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 We have an upcoming special election on January 7th to fill the 10th District Virginia Senate seat formerly held by John McGuire (R). SD-10 contains much of Central Virginia, from the western third of Hanover County down to Prince Edward. It includes the following precincts in Prince Edward County, 101 (Farmville), 502 (Buffalo Heights), 601 (Prospect), 701 (West End), and 801 (Center). It’s time for a change. We have a fantastic Democratic candidate in Louisa County resident Jack Trammell, who ran for Congress against Dave Brat back in 2014. We need common sense leadership.

It’s time to build a brighter future for Prince Edward and for the 10th District. That’s why “We Back Jack”- a true Virginia moderate farmer, businessman, and educator.

Voting for Jack Trammell will ensure that SD 10 will have someone who can draft bills that will be more likely to get passed. Following are the reasons why: 1) If a candidate’s top issue is lowering taxes for the wealthy, which is a national policy issue for Republicans, we believe this issue is one used to get elected but then has no mandate from the voters in Virginia.

Taxation is an issue

It is interesting to note that taxation is an issue where, traditionally, the Virginia General Assembly has had very few close votes on taxation bills in recent years, a sign that Virginia issues are different from National issues. Information on this can be found through the Virginia Public Access Project: https://www.vpap.org/general-assembly/close-votes/.  In 2024, there were 744 close votes in the VA General Assembly where at least 1/3 of the governing body voted differently than the prevailing vote with the top three topical areas for those close votes being Public Safety, Courts, and Business/ Commerce. 2) Our current Republican legislators, especially those who run on National issues, have strong ideological beliefs. Research has shown that legislators with strong ideological beliefs often find the work in the General Assembly to be boring as their work involves large numbers of sub committee and committee meetings that go on for hours.

Jack Trammell will show up

We have legislators who have served Central and Southside Virginia in prior years who did not attend their many committee meetings and, at times, weren’t even there for important votes. All citizens of VA SD 10 deserve legislators who will make the effort to represent all of the citizens, provide us with effective leadership on each committee and sub committee, and work across the aisle to bring solid change to the district.  We should all be careful of voting for candidates who have national aspirations and not forget that they are elected by and work for us. Research from the Center of Effective Lawmaking in the following source (5 Bucchianeri, Peter, Craig Volden, and Alan E. Wiseman. “Legislative Effectiveness in the American States.”

American Political Science Review (2024): 1-19) confirms that ideologically moderate legislators were more effective at proposing and enacting legislation along with being most effective at the compromises necessary to get legislation passed. So the question, you as a voter should be asking, is “Which candidate will be most likely to attend the committee hearings, work with other legislators to draft legislation that has a chance to pass, and represent the citizens of VA Senate District 10 with attention to detail, and use their background to serve a predominately rural district?”  I believe Jack Trammell is that choice.