Candidate Interview: Former Delegate Tim Anderson

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout. Today, we will have an interview with former Republican Delegate Tim Anderson. He is now the GOP nominee in the 97th House of Delegates District in Virginia Beach.

00:14.22

Sam Shirazi

And I'm happy to have the incumbent Democrat Michael Figgins on as well. But today we have Tim Anderson. Thank you for joining me.

00:22.16

Tim Anderson

Thanks, Sam. Glad to be here.

00:23.60

Sam Shirazi

So I guess I'll start off with a pretty basic question. Why are you seeking a comeback in the Virginia House Delegates?

00:30.44

Tim Anderson

Yeah, so I have an interesting political career. i I fought and flipped a Democrat seat in 2021. And as soon as I get in redistricting kicks in and they eliminate my seat.

00:44.93

Tim Anderson

not Not they, I'm talking about the map makers. Virginia Beach lost population and they took one delegate seat out of Virginia Beach and gave it to Northern Virginia. you know, the way they get ah delegate seats in Virginia is you take the total population, you divide it by 100, and then you draw lines.

01:02.08

Tim Anderson

And so Virginia Beach had lost population and Fairfax had gained. So when they took my seat away, they took the district that I represented and they carved it into three districts.

01:13.54

Tim Anderson

Two of the districts were against that were paired but were Republicans. One was a senior Republican. The other one was a freshman Republican who I came in with. Her name was Karen Greenhall.

01:25.48

Tim Anderson

And then the third part of my district went into really, I think, you know, what the political ones would say would be an unwinnable Republican seat. So, When I was kind of looking at my political future in 2022, I said, well, you know, I could not run, just step back, which I really didn't want to do.

01:44.72

Tim Anderson

Or there was an open Senate ah seat. Senator Cosgrove was retiring and I was an open primary. And I decided to run for that unsuccessfully against ah ah Christy Newcraig.

01:57.60

Tim Anderson

So Christy won that primary, and she's now the senator. i then just have sat on the sidelines. Michael Fagans won that year, flipped Karen Greenhall out of the seat.

02:10.32

Tim Anderson

And you know when we look around, House District 97 yeah the best chance seat that Republicans have to flip in the entire Commonwealth. And I happen to live in the district and have represented part of the district. So it just made sense in a must win seat for us to put the the best teammate we could put forward to to win this. And I'm not saying I'm the the best politician in the world. I'm clearly not.

02:39.13

Tim Anderson

But I was definitely in the in the in the short short list of people that that could possibly carry the seat, which they have to win. And both sides have to win, Republicans and Democrats. It's been clearly said that whoever wins House District 97, that party is likely to control the the House of Delegates. It's that big to both sides. So that's why I'm back. And I never wanted to leave to begin with. It just was a wild time with COVID and the political winds were

03:09.60

Tim Anderson

uh delaying the census and and i just i got punched out right after i got there so i definitely want to come back and want to be back in the house and this is the path to do that

03:21.37

Sam Shirazi

Got it. Well, I did want to get into the election this year, but you know I'll be honest, i had I don't have a lot of elected officials or former elected officials on. I did have former Republican delegate David Ramadan on when it was interesting to get his perspective as a former delegate.

03:36.17

Sam Shirazi

And I wanted to get your perspective as a former delegate.

03:38.55

Tim Anderson

mean

03:38.65

Sam Shirazi

you know What was it like to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates?

03:41.97

Tim Anderson

Absolutely amazing. The honor of my lifetime. I mean, I've done a lot of cool things in my life, but being able to serve in the oldest continuous legislative body in the Western hemisphere. I mean, just an unbelievable experience. You walk by things that are in that building that you know, Thomas Jefferson built and yeah it's just it's just an amazing experience. And to be there, to be one of 100 people that get to decide how laws are enacted or or repealed that affect millions of people, it's just a really, really special thing to do.

04:18.64

Tim Anderson

And, you know, I said every time I walked into that into the Capitol every day, I'm like, I can't believe I work here. I can't believe I work here. And it's just ah ah an amazing, amazing experience. And I know that most people that are in the General Assembly, Republicans and Democrats, really do feel the same way. It's just it's so special.

04:37.25

Tim Anderson

It's such a small fraternity of people and sorority of people. They get to do it. And yeah, it's just it's just really an honor to be there. And so, you know, a lot of people kind of look at the House of Delegates as, hey, I'm going to springboard and run for Congress.

04:51.12

Tim Anderson

You know, I really don't don't have that desire. I just want to be there. It's it's a great, it's a ah ah very, very happy right being right in that General Assembly position. And hopefully I'll get another shot to come back.

05:02.82

Sam Shirazi

And I'm curious about just the practical aspects of it. ah ah You don't always hear about what it's like to be a politician, but I think in your day job, you're an attorney. I mean, what was it like trying to balance being an attorney and then at the same time campaign first and then serve as a delegate?

05:19.63

Tim Anderson

Yeah, it's a lot of juggling, that's for sure. but One good thing, know, General Assembly is a citizen legislature, and, you know, there's all kinds of people up there. There's dentists and accountants and lawyers and doctors, nurse practitioners. There's all these different kinds of people. But the nice thing about being a lawyer in the General Assembly is there's a law that says that while we're in the General Assembly, while we're in session, which is two months every year, January and February,

05:45.85

Tim Anderson

we don't have to do any court cases we get automatic passes from any court cases so it does really help lawyers who are working in the general assembly that we get to suspend basically our practice and that's great that makes it that's a unique thing just for lawyers you know you don't get to do that in the other professions if you're a realtor you don't get to tell people they aren't going to close on their house for two months.

06:11.86

Tim Anderson

But we get that benefit. And that does help balance it out. Because when you're there, when you're in the mixing bowl of January and February, it's total chaos. And you literally...

06:23.77

Tim Anderson

forget to eat because it's so busy. And so there's no way you can do that job and any other job while you're there. And then, you know, the campaigning, you know, fortunately, that's something you can squeeze in your calendar in the evenings and dinners and knocking doors and on the weekends.

07:02.30

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did want to ask one other question about your past before we get to this year, which I know you want to talk about. So I followed your race in 2021. And if i if memory correct serves me correctly, I think you pulled off an upset in the primary in that district.

07:16.60

Sam Shirazi

And then you were able to defeat incumbent Democrat, and which was very much a toss-up district. Can you kind of talk about that campaign and what it was like to run and and compete in a district that was really one of the top battlegrounds?

07:29.58

Tim Anderson

Yeah, that's exactly the same reason i'm in it now. I was in this crazy tough seat, which by the way, that was former House District 83. Now House District 83 due to redistricting is an Otto Washman's district way out in Franklin, Surrey kind of areas. But but then it was House District 83 and that district was more blue than the current district I'm competing in now.

07:55.90

Tim Anderson

And so, you know, it was it was absolutely, ah ah you know, had to win. Republicans had to get it to get the majority. And it was, you know, just it was just grueling.

08:09.39

Tim Anderson

and stay and staying on message. Now, how we won that, we had Governor Youngkin at the time, who was candidate Youngkin then, and we were all unified in message. we had it was at a time when Governor McAuliffe set in a debate,

08:26.28

Tim Anderson

that parents shouldn't have say in children's education. He kind of fumbled that. And then that we just pounced on that. It was time when kids were wearing masks to schools. And even though the CDC was saying it really doesn't isn't necessary, and the Democrats were trying to mandate that, and we were trying to the Democrats were trying to force vaccines to keep your job.

08:46.28

Tim Anderson

It was just all of this stuff that Democrats were doing. We were saying, hey, we're going to do the opposite. And we were able to, Governor Youngkin was able to pull, you know, his win out of those themes and us down ballot, we just followed suit. We just followed his lead. And we really had that that that strength at the top of the ticket to do.

09:09.05

Tim Anderson

So, uh, I, you know, I, I attribute my win on a lot of hard work, but also really because of governor Yunkin, he pulled it through for us. And so, uh, I don't know that I could have won, if, if it was a different candidate that year, but, but yeah, that was a heck of a fight.

09:26.23

Sam Shirazi

Well, I think that's a that's good background for this year. So i did want to ask you about kind of the election dynamics in your district this year. And then I also want to talk about some of the issues that will come up.

09:37.77

Sam Shirazi

So your district voted for ah ah but former Vice President Harris by about eight points in 2024.

09:40.15

Tim Anderson

Thanks.

09:44.45

Sam Shirazi

How do you convince voters who may have voted for her last year that they should vote for you?

09:49.68

Tim Anderson

Well, you know, one of my, uh, you know, one of my strategies, and I certainly don't mind saying these things, you know, and in open public because I say them in every campaign speech, I can't win this seat just with Republicans voting for me.

10:04.59

Tim Anderson

The only way that I win this seat is I got to get all the Republicans to vote for me. And I got to get some, uh, independent left, uh, of center Democrats to vote.

10:17.39

Tim Anderson

And, Donald Trump can't do that. No independent left of center Democrat is voting for Donald Trump. But we saw that Jen Kiggins overperformed Donald Trump. And Jen Kiggins was the CD2, the congressional district representative, and she overperformed Donald Trump.

10:42.55

Tim Anderson

But what's really interesting about Virginia Beach is we have cross voting all the time. So while Donald Trump that did poorly in Virginia Beach, you saw Mayor Bobby Dyer, who was a Republican,

10:59.13

Tim Anderson

overperform everybody and win a three-way contest where he had two Republicans running against him in a in a general election and a Democrat. So i Bobby Dyer was running against three other people, two of them who were declared Republicans, and he was able to still win.

11:21.17

Tim Anderson

And so what you what you saw is Democrats voting for Harris, But then they come over and vote for Republican Bobby Dyer at the local level because that's just what they do here.

11:33.32

Tim Anderson

And so I think that what we're going to see 2025 is lot of people are going to vote for Abigail Spanberger. there's a high likelihood that Abigail Spanberger is going to win this district.

11:46.49

Tim Anderson

But when it gets down ballot to me, uh we're gonna i think we're gonna pull a lot of abigail spamburger voters our way because i've been messaging things that are very important in our in our predominantly veteran community uh things like eliminating the car tax by using the budget surplus that's been my primary message abigail spamburger has endorsed that message She hasn't said I endorse Tim Anderson's plan, but she's endorsed the exact same message that I have been talking about.

12:22.08

Tim Anderson

At the same time, the guy I'm running against, Michael Fagans, he He voted against giving car tax relief just as recently as this year. So I have a real issue where I can say, look, me and Abigail Spanberger have the same idea on eliminating the car tax.

12:41.23

Tim Anderson

That's very important to the people in in House District 97. Delegate Fagans is a veteran. he tell He has said publicly that veterans should be taxed on their retirement income.

12:54.08

Tim Anderson

And when I was in the House, we passed the first $40,000 exemption on retirement income. And I think it should be 100% like the other 35 states in the country that don't charge veterans income tax on their retirement.

13:09.43

Tim Anderson

And so, you know, so we have, you know, We have a veteran I'm running against that says veterans need to pay. And you have me over here that's eliminated the first $40,000 and like I want to keep going and get the rest of it done.

13:22.92

Tim Anderson

And we can do all of this by just reallocating the budget surplus that Virginia has. It has a $3 or $4 billion dollars budget surplus. And so there's a real opportunity to bring relief to people that matter. So, you know, long answer to a a fairly short question is, is we're going to win, i think, on the ground on economic issues.

13:46.16

Tim Anderson

And when those economic, you know, when those voters are saying, yeah, I want Abigail Spanberger because I don't like Donald Trump and I don't like Winsome Sears, who's a Republican. I don't like them.

13:57.71

Tim Anderson

But I also don't want the Democrats to have full control of state government. And Tim Anderson's going to get rid of, help me get rid of my car tax. And so we're goingnna we're going to bring the local guy that we know in who's tried to do it before and now has the support of the person we're going to vote for for governor.

14:15.72

Tim Anderson

It's a real unique place I find myself in. And I think the economics of this is really going to carry through. On top of that, I'm a very moderate guy on a lot of issues. I carried a bill on eliminating the the ah constitutional provisions that ban gay marriage. I have leaned heavily into...

14:38.49

Tim Anderson

workforce programs for single moms, child care for as a benefit for employers. And so, you know, some of the harder Republicans don't like me.

14:49.37

Tim Anderson

But when you look at this purple district, I'm about as purple as they get. I've told I've publicly said I'm not going to mess with abortion. And so like all the things that you can normally hit Republicans on,

15:01.59

Tim Anderson

They're going to just, i think they're going to just roll off of me. And when it gets down to the pocketbook, who's better for the pocketbook? I think we're going to see, we're going see those Abigail voters come our way. We only have to get six or 700 of them.

15:14.90

Tim Anderson

If we get 700 Abigail voters to vote for us, race is over. We win.

15:19.78

Sam Shirazi

but Well, that's all helpful in terms of ah ah your priorities and you know how you look to appeal to the district. I did want to ask about what's going on in D.C. and some of the federal cuts. now Obviously, Virginia Beach has a lot of military bases, a lot of veterans.

15:34.02

Sam Shirazi

Have you been hearing people concerned about potential cuts from D.C. and how do you plan to address those concerns?

15:40.30

Tim Anderson

Yeah, so I think fundamentally we should all agree, regardless of party, that the federal government is bloated and wasteful and has to be trimmed.

15:54.53

Tim Anderson

but And everybody agrees on that. Everybody should agree on that. But then when you start looking for ways to reduce the size of the federal government by firing people, you know everybody's like, well, you can't fire this department. You can't fire that department.

16:09.59

Tim Anderson

So President Trump comes in and does what he does, and it you know creates a pretty big shock to the federal workforce, and a lot of people start getting displaced. Now Virginia has a lot of these workers, and if if any state probably has more to lose than this, it's it's it's it's certainly Virginia's in the top couple.

16:31.57

Tim Anderson

So you know fundamentally, as soon as Donald Trump did that, Governor Yunkin steps in and he creates a website that says Virginia has jobs.

16:42.21

Tim Anderson

And he created a coalition between the private sector and the public sector that told federal workers, hey, if you've lost your job, if you're a federal worker and you've lost your job, we have 250,000 jobs in Virginia that we can immediately point you to and plug you in and broke it down by different parts of the state.

17:03.18

Tim Anderson

And, you know, it's there. And it was up and running within ah week or two of Donald Trump coming in and like laying off all these people. So i think at the state level, there's nothing I can do about D.C. D.C. is D.C. It's a total mess. And whatever Trump does and whatever they do up there, there's not much we can do about that in in these delegate races and and at the state level. But what what we can do and say, hey, federal workers, if you've If you've been you know impacted by the ah ah reduction of workforce at the federal level, come over here.

17:39.56

Tim Anderson

We got a job for you in Virginia Beach. We have 20 jobs in in the specialty that you work for at the state and local level. And if you don't want to work there, we have all these private jobs that you know that you could plug into. So I think what what what Democrats want is they want this to be a crisis.

17:57.15

Tim Anderson

because that would create a a big election issue. And that's why Speaker Scott set up this commission and Elliot Fagans is on it and they just want to talk about it.

18:09.06

Tim Anderson

But like two weeks into the reduction of force, Governor Youngkin has already set up a way for a way to get things back to work. And you know what we have to do is state people is tell the federal workers, no, we don't think you're bad, we don't think you're evil.

18:23.55

Tim Anderson

You're just a human being that was working for the government, now you're not. So now let's get you back to work somewhere else, because that's all that matters. We don't need commissions, we don't need to talk about things, we just need to get you back to work. and Governor Young can assemble a quarter of a million jobs available that are high paying more than $100,000 for most of them.

18:42.97

Tim Anderson

And it was just about getting the people the information to get them back to work. And that's all you can do at the state level. And all these ah Democrats primary theme this year is I'm going to fight Trump.

18:54.06

Tim Anderson

What are you talking about? not fighting Trump. That's the federal government. We need to find out how we can support people at the local level and real people and and get them back on their feet. And that's I think that's the right approach, and and I'm going to continue to promote that as much as possible.

19:09.51

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did have one more policy question and then I have a couple more fun questions at the end. So basically basically, the Democrats have proposed three constitutional amendments.

19:15.16

Tim Anderson

right.

19:20.01

Sam Shirazi

One of them is on abortion, one of them is on same-sex marriage, and one of them is on abortion. voting rights for ex-felons. And the first vote was this year in the Virginia General Assembly.

19:28.79

Tim Anderson

Thank

19:33.95

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, if the Democrats don't win the House of Delegates, they won't be able to vote on it next year. But there's a possibility you might win your seat, but the Democrats flip a seat somewhere else. So they so they keep they keep the majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. You might come in in the minority and the Democrats put up these three constitutional amendments again. how would you vote on those?

19:54.74

Tim Anderson

Yeah, i've and I've been very clear about about this. First off, I've always been a supporter of automatic restoration of felons' rights. I think once your debt is paid to society, you should be fully restored and reintegrated back into society.

20:12.65

Tim Anderson

into a voting situation. So I don't like how the Democrats have been trying and toying with the idea of letting felons vote while they're still in prison and things like that.

20:22.94

Tim Anderson

But the concept of once you're done with your criminal sentence, you should get your rights back. 100% support that. Always have. That's a big part of my law practice is getting people's firearm rights back as convicted felons.

20:37.41

Tim Anderson

I'm just very convinced that once you're done with the criminal justice system, your constitutional rights should be fully restored. Now, of course, Democrats don't want the gun part of it, but I'm across the board, rights should be restored.

20:49.25

Tim Anderson

The second issue, dealing with same-sex marriage, I carried that bill myself, so clearly I'm in support of it. Not because you know i substantially care about gay marriage per se.

21:02.22

Tim Anderson

The reason that I support it is because the Supreme Court has said constitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage are unconstitutional as a matter of law.

21:13.13

Tim Anderson

And as a state legislator, that's our job when the Supreme Court issues in order and says our laws are unconstitutional, we're supposed to remove them. And so that's just how law works.

21:25.91

Tim Anderson

And I've seen it that way from the beginning. And it should, I would be a hard yes on that, regardless of whether what my party has has said.

21:36.78

Tim Anderson

On the third issue on abortion, i have consistently said anytime the word abortion is is in front of me, my answer is going to be no.

21:47.15

Tim Anderson

Whether you're trying to expand abortion, whether you're trying to restrict abortion, it's going to be no. Virginia has abortion laws, and I'm not going to mess with them. I'm not going to make them better. I'm not going to make them worse.

22:02.11

Tim Anderson

I don't think Virginians want anything on abortion. They just want that that issue to be left alone, and that's what I intend to do. So I would say no to the constitutional amendment, simply because i would say no to any amendment. If there was an amendment that came in and said abortion should be illegal at conception, I would say no to that. I'll say no to anything that has abortion in it, pro or con.

22:25.43

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did want to ask about your district because, you know, i follow all the different districts in Virginia and there's a few in Virginia Beach. And, you know, when you're looking at it on a map, they all kind of look a little bit the same. But what makes your district unique in Virginia Beach, let's say, compared to the other Virginia Beach districts?

22:43.06

Tim Anderson

Yeah, so ah ah back in the beginning of the podcast, I talked to you about you know how we draw the lines. So you have eighty you know about 8.5 million people in Virginia. So each district is supposed to have 85,000 people.

22:54.31

Tim Anderson

in In the current district that I'm competing in, House District 97, there is only about 63,000 voters, which that basically says that the other 22,000, 25,000 voters that are in the district They're not registered to vote.

23:10.30

Tim Anderson

That's because we are right next to Oceana. And that's a big military jet base in Virginia. We also have Dam Neck very close. We have Little Neck. We have all the Naval Oceana. We have all these bases right around here. A lot military people live here.

23:28.36

Tim Anderson

And they're registered to vote wherever they're from. South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, wherever they come from, that's where they're registered to vote. And so so we're not worried about those people because they're not voting here.

23:40.74

Tim Anderson

But the 63,000 people that are voting are mostly connected somehow, someway with the military. And while Michael Fagans is a veteran, he is on the wrong side of the veteran issues.

23:54.89

Tim Anderson

And we're going to just highlight that as much as possible. Veterans don't like paying state income taxes. I mean, that's a big wedge between him and them.

24:08.44

Tim Anderson

We also have, you know, i'm also have a bill, I'm one of the only people really talking about it, but You know, we really have to look at psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic treatment for warfighters, for PTSD treatment. weve We see in Colorado and Oregon that psilocybin mushrooms are actually healing PTSD warfighters and first responders. And so...

24:32.58

Tim Anderson

you know Big Pharma hates it because they can't make any money on it, but ah ah we're gonna you know we're really talking about that. So you got a guy like me talking about getting rid of taxes for veterans, talking about maybe finding ways to to to treat PTSD, and you have Fagans, who's a veteran, who's like, I want you to pay more taxes.

24:50.84

Tim Anderson

I don't think it's going to resonate here like it might in Northern Virginia. And Fagans is a veteran. proposed a variety of bills that restrict the Second Amendment.

25:03.61

Tim Anderson

I don't think that's gonna work here. I have a gun shop, I'm a big 2A guy. i I'm a lawyer, but I also have a gun shop. And every month I teach firearm safety classes. and You know, I'm a big firearm safety guy, and I think people know that for me just being here for decades.

25:20.33

Tim Anderson

So I just think I'm going to be more connected to this community than he is. And I think that's what's going to change minds. I don't think you're going to see the the lever pulling of the Republican or the Democrat tickets. I think there's going to be people crossing over from the Democrat side my way on on the delegate seat.

25:38.74

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, one last question about Virginia Beach, because it is vacation season. what but What is your pitch to people if they want to take a vacation? Why should they come to Virginia Beach?

25:49.39

Tim Anderson

Well, look, Virginia Beach is the number one tourist destination, beach tourist destination, you know, in the in the mid-Atlantic. i mean, it's it's a great community to come down here with your family.

26:05.07

Tim Anderson

we know we've We've spent a lot of money on resources with police and policy decisions to create a beach that's not a party scene for college kids, but it's a place where you can feel comfortable bringing your kids and your family together.

26:20.11

Tim Anderson

Virginia Beach is the safest, largest largest city in the entire country of its size. you know People can come here. They they know that the police are are are right here and that the problems that are plaguing other parts of the country just don't exist here. So if you want to come here and yeah have a safe experience and enjoy the beautiful what weather and enjoy the the beautiful beaches,

26:45.74

Tim Anderson

Virginia Beach is like no other in this in the Mid-Atlantic. So come on down. And when you do, you can come by and see me. up And I have a law practice down here in a gun shop. they're right next to each other. Be happy to ah come in Make sure that you say you listen to the show if you do.

27:04.98

Sam Shirazi

Well, at some point I do have to make it back down to Virginia Beach. It's been a while for me. But anyways, I really appreciate you joining me today. If people wanted to more find out more about your campaign, where do they do that?

27:16.46

Tim Anderson

Yeah, quick website, timforva.com, T-I-M-F-O-R-V-A.com.

27:21.96

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come talk to us. It was really interesting hearing your perspective as a former delegate and a candidate. And yeah, thanks again.

27:31.41

Tim Anderson

All right, great, thanks.

27:32.80

Sam Shirazi

Thanks. And this has been Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time.