Just days after the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee endorsed candidates for city offices during a tumultuous meeting at the downtown branch of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library earlier this month, FDC chair Ken Lecky got a call from his Republican counterpart, Scott Vezina.
“And I told Ken, I said, ‘Listen, this is the consequence of what you guys did,’” Vezina recalled.
What the FDC had done was to create partisan elections, at least in the eyes of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
And that was a problem for three candidates who, as federal employees, are barred from participating in such elections by the Hatch Act. Ward 1 city council candidate Ken Gantt, Ward 3 city council candidate Susanna Finn and Tamara Stuart, who is running for commissioner of the revenue, could all be considered in violation of the federal law, which was passed in 1939 and restricts certain political activities.
Vezina sent Lecky a copy of a January 2024 legal opinion from OSC that defines a partisan election as “one for which any candidate is nominated or elected as representing a party any of whose candidates for Presidential elector received votes in the last preceding election at which Presidential electors were selected.”
The memo also makes mention of certain designated localities — namely, places in the Washington metro area with large concentrations of federal workers — “in which federal employees may run as independent candidates for local partisan political office.”
In Virginia, those localities include Stafford, Spotsylvania and King George counties.
Fredericksburg is not on the list.
And so, on Tuesday, Lecky told the Free Press that, after consulting with OSC attorneys, the FDC has decided to rescind its endorsements of Finn and Stuart — but not of Gantt’s Ward 1 opponent, Matt Rowe.
“We initially did endorse them with a different understanding of the rules,” Lecky said. “But that’s the determination we came to there.”
Press the Issue
As of Tuesday, the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee’s endorsements are as following, according to chair Ken Lecky.
City Council
Ward 1: Matt Rowe; Ward 2: Joy Crump; Ward 3: no endorsement; Ward 4: Chuck Frye Jr.
School Board
Ward 1: Andy Wolfenbarger; Ward 2: Katie Pomeroy; Ward 3: Annie Langdon; Ward 4: Malvina Kay.
Commonwealth’s Attorney
Libby Humphries
Sheriff
Rashawn Cowles
Commissioner of the Revenue
No endorsement
Treasurer
Marion Bowman
Lecky said the FDC’s endorsement of Rowe, who currently serves as chair of the city school board, will remain in place due to his role as an active member of the local committee as well as the state Democratic party.
“Our understanding of this opinion is that there’s really nothing we could do to make Matt and Ken’s race nonpartisan in the eyes of OSC,” he said. “I can’t tell Matt to not advocate for himself to our members.”
A spring forward in partisanship
In an interview earlier this month, Lecky told the Free Press that multiple candidates declined to respond to an emailed questionnaire citing Hatch Act considerations, including Gantt and Finn.
“I know it’s handled differently at different agencies, but at least the candidates that I’m aware of in the race who are federal employees have spoken to their ethics experts in their departments and doing what makes sense for them,” said Lecky, who added that this election cycle marks the first time that the FDC had sent questionnaires to all candidates for city office.
He said that while the committee had made endorsements in local elections on and off in the past, the practice “kind of became more important” in 2021, when local races in Virginia were moved from the spring to coincide with statewide November elections.
He gave the example of a voter who might be motivated to vote for Del. Joshua Cole, a Democrat who represents Fredericksburg, but arrives at the ballot box relatively uninformed about candidates for commonwealth’s attorney or city council.
“Endorsements are a way to give people one piece of information that they might use for making decisions if they haven’t had a chance to meet the candidates or find out information about them themselves,” he said.
Vezina agreed that shifting local elections to the fall coincided with a jump in partisan sentiment.
“I think it brought some partisan pressure to [endorse],” he said. “And there are some other local [Republican] committees who have endorsed, but we as a committee in Fredericksburg have held fast and steadfast and said, ‘This is not what we want to do.’”
Vezina said Fredericksburg Republicans haven’t endorsed candidates in local elections going back at least 15 years.
That’s not to say they haven’t discussed the notion.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ve gotten a lot of pressure to do it this year,” Vezina said. “Fredericksburg folks saying, ‘The Dems are doing it. You should do it, too.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not what we’re about.’”
No day at the beach
Finn was on vacation with her family when she learned that someone had filed an inquiry with her agency regarding her candidacy.
“That risks my job and my family’s livelihood,” said Finn, a former planning commissioner who earlier this year was appointed to serve the remainder of former Councilor Tim Duffy’s term. “And that’s incredibly upsetting to me, because I have worked at many levels of local, state and federal government, and have only ever worked in public service.
“And it has been incredibly upsetting that someone would think I would act unethically, when I’m incredibly proud to be able to serve my country and my local community, and have taken great strides to make sure I’m doing both ethically. To be doubted by my community is upsetting.”
Over the past two weeks, Finn has spoken several times with an OSC investigator, awaiting an outcome that could include both professional and political repercussions. She said she finds it ironic that she found out about the inquiry while reaching out proactively to department counsel to ensure she was in compliance with federal law.
She noted that she was invited to address the local Republican and Democratic committees but declined both invitations — in writing.
“It’s been incredibly stressful,” she said of the inquiry process.
On Tuesday afternoon, Finn received a decidedly happier call. The OSC investigator informed her that while there was not yet a written opinion, there was also no indication that she’d violated the Hatch Act. She plans to remain in the race for city council’s Ward 3 seat.
‘Someone in there knew’
For his part, Gantt said he isn’t convinced that no one anticipated the full implications of endorsing.
“They went into this knowing what they were doing,” he said. “Someone in there [the FDC] knew what the Hatch Act is all about.”
He recalled being eager to settle down following two-plus decades in the Army, a career that took him all over the world.
“I’ve been to a lot of countries, I’ve seen a lot of things,” Gantt said. “I really just wanted a place where I could call home.”
He found it in Fredericksburg, where he began coaching youth football for the Fredericksburg Area Youth Football League in 2005. After volunteering for the Rappahannock Big Brothers and Big Sisters and with the local Special Olympics, Gantt started to envision a different type of service.
“I really did begin to think, ‘OK, these are all great, but how do I look at serving the broader community?’”
That desire led him to seek an appointment to the Fredericksburg Planning Commission, where he held a seat until earlier this year. He’s also served on a local steering committee for teen violence and as a citizen advisor for the Fredericksburg Police Department.
When a Free Press reporter asked about his specific role with the federal government, Gantt responded somewhat pointedly with a question of his own.
“Does that have any direct bearing on my ability to be a candidate, or what I feel about the community and why I want to serve it?” he replied.
Gantt noted that he consulted with ethics officials prior to filing his paperwork for city council earlier this year, just like he’d done prior to seeking an appointment to the planning commission. He didn’t reply to the FDC questionnaire or to a request to address the political committee.
“I couldn’t do that,” he said. “I couldn’t go to a meeting with them and talk to them. That just wasn’t going to work, because that’s partisanship.”
But recent legal guidance suggests that his personal actions and abstentions might not matter. Gantt noted that the 2024 legal opinion exists only because someone in his position attempted to remain in a race that was ultimately deemed partisan.
“You know, I could say, ‘Hey, maybe I should just go ahead and chance it,’” he said. “That person chanced it. Okay. And that person lost, because the ruling that came back said it was indeed a partisan election.”
For Gantt, the professional risk just isn’t worth it. Even if the FDC were to vote to publicly rescind its endorsement of his opponent — which Lecky has said it won’t — he’d still need to consult with ethics experts in his department about how to proceed.
While Gantt said he remains undecided as to whether to continue his candidacy, one scenario is growing likelier by the day: that he drops out.
“As much as I love the city of Fredericksburg,” he said. “This just doesn’t make sense to play a game.”
