’s activism has already born fruit. At Sheriff Bob Mosier’s Vint Hill town hall in April 2017, held after he announced he would pursue an agreement to detain undocumented immigrants in cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a crowd of 150 rallied for a voice vote of “yea” or “nay.” The resounding response was “nay.” Mosier later decided the agreement was unnecessary. Today, Fauquier Indivisibles work with other local groups such as the Fauquier Democrats; Indivisible Nova West, in Manassas; Indivisible Alexandria; Indivisible Fairfax; Service Employees International Union; the Interfaith Council; and the Virginia Civic Engagement Table. The Indivisibles’ platform is progressive but not partisan, Cywinski said. It stresses the idea that everybody in the country is entitled to liberty and justice, and that means everyone. “We support a lot of Democrats because today you can’t find a Republican who will put a check on Trump’s power,” Cywinski said.
Making waves
When Virginia’s General Assembly returns to Richmond in January, Indivisibles will be in the gallery just as they were last summer when Medicaid expansion passed and when Republicans put the kibosh on bringing the Equal Rights Amendment to the floor for a vote. “Take a vote. You need to take a vote,” the activists chanted, lapsing into singing “We Shall Overcome.” The old boys voted against it, but video of them doing so came to life on the internet. Should Virginia pass the Equal Rights Amendment, it will be the 38th state to do so and the last vote needed for it to become the law of the land. State legislators promise to try again this year. “We will be shining a light on what our lawmakers are doing,” Cywinski said. “From the first day, they will know we are there. The good old boys deciding on legislation — that’s done with.” Reach Karen Chaffraix at kchaffraix@fauquier.com
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