Weems: Grasping at straws

2007 General Assemby races, Local, Politics, Virginia 1 Minute

The article in today’s Virginian Pilot about Republican candidate Chris Stolle’s residence is a case of grasping at straws.

Chris Stolle did what thousands of active-duty military personnel in Hampton Roads do – live and work here while maintaining their legal residence and paying taxes in another state.

Yep. That’s what nearly all of them do. (I can’t think of a single active duty client of mine in 20+ years of practice that has changed their residence to VA while serving.)

What are the implications of such a charge? For active duty members, none. They aren’t registered to vote here. But I suspect retired members of the military will be turned off by such a comment. Did Weems just do herself in with this?

Democratic candidate Joe Bouchard had this to say:

“Any individual who would attack Chris for this is an individual with a callous attitude toward the challenges facing military families,” Bouchard said. “If you’re going to criticize him, you’re criticizing hundreds of thousands of military families.”

I agree. The poll results right now show that this is backfiring. With 710 votes cast, more than 57% say that Stolle’s prior residency status won’t affect their vote.

I don’t know Carolyn Weems but it seems she got some bad advice on this one.

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6 thoughts on “Weems: Grasping at straws”

  1. What’s really unconscionable is not just that Carolyn tried to make an issue out of it, but that Leo did, too. Carolyn might just be ignorant; Leo was in the Navy and is supposed to know how these things work. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a legal citizen of Florida or some other state during part of his residency in Virginia, himself.

    If he was, I think we should be allowed to tar and feather him.

  2. Actually, we should be allowed to tar and feather Leo for a lot more reasons than that. He needs to just shut up and retire.

  4. Those that could kept their residency in Florida. (Particularly the Navy aviators, who train in Florida.) Florida has no income tax. Considering the military pay, can you blame them? Get over it. You’re getting sales taxes and real estate taxes. Meanwhile, the commonwealth has shafted many military retirees for taxes, that they did not need to pay, on their military retirement checks, but the Commonwealth has refused to refund those payments. Instead, the Commonwealth offered 50 cents on the dollar, or risk getting tied up in lawsuits until you die.

  5. Navy = FL, Army = TX. Some of the other states don’t tax active duty military residents if they are not physically stationed in the state (VA isn’t one of those, by the way).

    AEM – you’re really reaching back to bring that one up. Military retirees are just like other retirees in VA now. Besides, what does that have to do with the topic at hand?

  6. Oh HMR – I don’t put too much stock in the online polls. A lot of the participants don’t even live in Hampton Roads. I just used it as an example.

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