by Dick Hall-Sizemore
A recent special election in Southside Virginia is a stark illustration of how a small special interest group can exercise out-sized power.
In mid-December, long-time state Sen. Frank Ruff (R-Mecklenburg), announced he was resigning from the Senate, shortly after having been re-elected to a seventh term. He had received a diagnosis of cancer in October and was facing a strict regimen of treatment. Gov. Glenn Youngkin set Jan. 9 as the date for a special election to fill the seat.
Ruff’s announcement caught most people by surprise. According to the reporting of David Poole in the Mecklenburg Sun , two people who were not surprised by the announcement were Tammy Mulchi, Ruff’s legislative aide, whom he endorsed in his resignation announcement, and Kirby Burch, the leader of the Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance. Both got advance notice from Ruff of his impending resignation announcement.
Ruff’s Senate district is home to some of the state’s largest hunting dog clubs, whose members use hounds and other breeds to track and run deer and bear. The primary legislative concerns of the members are to defend their statutory right to allow their dogs to run at large and to go on private land without permission to retrieve their dogs. As hunting has decreased and housing developments have increased, so have the complaints about hunting dogs running across people’s property increased.
As a result of their advance tips, by the time Ruff released his announcement, Mulchi had had time to create a campaign website and have an announcement of her candidacy ready to release. Similarly, Burch had time to establish election captains in each of the eight jurisdictions included in the district.
The Ninth State Senatorial District is the largest, area-wise, in the state. It is solidly Republican and winning the nomination is tantamount to winning the general election. Rather than schedule firehouse primaries in multiple locations throughout the district to enable as many Republicans as possible to participate in the process, however, the district Republican committee chose to hold the primary at the volunteer firehouse in Drakes Branch, in Mecklenburg County.
On a cold Tuesday night, 800 Republicans jammed into the firehouse to nominate a candidate for the general election from among the five persons running. As Poole describes it, “There were so many people the balloting tables had to be set up outside on a night when the temperature dropped into the mid-20s. Inside the building there were not enough seats, forcing many people to stand throughout the six-hour meeting…. As voting on multiple ballots dragged on and temperatures plummeted, people began to drift away. Burch said hunters came dressed for the weather and that most of his members stayed until the bitter end. After midnight, as voting in the fourth and final ballot got under way, more than one-third of the participants had left.”
On the fourth ballot, Mulchi won the nomination, 278 votes to 226 votes for her nearest competitor. Burch estimated that 254 of Mulchi’s votes came from the hunting dog enthusiasts.
So, that’s the story of how 254 hunting dog owners were able to put a Virginia State Senator in office.
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