LGBT Ally to Face Off for Comstock’s Seat
Kathleen Murphy seeks a second shot at McLean-area House of Delegates seat
Get ready for an expedited campaign season in Washington’s backyard.
Following Del. Barbara Comstock’s (R-Fairfax, Loudoun counties) landslide victory over Fairfax County Supervisor John Foust in the 10th District race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), the race to replace the three-term delegate is in full swing.
On the Democratic side, former House of Delegates candidate Kathleen Murphy, a business consultant and former congressional aide who came within 422 votes, or 1.4 percent of all votes cast, of Comstock in 2013, ran unopposed for her party’s nomination for the 34th District, which runs through parts of McLean, Great Falls and Sterling. She has been backed by prominent Virginia Democrats, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, Attorney General Mark Herring and a number of General Assembly Democrats from Northern Virginia.
Murphy, who contrasted herself with the conservative Comstock on social issues, told Metro Weekly during her last campaign that she was a strong supporter, not only of marriage equality, but second-parent adoption and employment nondiscrimination bills on which House Speaker Bill Howell (R-Stafford County, Fredericksburg) has refused to allow an up-or-down vote.
On Saturday, local Republicans held a firehouse primary at Colvin Run Elementary School in Fairfax to select their nominee for the special election to replace Comstock. Businessman and U.S. Air Force veteran Craig Parisot, who has been backed by former Republican Congressman Tom Davis and George Allen, a former governor and senator from the Commonwealth, won 58 percent of 1,415 ballots cast during Saturday’s primary, which lasted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Parisot defeated Allen Johnson, a business consultant who formerly served as a staffer in the U.S. Senate and an ambassador for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative who received support from former U.S. Senator and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, his wife, Jane, a board member of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group that supports greater restrictions on abortion, and Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List.
Murphy and Parisot will square off in what could otherwise be called the “holiday campaign,” as the bulk of their campaigning will have to be done during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. The Jan. 6 contest will also be an exercise in the parties’ ability to motivate voters to go to the polls in what may be a low turnout election, as well as a possible preview of General Assembly elections in November 2015, when all 40 senators and 100 delegates will be up for re-election.
Parisot is the likely favorite going into the special election, as Virginia Democrats typically have lower voter participation in off-year elections, as evidenced by U.S. Sen. Mark Warner’s unexpectedly narrow margin of victory over Republican Ed Gillespie in his Nov. 4 re-election campaign. Republicans have also benefitted from the 2010 redistricting process, which removed precincts in southern McLean, Tysons Corner and Herndon that were favorable to Democrats and added seven Republican-leaning precincts in Loudoun County to help shore up Comstock, who first won the district, in its original form, by a 422-vote margin.
While Murphy is a vocal supporter of LGBT equality, earning the endorsement of Equality Virginia Advocates in her first run for office over Comstock, Parisot’s position on various LGBT-related issues is less clear. Kirsten Bokenkamp, a spokeswoman for Equality Virginia Advocates, said the organization hopes to make an endorsement in the special election in December.
Before making an endorsement, Equality Virginia Advocates will send both candidates a questionnaire asking about their stances on LGBT equality, particularly a bill that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in public employment — the organization’s biggest legislative goal — as well as on other bills, such as a second-parent adoption bill. Equality Virginia will also be watching closely in case some lawmakers introduce bills to allow discrimination against gay couples as a way to circumvent the commonwealth’s recognition of same-sex nuptials. In October, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision declaring the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriages to be unconstitutional, prompting the state to allow same-sex couples to wed.
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