Rich Anderson was the Delegate for the 51st district for 7 years. Then, Democrat Hala Ayala beat him in 2017 and went to Richmond to stand up for us. But Rich Anderson is like a zombie coming back from the dead because he is running again. When you support bad policies, you don’t get a do-over. So let’s take a look back at some of the biggest reasons Rich Anderson definitely does not deserve to be our Delegate again.
- Rich Anderson won’t stand up for working families.
When Anderson was a Delegate, he voted against raising the minimum wage every chance he got. Rich Anderson had seven years and seven General Assembly sessions to show that he stands with workers and their families. But every time he got the chance to vote on raising the minimum wage, Anderson voted against it. He even voted against an amendment on a bill to raise the wage just for government workers.
Because the wage in Virginia hasn’t been increased since 2008, a single mom with one child who works 40 hours a week can make just $15,080, which is below the poverty line of $16,910 for a family of two. That single mom ends up working two or three jobs in order to make ends meet and ends up working more than 60 hours a week.
We need to increase the minimum wage so that all people can live and raise their families with dignity. Rich Anderson has proven that he won’t stand up for that, so we can’t support him.
2. Rich Anderson Won’t Do Anything To Prevent Gun Violence
As Delegate, Rich Anderson took money from the corporate gun lobby and earned an A rating from the NRA. That A rating means that, much like other politicians who are scared to run afoul of the NRA, when Rich Anderson voted in Richmond, he voted for the interests of the gun lobby rather than the interests of the people he represents.
Anderson wasn’t a member of the General Assembly this earlier summer when Speaker Kirk Cox adjourned the special session to address gun violence after just 90 minutes without taking a single vote. But we bet that he would have joined his Republican colleagues in voting to adjourn the special session until after election day so that voters wouldn’t be able to hold conservative politicians accountable for their inaction on gun violence.
We demand action to prevent gun violence now. Rich Anderson has refused to vote to protect Virginians, so we won’t vote for him.
3. Rich Anderson Has Opinions About Your Uterus
Rich Anderson does not have a uterus, but boy does he have opinions about what you should do with yours! Rich Anderson doesn’t want you to be able to get an abortion but he doesn’t want you to have birth control (you know, the thing that prevents abortions) either.
Rich Anderson voted to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a vital part of our community that provides safe and affordable abortion care to people who need it. In addition to abortions, Planned Parenthood also provides cancer screenings, treatment for STIs, birth control, and routine healthcare from qualified and compassionate doctors to low-income or under-insured people in our community. It’s unconscionable that Rich Anderson would vote to get rid of this critical health care resource for our communities.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Rich Anderson also voted against funding for long-term, reversible contraception, like IUDs, for low-income women. That means people who are responsible with their reproductive health and have decided they don’t want children at the moment could end up paying $900 for birth control.
We can’t support someone who votes against protecting access to birth control and abortion. I’m not sure what Rich Anderson wants people to do, but he clearly has no idea what it is like to take control of your reproductive health. Someone who is so out of touch on these issues has no business voting on them.
These are just a few reasons that Rich Anderson absolutely shouldn’t be given a second chance to represent us. I want a Delegate who will vote to make sure that everyone in our community has the opportunity to work hard, be safe, and make decisions about their future. Rich Anderson ain’t it.