Stellar 2011 for Rep. Scott Rigell
By Brian Kirwin | Thursday, January 26th, 2012 | PoliticsRep. Scott Rigell announced his campaign team for re-election, and looking back on Rigell’s first year in office, he’s given them and the citizens of the Second District a very impressive record.
Truth be told, the first thing I thought in seeing Rigell’s campaign team was a quote from the Blues Brothers – “We’re putting the band back together!”
Indeed they are, with Campaign Manager Richard Jenkins, the famous GC Chris LaCivita, Senior Political Advisor Jason Miyares and Deputy Finance Director Page Painter, looks like the team that scored such a resounding victory in 2010 is warming up to play again in 2012.
LaCivita’s involvement especially signals a level of determination of Team Rigell with a slew of electoral victories on his resume. With Democrats working hard to pretend it is still 2008, every day makes the electorate more dissatisfied with Obama’s failed leadership. I feel bad for the Democrats who have to run into this crew of buzzsaws.
Look at the record Rigell has achieved in one short year:
$ 8 trillion dollars – That’s how much in spending cuts Rigell has voted for in federal spending, including the “cut, cap and balance” bill, the balanced budget Constitutional Amendment, the Ryan Budget Plan and also helped lead House Conservatives by voting for the “Republican Study Committee” Budget that was much more aggressive in cutting federal spending than the Ryan plan.
Rigell founded the “Fix Congress Now” Caucus, the first “reform” caucus in Washington. He returns 15% of his salary back to the Treasury to retire the debt, turned down all federal retirement benefits as a Member of Congress and is paying for his own health care and not asking taxpayers to foot the bill.
Rigell supports ending lobbyist-driven loopholes and subsidies like those who helped Solyndra.
Rigell introduced HR 1708 which prohibited the use of funds to support Operation Odyssey Dan in Libya. Rigell sided with the Constitution and stated the President should seek a formal declaration of war when committing our troops.
Rigell is true to the Second Amendment by supporting law-abiding citizens to retain their Constitutional rights across state lines.
Obama’s government takeover of health care? Rigell co-sponsored HR2 to repeal it, HR 21 to repeal the individual mandate, HR 127 to de-authorize appropriations for it and HR 1744 to repeal the employer mandate.
Rigell protected human life by blocking taxpayer funding of abortion and voting to strip abortion funding from Obama’s health care law.
And yes, Virginia, Rigell supports the Fair Tax Act of 2011 (HR 25), which abolishes the IRS tax code and the income tax, replacing it with a sales tax.
An amazing record for any Congressional year, but even more so from a Freshman Congressman. Remember that freshmen Congressman he replaced and what his first year was like?
With a team like Rigell’s and a record like this, coupled with a Republican redistricting and voters trending more Republican in 2009, 2010 and 2011, one could fault the re-election effort to be a tad overconfident.
They aren’t. The Scott Rigell band is back together and the top hit of 2012 is to beat the Democrat’s Boy from New York City.
We’re gonna have a ball, Paul…
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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20 Responses to "Stellar 2011 for Rep. Scott Rigell"
Thank you, Representative Rigell. You have kept your promise of running to create jobs, cut spending and change Congress. Now we just need to give you a republican President and Senate so we can pass your agenda!
Yeah, pretty damn good year if you ask me, and a bit surprising, but I wish the local media would cover this more
Patriot Act
Largest Debt Limit Increase In World History
NDAA
Stellar, Bryan and Isaac?
Rigell has voted over 900 times. He is ranked by Heritage as one of the most conservative members in Congress. There’s a lot of talk about Reagan today. One of his maxims (paraphrase) people who agree with me 90% of the time are not 10% my enemy.
OMG. Turbo, are you serious? Is that what we’re going to get out of you this year? I also got an outlandish comment on my Facebook page from another pillar of the Virginia Beach community questioning Rigell’s motives on taxes.
OK, so he wants to close tax loopholes and make the system more transparent? That’s called good government.
So, whatever. I have long grown tired of the nabobs of negativity in Hampton Roads and just could care less.
We have a principled and outstanding man representing the 2nd District. We’re lucky to have him in Washington and anyone who identifies themselves as a conservative should be rushing to his support in 2012.
Rigell is the poster boy for the obstructionism of the House of Representratives which has collectively earned them the lowest rating in history. The circus the Republican Study Committee created that resulted in the debt debacle will go down in history as one of the nation’s worst self inflicted wounds.
Frankly, his presence in Congress has been noteworthy for contributing absolutely nothing to create the conditions for prosperity. He and the Republican Study Committee have left the heavy lifting to the President, and when he gets more allies in the House like Paul Hirschbiel, he and they will clean up the mess that the republicans created in the first place.
At this point in his first term, two years ago, Glenn Nye was cancelling public forums before and after his ObamaCare vote, and his work for veterans was, I think, the only affirmative issue on which to base his campaign for re-election.
What a difference two years makes – quite a record of accomplishment for Representative Rigell to run on. Watch out, Mr. Hirschbiel.
JR, what do you like and what do you dislike in the NDAA as it was authored?
Do you feel that voting for the largest debt limit increase in world history advances the conservative cause? Are we safer and is our liberty better protected by enfocing the partiot act as it is written?
You are really joking about his success of course. Frankly unless the GOP leadership tells him what to do, he does nothing…
Congratulations for nothing. Really…
Only James has the ability to make me appreciate that J.R. may have some redeeming qualies. The republican party has shifted so far to the right to accommodate the libertarians and the simply crazy far right, that the so called centrists in the Party now realize just how compromised the Party has become. And J.R., you will never please them; they will attack you from the right no matter how far you shift in that direction.
At this point, listening to one of your candidates, I am not sure if republicans support private enterprise and capitalism any more. And I thought I knew the definition of lobbying, but no, I am told it does not apply to historians. Frankly, your message has become blurred because you have sold your soul to the tea party, the libertarians, and the radical right.
But hey, I’m just a moderate, centrist businessman, what do I know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pyb-EmZSj0
Mike, your BS is labeled Store High In Transit and you can decipher the acronym and yes that is a maritime safety issue where the term came from.. Mike sez: “The republican party has shifted so far to the right to accommodate the libertarians and the simply crazy far right, that the so called centrists in the Party now realize just how compromised the Party has become.”
No Mike, the republican party has been overcome by right of center progressives and moderates and alienated the right that conservatives are disgusted and fuming mad. The centrists are merely moderate democrats registered in the republican party.
As for Libertarians, they are left and right, red white and blue AMERICAN. Too bad for the GOP but the kids in the libertarian party are maturing now and are not backing down when they see the constitution being trampled on by you dems and gop alike.
And Mike, calling yourself are a centrist moderate does not make you one.. Your actions and words define a leftist progressive. That is not an insult, just being honest.
JR, OMG is right.. Congressman Rigell, who I agree with 95% of the time, appears to have been seduced by the cult of Washington politicos if he no longer stands by a pledge he signed with the Tea Party saying he would NEVER vote for a tax increase. I guess this will slide by come april 15th, JR? I do agree we need revenue increases FROM JOBS, not tax increases. WTH happened to cutting spending and reducing federal debt? Returning 15% of his salary is a nice gesture that is starting to look like a cheap campaign marketing ploy. The value of the message that sends will be greater than the cost no doubt but that is no excuse for NDAA, voting for the largest debt limit increase in world history and a few serious breeches of conservative fiscal discipline.. that is part of the 5% and that 5% is seriously bigger than the 95% I mentioned earlier.
Congressman Rigell says he is “finding more in common with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D) of Virginia”. I am finding that too.
Gee, Turbo, if that’s how you talk about people you agree with 95% of the time, I’d hate to see you talk about people you truly disagree with.
Brian, I can’t make this stuff up.
@Mike Barrett: “Obama has done the heavy lifting”
Seriously? The President introduced a budget that was defeated 97 TO ZERO in A DEMOCRATIC CONTROLLED SENATE.
Let me repeat, the President you claim is doing “heavy lifting” introduced a budget that was such a joke, and did NOTHING to solve our nation’s debt crisis, that it DID NOT RECEIVE A SINGLE DEMOCRATIC VOTE IN THE SENATE
Yep, he is really doing “heavy lifting”. Meanwhile, the Senate has gone 1000+ days without introducing a budget of their own.
I would LOVE to hear left-wing liberal nutjobs like Mike Barrett try to justify the President not receiving a SINGLE vote in the US Senate for his budget proposal.
Yes, he is pursuing those actions he can pursue without any support or approval from republicans. The republican leadership of both the House and the Senate have pledged that their number one priority is to defeat the President, which clearly substitutes for required actions on behalf of the citizens of our great nation.
I find that attitude to be dispicable, wrongheaded, and unworthy of an elected member of Congress. Frankly, we the citizens come first; not their anathema to a President of the opposing party. But they have not waivered one iota from their stated objective; that is, defeat the President.
So he has had to go it alone, and the progress the nation has made in job creation, market improvement, reduction in unemployment, paying back the bailouts, getting out of recession and back on track are his accomplishments done in the face of intrasigence by republican elected officials.
Frankly, to go back to the policies that republicans brought to Washington which caused the great recession give me great concern. Their expressed hatred of the President is bad enough, but their lack of any program beyond the vodoo economics of the past is even worse. No thanks.
Actually, Scott isn’t bad as far as Republicans go these days.
He’s not going to get my vote though. If he supports an unmodified Fair Tax, as far as I am concerned he is trying to destroy the American Way. He is trying to shift more of the tax burden onto the middle class and away from the upper class.
Rigell has moved to the center, a reflection of a strong opponent, Paul Hirschbiel, who, as a Mark Warner Democrat, is more interested in getting things done than in ideological purity.
Make no mistake about it. Rigell is a member of the republican study committee, the locus of republican intransigence in the House of Representatives most responsible for the debt crisis and the obstructionism of this Congress.
Rigell realizes that he can’t win with libertarian or tea party votes alone, so he is desperately trying to recast himself as a centrist and a moderate. Frankly, that is an impossibility at this point in time given his voting record. The damage is already done.
Mike, I agree Rigell has become fiscally moderate yet remains socially conservative. As a Tea Party member I do not engage in social issues. This is about peoples money taken from them via taxes to pay for justified debt. One need not wonder why libertarians and tea party and fiscal conservatives do not need purity though. They need rational economics, sound currency, less wasteful spending and to force that to happen we need to not simply reduce our debt but pay it off. How do we get there without raising taxes is not rocket science if you cross the potomac but the fools on the hill want us to believe otherwise.
Wonder where Mike’s boy Beergerten stands on man-made CO2 causing “global warming” ???
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