Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Six of the seven Republican candidates running to fill the empty 10th District State Senate seat met on Friday, Nov. 22 for the only debate in the race. Gathering at Spruceberry Farm, each one answered questions and worked to explain why they were different than the rest and what made them the person Republicans in Buckingham, Cumberland and Prince Edward should cast a ballot for on Dec. 12. 

First of all, let’s go through a couple details. This is a special election, needed to fill the soon to be vacant 10th District seat in the Virginia State Senate. Currently, John McGuire holds that position, but he’s headed to Washington in January, as a newly elected representative in the U.S. Congress. Both parties need to choose a nominee in the race, then a special election will be scheduled for residents to vote. A date for that special election has not been chosen as of yet, because McGuire has not resigned. Once he does, that’ll set the wheels in motion and a date will be set by state officials. 

In Friday’s debate, we had Cumberland County Board of Supervisors member Bryan Hamlett, current Louisa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Duane Adams, former State Senator Amanda Chase, Chase’s former staffer Shayne Snavely, Prince Edward County business owner Luther Cifers, recent University of Richmond graduate Alex Cheatham and Gannon Appraisals owner Jean Gannon. The final candidate in the race for the Republican nomination, Amanda Chase, declined to take part, calling it a sham. 

Because of how many 10th District candidates there are and how long the answers are, we’ll be doing basically an introduction today with just the first two questions. We’ll cover the rest in the next two editions.

Q1: What would you like to be remembered for as a 10th District State Senator? 

Bryan Hamlett – What I would want to remembered for as your Senator will be actually representing you in the Senate. Being a representative, and listening to the will of the people, and governing accordingly. 

Shayne Snavely – One of the things I’d like to be known for is making sure I get the job done for the people of this district, if I’m elected. I intend to make this the people’s seat, not my seat. And I also intend to go around and do town halls throughout the year. I want to be very impactful. I’ll get things done for the people of this district. 

Jean Gannon – I’ve never served as an elected official before, but I’m looking forward to serving as your senator in 2025. As part of my professional attributes, I’ve actually carried several pieces of legislation through the general assembly. They’ve gone from the house of delegates over to the senate and passed and vice versa. Both of these bills I had successfully passed. One was signed by Gov. Northam, the other one was signed by Gov. Youngkin. They were non-partisan bills, they didn’t have any impact on the taxpayers, but they were successful and I actually got to work it and pretty much got to see how the sausage is made, so I had that experience in that regard. My main focus for this would be constituent services here in the 10th. For those of you who have lived in the 10th for more than 10 years, you know we did not have very good representation from the Democrat side. I’m here for that change, I want to make it and keep it and serve the constituency. 

Luther Cifers – I’m a husband, a father of five, and a grandfather of one with another on the way. I’m not a politician, I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve built a number of successful businesses over the years. I’ve lived at a lot of different stations of life in pursuit of the american dream from very humble beginnings as a child, working in tobacco fields and family businesses and things like that since about 10 years old to successfully as a homeschooler, building an engineering career and eventually building a couple of really nice outdoor industry businesses, including Yak Attack, a lot of people may know about that in Farmville, we employ about 70 people there. What I would like to accomplish in this debate is not just an ability to answer the questions, but a fundamental understanding of the principles that underline these questions. And what I would like to accomplish in my first year in the Senate, is to be, I would like to make sure I represent the people of the district  and their values without ever compromising that for partisan or political or any other reason. I’d also like to be the person who inspires others to do the same. I think we have a cultural problem with politics. 

Duane Adams – I wish that everyone running for this seat had decided to attend, because I believe we owe you that. We represent you and we should be here. My wife and I have been, for the last 25 years, small business owners. We employ people, we sign the front of the paycheck, not the back of the paycheck, so we understand that. I was the first elected republican on the board of supervisors in Louisa County seven years ago. Since that time, we now have four elected republicans and an elected republican chair so I know when you lead the way and show the way, people will follow. I’m very proud of that. First and foremost, I’m a Christian. I’m a father and grandfather to one of the cutest little 10-year-old girls that you’re ever gonna see in your life. And more important than that, I’m an American. I’m a conservative. If someone wants to go to Richmond and ask what you want your legacy to be in the first term, I want to be known as the conservative in Richmond that stands up to the Radical Left who is trying to destroy our institutions,  destroy what makes this country, this commonwealth great. And someone will say, at the end of my term, Duane Adams was a fighter for conservative values for Senate District 10 and the Commonwealth. 

Alex Cheatham – I personally feel we need young leaders in the Republican Party. Without young leaders, this party is going to fall by the wayside. We saw in this past election young men voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. Young women, I’m sure you’ll get there eventually. I just want to be remembered as one of the guys who started a movement of young leadership in the Republican Party of Virginia. 

 

Q2: In 2025, Virginia will enjoy a budget surplus. In 2026, as of now, there will be a hole in the budget. Specifically, what’s the one budget reform you would champion to patch that hole? 

Shane – One budget reform I would champion is to actually go through the budget line by line and reduce the wasteful spending and pet projects. I think we can come up with millions, if not billions of dollars there. We’ve not done that. I was in the legislature in 2021, I was in the gallery during the time when the Democrats put the budget through. They dropped the budget on the Senate floor, didn’t even allow Republicans time to look at the budget. They jammed it through, with tons and tons of wasteful spending. We all know government wastes money and does pet projects. What I want to do is go through there with a team of people to pick this stuff apart and I bet you we can find billions of dollars in there we can get rid of. One of the other things we can do, with President Trump getting elected, we know that they’re gonna get rid of a lot of these illegal immigrants around here. That alone cost us $2.8 billion a year. In 2023, that was the estimate. We need to get this budget under control, we need to start taking care of our Virginia citizens and make them first, instead of illegal aliens first. I guarantee I’m one of the biggest stickers for this money thing. It’s the people’s money. It’s not their money. 

Jean – It is my opinion that there is no one reform that can come up to fill a $600 million hole left in the bi-annual budget. The grim reality is that finances in the budget are developed by the administration and driven by professional staff. I will wager few, if any legislators, understand the budget. You may remember a few years ago, taxpayers received a mid-year Christmas present with a refund for the surplus funds. While we had surplus funds this year, Gov. Youngkin went to bat for the taxpayers, but the Democrats refused to offer refunds. I will do my utmost to make sure our budget reflects fiscal responsibility. We must cut spending and stop the overburdending of taxpayers. 

Luther – So in business and in our personal lives, we have to live within our means. When unexpected things come up, we have to make adjustments. The government’s general failure to do that is causing higher taxes, it’s driving inflation and, frankly, it’s jeopardizing the integrity of our currency. The logical and principled way to deal with this would be to simply reduce spending. And according to the numbers that I found, we would need to find $330 million the first year and $300 million in the second year. So the other thing is you’re gonna have to get this passed. So if you start cutting projects that one side or the other likes, you’re gonna have a fight. So you know to get it done in a way that doesn’t create this kind of division and gridlock. So if we looked at our budget and said ok, we’re going to prioritize the lowest bottom third of the budget, and then we’re gonna make even cuts across all of it. In an $84 billion budget, that would represent about a $28 billion pool to take savings from. If you made even cuts across all of those, you’d have to cut each line item about 1%. I think we can all agree that there’s probably many multiples of that of wasteful spending. In the manufacturing sector, what we do to save money is eliminate waste. We don’t lower performance standards, we don’t lower deliverables, we eliminate waste. That’s the way I would approach this. It would be pretty painless and we could get this done and move on with business. The other thing that does is I think it starts to foster a culture of living within our means, which we have to get used to. 

Duane – I think it’s a two-pronged approach and they go hand in hand. In my 62 years, the words efficiency and government never come to mind as being the same thing. We have seen some improvements under Gov. Youngkin but first you look at that, then you reduce government spending. Government is really good at two things, growing itself and making itself bigger and spending money. You’re gonna have to have someone that will work hand in hand and work with Gov. Youngkin and his staff and their colleagues in the Senate and be able to hold the line against the Democrats because what we think about spending, which should be reduced and what we think about taxes, which should be reduced and what we think about waste, which should be cut, I promise you the people on the other side of the isle believe exactly the opposite. They want more money, they want more taxes, they want more spending. So a $600 million hole in the budget is going to get their attention. But it will take a Senator who has the ability to get along with their colleagues and with the administration in Richmond. 

Alex – I happen to agree with everything that’s been said so far, but I do have a personal suggestion for at least one thing that will help with this hole in the budget. That’s price transparency for healthcare costs. We saw President Donald Trump back in 2019 sign the executive order trying to do this across the nation. It’s since kind of stalled out.I believe any hospital should have to report what they’re charging for their services.