Creigh Deeds

Creigh Deeds has 20 years of experience in the Virginia legislature, representing Charlottesville first as a delegate and then as a state senator. He has been a champion of environmental issues, creating the Land Conservation Trust to protect open space, supporting measures to clean up toxic waste, and promoting green building.

If elected governor, Deeds says he’ll create clean-energy jobs by helping Virginia develop alternative fuels and energy sources, invest in energy efficiency, and support research for clean-energy technologies. His campaign focuses on the need to rebuild the state’s economy, as well as on creating jobs, improving public education, and making college more affordable.

Clean Water

• Worked to clean up the toxic Kim-Stan landfill.
• Wrote legislation to reduce runoff.
• Calls for new standards to improve water quality.

Green Space

• Created the Land Conservation Tax Credit that’s preserved almost 500,000 acres of green space.
• Would preserve more than 400,000 additional acres.

Clean Energy Jobs

• Sponsored and supported legislation that spurs the development of green businesses.
• Supported giving homeowners loans to make homes more energy-efficient.
• Supports setting a strong renewable energy standard for Virginia.
• Wants Virginia to invest in new energy to create green jobs and reduce emissions.

Virginia's Role in Climate Change

• Was member of Gov. Tim Kaine’s Climate Change Commission.
• Proposed that Virginia get a significant portion of its energy from renewable sources.

Coal/Offshore Oil

• Supports continued research and development of ways to capture and store carbon from coal-fired power plants.
• Expresses concern about the environmental impacts of mountaintop mining.
• Supports offshore drilling only if it can be done without harming the environment.

Education

• Would improve Virginia’s schools by raising teachers’ salaries to the national average.
• Would help 70,000 additional students get college degrees by making college more affordable.
• For more information on this important issue, click here.

Choice

• Pro-choice.
• Supports efforts to ensure that all Virginians have comprehensive, affordable, and accessible reproductive health care.
• For more information on this important issue, click here.

Bob McDonnell

Robert F. “Bob” McDonnell has held elected offices in Virginia for two decades, first as prosecutor in Virginia Beach, then as a delegate, and finally as the state’s attorney general starting in 2005. His career has focused on law enforcement, welfare reform, and cutting corporate and real estate taxes to further development in the state. When corporate or development interests have clashed with environmental interests, McDonnell has consistently sided with the developers at the expense of the environment.

A lifelong Republican with a strong conservative record, McDonnell says that his priorities as governor would be to promote free enterprise and cut regulation to foster business growth. His campaign also focuses on building more roads to address Virginia’s transportation gridlock and cracking down on sex offenders.

Clean Water

• Voted against a program to control toxic water pollution.
• Voted against closing landfills that pollute ground water.

Green Space

• Voted against a bond referendum to fund parks and recreation facilities.
• Has taken more money from developers than any other industry.
• As delegate, he went before a state board to help a developer build on almost 180 acres of wetlands.

Clean Energy Jobs

• Energy plan described as “far more suited to the 1950s than today” by the Roanoke Times.
• Voted against tax incentives for energy-efficient appliances.

Virginia's Role in Climate Change

• Opposes national efforts to regulate carbon pollution and create a clean energy economy.
• Supported President George W. Bush’s rollback of clean air laws in 2006.

Coal/Offshore Oil

• Opposed requiring pollution control equipment for coal-fired power plants.
• Favors researching ways to minimize the environmental destruction of mountaintop mining.
• Supports offshore oil drilling as a way to spur the economy and to pay for his transportation plan.

Education

• Opposed funding smaller class size to improve education.
• Opposed efforts to raise teachers’ salaries in Virginia.
• For more information on this important issue, click here.

Choice

• Opposes a woman’s right to choose and has proposed more than 30 bills that prevent access to reproductive health care.
• Has said that abortion should not be legal, even in the case of rape or incest.
• For more information on this important issue, click here.

Jody Wagner

Jody Wagner has spent the last seven years immersed in Virginia’s economy. She was the state treasurer from 2002 to 2006 and then served as secretary of finance from 2006 to 2008—the first woman to hold that title. Before going into public service, Wagner specialized in banking and securities law in Norfolk.

Wagner’s plans for the future include an array of proposals that serve both the economy and the environment. She would enhance the Solar Manufacturing Incentive Grant programs to attract more solar power manufacturers to the state, and to ensure that their products were used, she would create a low-interest loan program for Virginians who made their homes more energy efficient.

Environment

• Would extend state’s Energy-Star sales tax holiday from four days a year to year-round.
• Wants to increase the renewable portion of the state’s energy portfolio to 15 percent by 2015, instead of by 2025.
• Would establish a high school and college conservation corps.

Clean Energy Jobs

• Supports the growth of clean-energy jobs in high-growth areas such as biotech and renewable energy.
• Supports incentives to encourage Virginia to produce and use more renewable energy.
• Wants to enhance university-business partnerships to create new industries in the state.

Education

• Supports expanding pre-kindergarten education and improved math and science instruction.
• Wants to make college and university tuition more affordable and increase opportunities for career-track education.
• For more information on this important issue, click here.

Transportation

• Supports shifting priorities to focus more on public transit and railway travel.
• Encourages mixed-growth development that allows people to live, work, and play in the same area.

Fiscal Responsibility

• Balanced the state budget as secretary of the treasury, including trimming her own agency’s budget by 23 percent.
• Worked to maintain the state’s Triple-A bond rating during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Bill Bolling

William T. “Bill” Bolling became Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 2006. Prior to that, the Republican was a state senator and a member of the Hanover County board of supervisors. He is a vice president with Riggs, Councilman, Michaels and Downes, an insurance company based in Towson, Maryland.

A native of West Virginia, Bolling is a pro-business conservative. He supports drilling for oil and natural gas off the Virginia coastline and funding abstinence-only sex education programs in public schools.

Environment

• Supports expanding the use of coal-fired plants.
• Favors opening the state to offshore drilling.
• Wants to make it easier for nuclear power and coal plants to open in Virginia.

Clean Energy Jobs

• Supports business development through expanding access to the Governor’s Economic Opportunity Fund.
• Opposes workers’ rights to organize unions.
• Supports voluntary efforts to create renewable-energy technologies and the use of programs such as the “Green JOBZ” - tax-free zones to encourage renewable-energy start-ups.

Education

• Supports the use of mandated performance pay for educators.
• Would eliminate tenure for teachers.

Transportation

• Supports new oil drilling to provide royalties to fund new transportation projects.
• Wants to privatize all state liquor stores and use the revenues to fund transportation projects.
• Supports charging tolls on Interstates 95 and 85 at the North Carolina-Virginia border.

Fiscal Responsibility

• Wants to reform Virginia’s revenue-projection process.
• Skipped all seven meetings of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates, which works on the revenue-projection process.

Steve Shannon

Stephen C. “Steve” Shannon has spent much of his career prosecuting cases involving consumer fraud and child safety issues. The lifelong Democrat has served as a Fairfax County prosecutor and as vice chairman of the county’s Consumer Protection Commission.

In 2003 he won his first election to the House of Delegates, where he continues to represent the district that includes Tyson’s Corner and his hometown of Dunn Loring.

If elected to be the state’s top cop, Shannon says, he will crack down on anyone who breaks environmental laws and fight consumer fraud.

Environment

• Wants polluters to pay for harmful emissions and cleaning up toxic runoff. 
• Supports legislation to hold polluters accountable for breaking state laws.

Good Government

• Supports increased penalties for legislators and other government employees who violate conflict-of-interest laws.
• Advocates for a tip line at the attorney general’s office to take reports of possible conflict-of-interest cases.
• Wants to make government documents, budgets, contracts, and campaign finance reports accessible to the public through online reports.

Consumer Protection

• Led a bipartisan coalition to protect people from companies whose security lapses cause identity theft.
• Advocated for stiff fines against companies that don’t protect customers’ personal information.

Kenneth T. “Ken” Cuccinelli II

Kenneth T. “Ken” Cuccinelli II has been a state senator representing Fairfax County since 2002. The father of seven is a staunchly conservative Republican who opposes abortion rights and gun control and doubts that human activity has contributed to climate change.

Cuccinelli pledges he will stay the conservative course. He will consolidate state departments that address consumer affairs within the attorney general’s office. He pledges to put his office’s budget online and to continue pushing for a constitutional amendment to strengthen property owners’ rights in eminent domain cases.

Environment

• Denies that human activity has contributed to climate change.
• Claims the environmental movement is used by people who want to kill capitalism.
• Says one way to protect the environment is “to help a society move along down the developed path, because then they’ll start taking care of their own.”

Good Government

• Sponsored a law to make the state budget accessible to the public through a database.
• Would put the attorney general’s office’s budget online for the public if elected.

Consumer Protection

• Voted to give people more control over their personal information to avoid identity theft.
• Wants to consolidate all consumer protection agencies into the attorney general’s office.

Margi Vanderhye

Incumbent Margaret G. “Margi” Vanderhye has a long record of public service on the state and national levels. The 51-year-old from McLean has worked on committees for President Bill Clinton, and governors Doug Wilder, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine; she was also an assistant to Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft at the National Security Council.

Vanderhye’s progressive views on energy shape her personal life as well as her legislative one. She and her husband, Robert, purchase green energy and installed solar cells on their house in 2000.

Green Energy/Jobs

• Supports a statewide conservation program for the public and private sectors.
• Sponsored bills requiring utilities to regularly inform customers about how to buy electricity from renewable sources.
• Supports creating programs to educate low-income families about conservation.
• Supports using depleted farmland to grow crops that produce ethanol and bio-diesel.

Chesapeake Bay

• Appointed by Gov. Doug Wilder to the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Board where she represented regional business, agriculture, land development, local government, and environmental interests.

Education

• Supports creating partnerships between the business community and the state’s education programs.
• Supports adding more spots for Virginia students in state colleges and universities, while also maintaining reasonable in-state tuition and fees.

Transportation

• Supports mass transit.
• Promotes land-use policies that support transit-friendly communities.

Barbara Comstock

GOP insider Barbara Comstock started her political career as an intern for U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) She moved over to the GOP side in 1991 when she worked for U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf. From there, Comstock has worked for the party steadily, as a lawyer assisting in the defense of Lewis “Scooter” Libby and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, and as an opposition researcher in the 2000 elections. Her work with DeLay prompted the Washington Post to call Comstock a “one-woman wrecking crew.”

Green Energy/Jobs

• Supports using a mix of wind, solar, alternative fuels, clean coal, and nuclear power.
• Supports offshore drilling.

Education

• Would require that 65 percent of all state education money be spent directly on classroom instruction through teachers’ salaries, books, and computers.
• Wants to increase the number of spots for in-state students at state universities and provide some economic relief for families who are paying private university tuition.

Transportation

• Supports using any royalties that might come from offshore drilling to help pay for transportation work.
• Supports changing the state transportation funding formula to better benefit Northern Virginia.
• Was one of few GOP candidates in Northern Virginia who signed a no-new-taxes pledge, which hampers her proposal for a bipartisan approach to resolving traffic problems.

Luke E. Torian

Luke E. Torian is the pastor of First Mount Zion Baptist Church and co-president of the Eastern Prince William County Ministerial Association. The 51-year-old Woodbridge resident initially was recruited to run for office by the man he’d replace, Republican Jeffrey Frederick.

Torian’s platform combines such conservative standards as supporting the death penalty and the right to have guns with liberal ones such as pro-choice and civil unions.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Supports the possibility of drilling for oil and natural gas off Virginia’s coast.
• Favors developing clean energy sources.
• Pledges to fight for the state to adopt aggressive fuel efficiency standards.

Chesapeake Bay

• Would promote legislation designed to restore the bay and clean up the waters that empty into it.

Education

• Wants to see more reading specialists in classrooms.
• Pledges to support annual increases for teachers’ salaries.

Transportation

• Supports expanding public transportation alternatives, including the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and Metro.
• Recently joined state and county officials to test-run a commuter ferry system to Washington, D.C.

Rafael Lopez

A one-term member of the Dumfries Town Council, Rafael Lopez is a conservative Republican who opposes abortion and gun control. The Bolivian native favors offshore drilling as a way to create jobs and increase Virginia’s energy supply. Lopez is an information specialist for a federal contracting company. He lives with his wife, Cinthia, and their daughters Michelle and Giselle in Triangle.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Supports offshore drilling in Virginia to create jobs and enhance the state’s ability to generate its own energy.

Chesapeake Bay

• No information available.

Education

• Supports spending more money on early childhood education and teachers’ salaries.

Transportation

• Would support public-private partnerships, like high-occupancy toll lanes.
• Says the “centerpiece” of his campaign would be to improve life along U.S. 1.

Peter W. Schmidt

Peter Schmidt’s public service record began in 1994 when he was director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. He held that job for two years and then returned to Virginia Beach. In 2002 he was elected to the city council, where he served until 2006.

Schmidt, 60, has worn a variety of hats since graduating from the University of Virginia in 1974. He’s been on active duty in the U.S. National Guard, worked as an international banking officer in Athens, Greece, a Spanish teacher in New York, N.Y., and coached high school football; his prowess on the gridiron even landed him a try-out for the New England Patriots.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Pledges to develop an energy policy that provides incentives for alternative energy so that Virginia can move beyond a “drill here, drill now” philosophy.
• Opposes offshore drilling.
• Belongs to Conservationists for Warner, a bipartisan group that develops environmental policy positions for Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner.

Chesapeake Bay

• Would work to secure adequate funding for cleanup.
• Supports strengthening of storm-water regulations.

Education

• Would improve access on all levels--early childhood, post secondary and vocational--so Virginia’s students will be able to compete in a global economy.

Transportation

• Supports using a gas-guzzler tax, private/public partnerships, and tolls to fund transportation projects.

Harry R. “Bob” Purkey

Seventy-five-year-old Harry R. “Bob” Purkey has been in the House of Delegates since 1986. The stockbroker is the former chairman of the Virginia Beach Republican Party, the former director of the Old Dominion University Education Foundation, and the former director of the Industrial Development Authority.

Purkey is a veteran incumbent. Among the legislation he’s supported over the decades is a constitutional amendment to let Virginia’s governors serve two consecutive terms instead of one and to extend the number of years before lawmakers-turned-lobbyists could call on state agencies from one to two years.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Nothing available.

Chesapeake Bay

• When asked about runoff, Purkey responded, “People cause pollution…We have a population challenge.”

Education

• According to the Virginia Education Association, Purkey is one of 43 legislators who, over the last two legislative sessions, has voted to cut funding for public primary and secondary education.

Transportation

• Suggests that some projects, such as a new U.S. 460, could be built privately and paid for through tolls.

Joe Bouchard

As a former commander of Naval Station Norfolk, Joseph F. “Joe” Bouchard is widely recognized as an expert on homeland security and emergency preparedness, as well as being an advocate for military personnel, their families and veterans.

The 55-year-old is also a member of Virginia’s Commission on Climate Change. As a delegate Bouchard has supported numerous pro-environment bills, including one that sets policies for local and state governments to use as they address climate change and one to exempt solar equipment from retail sales tax.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Introduced legislation to enable renewable energy development and investment in a clean energy economy.
• Sponsored a bill to lift restrictions on solar energy installations.
• Sponsored a bill to exempt solar equipment from sales tax.

Chesapeake Bay

• Voted to impose a moratorium on harvesting menhaden for commercial purposes.
• Opposes offshore drilling.

Education

• Co-sponsored legislation to ensure that the average teacher salary in Virginia did not dip below the national average.

Transportation

• Pledges to develop a “decision-making framework” to prioritize transportation projects, which he said would help attract state and federal funding.

Chris Stolle

Dr. Christopher D. “Chris” Stolle, the GOP’s candidate for the House of Delegates, is a gynecologist in Virginia Beach. The retired Naval commander is also the brother of State Sen. Ken Stolle. This year’s match against incumbent Joe Bouchard is Stolle’s second attempt. He lost in 2007, taking 49.2 percent of the vote to the Democrat’s 50.6 percent.

Green Jobs/Energy

• Supports what he terms both “alternative” and “traditional” energy development, including new coal plants and offshore drilling.
• Would not support "government intervention" on greenhouse gas emissions.
• Said “The planet has been warming for 12,000 years now. It continues to warm.”

Chesapeake Bay

• Supports continuing the state’s efforts to clean up the bay.

Education

• Says his goals for education are to “work to ensure that every child has the educational tools they need to compete and succeed in life.”
• Would “work to ensure that the General Assembly continues to fully fund K-12 education and expand higher education opportunities for all.”

Transportation

• Says Virginians need to “make use of [their] existing infrastructure as well as an innovative strategy to keep people and commerce moving.”
• Plans to “use and leverage every state, federal and private fund to build and maintain these economic assets.”