I am running as an independent candidate for the chairmanship of the Board of Supervisors to give voters an alternative to the usual bipartisan options. Party campaigns are funded by developers and other special interests. Some of these special interests give only to one party or the other, but the most powerful give to both parties. An example of a bipartisan campaign contribution is the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, which recently gave $12,500 to Democratic President Phyllis Randall and $7,500 to Republican Supervisor Matt Letourneau. Voters can see many more examples by visiting the Virginia Public Access Project Website and using their search tool.
The Board of Supervisors is striking deals with developers with every special endorsement in the county’s Urban, Suburban and Transition policy areas, demanding millions of dollars less than developers would have to pay for road, school and other costs associated with their projects . Taxpayers are left to pick up the slack, which is why our taxes are so high. And yet, our streets and schools are overcrowded and we don’t have the resources to address countless other issues. I believe that these developer campaign contributions and favoritism bids are connected, and at least voters should not have to worry about whether their representatives are serving their interests over the interests of their campaign contributors. That’s why I refuse to accept campaign contributions from any developers or other special interests, any PACs and LLCs, anyone with business before the board, or more than $1,000 from any individual. I also minimize my temptation for corruption by reducing my personal gain from the presidency by promising to donate half of my salary and not to participate in publicly funded foreign travel.
In addition to directly contributing to candidates, special interests also contribute to political parties. It only takes a few seconds of clicking on the campaign finance information of the Virginia Democratic and Republican parties to discover that they are both powered by the same companies — particularly Dominion Energy. This should concern all constituents, but especially those who live in the path of the spider web of power lines being planned across Loudoun to supply data centers. Those lucky enough not to be visually affected by the towers and lines will nevertheless be affected financially, because the cost of this new infrastructure will be paid for by all contributors, not just the data centers causing the spike in energy demand.
Polling by the Pew Research Center and others consistently shows that voters see money in politics as a problem they want their politicians to solve. But politicians and political parties will never solve a problem they profit from and voters should stop expecting that to ever happen when they have the power to clean up politics right now by voting for candidates who are free of corruption influence of campaign cash and political parties.
Special interests, political parties and party candidates want voters to believe this is impossible, but monthly polling by Gallup and others shows that 40% to 50% of voters identify as independents, while only 20% to 30% declare that they belong to any party. Furthermore, judging from my experience talking to voters from both parties during my campaign, it is clear that many of those 20% to 30% are not very happy with their party. If independents and disaffected party voters vote for principled and independent candidates like me, then we can leave behind these corrupt political parties and party games and actually tackle our most pressing issues for a change instead of making them worse over time with time.
Kroiz is an independent candidate for chairman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.