Former Virginia State Senator Russ Potts Dies at 82
Former Virginia State Senator H. Russell “Russ” Potts Jr., 82, died Sunday after a brief illness. He is survived by his wife, three daughters, and four grandchildren.
The former Republican, a self-described political moderate, had represented the Northern Shenandoah Valley for 16 years, elected in 1991 and serving four terms before declaring in 2005 that he was no longer politically in line with the Republican Party that he saw as becoming too conservative. In 2005 he ran for governor as an independent against Republican Jerry Kilgore and Democrat Tim Kaine. Kaine won.
The Winchester Star reported about Potts’ step away from the GOP:
The pushback from Potts’s former party was immediate and intense. Local Republican groups passed resolutions denouncing his candidacy and calling for him to resign his Senate seat, and nine conservative state senators attempted to oust Potts from his Senate committee assignments during the General Assembly’s 2005 veto session. Kaine, who was president of the Senate and went on to win the gubernatorial race, refused to entertain the motion to remove Potts from the committees.
From the Washington Post:
As a Republican state senator from Winchester for 16 years, an independent candidate for governor in 2005 and a refugee from his party for the remainder of his life, Mr. Potts positioned himself as the kind of plain-spoken maverick that presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had been — offering voters a blunt, funny, politically incorrect alternative to consultant-built politicians. …
Mr. Potts had little patience for fellow Republicans’ increasing reliance on social wedge issues — “God, gays and guns,” in the vernacular of the time — when he thought they ought to focus on transportation and education.
Condolences have come from every corner of the Commonwealth including his former opponent in the gubernatorial race. “Russ Potts was a wonderful friend,” Kaine said on Monday. “Such a big heart. My love to Emily and family.”
