Today we’re covering the topic on every Virginian’s mind: the redistricting referendum. On Thursday we’ll chart the rise and fall of a certain Congressional representative.

As always, make sure you click the Subscribe or Share buttons to give yourself and your friends the gift of Wittman Watch, and follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, or Instagram for in-the-moment updates on all things Rob Wittman.

Now, about that referendum…

What’s it all about?

There is a referendum in Virginia on April 21st. The question is whether we, the people of Virginia, will permit the legislature to redraw our Congressional district maps and use them in elections from November 2026 through 2030. The referendum is happening because other U.S. states have already done their own mid-decade redistricting, skewing their Congressional districts to favor the Republican Party. Consequently the referendum is important both for the future of Virginia and for America’s democracy.

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A YES vote will grant legislative authority to draw a new map now, outside of the usual once-per-decade redistricting. The legislature has published a proposed map, but the referendum itself is not a vote on the proposed map — only on permission for temporary redistricting to happen now.

Redistricting is a big deal, and VA-01 will likely change significantly under any new maps. Some of us would remain in the new VA-01 and others would be in VA-03, VA-04, VA-05, or VA-08. (Plug in your address on this page to find your likely new district.) In the run-up to the referendum, we’ve observed many misconceptions, deliberate disinformation, and outright lies — some of which has come directly from Rob Wittman.

What’s gerrymandering?

The USA is a representative democracy. In a government “by the people, for the people,” we elect individuals to represent our interests in Congress. The maps are intended to define contiguous, compact geographic areas in which people share broadly common concerns. Consequently, the maps are extremely important to the health of American democracy.

At least since the term “gerrymandering” was coined in 1812 when Elbridge Gerry manipulated Massachusetts districts, many politicians have tried to create districts that are favorable to them personally or that create partisan advantage.

How does gerrymandering actually work? Using census, voting, demographic, and other data, districts can be drawn so they’re “packed” full of people whose interests and voices are limited to a single district. Alternatively, groups can be “cracked” such that minority interest groups are broken up and spread out across districts to dilute their influence as much as possible. Gerrymandering means that some specifically-selected voters can be ignored. Our democracy becomes less representative and more skewed to the ambitions of specific politicians and political parties. In short, it’s a cancer that can kill what we hold most dear: American democracy itself could die.

With so much at stake, it’s time for some myth-busting!

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Myth: “Republicans are against gerrymandering.”

Let’s be clear: both major parties engage in gerrymandering across the nation. It’s not a strategy consistent with the ideas of democracy and representation. And yet, 14 of the 20 most gerrymandered states benefit the Republican Party. Why is this number so high?

Project REDMAP was the beginning of the Republican Party’s concerted campaign to weaponize gerrymandering across the country. REDMAP had one clear goal: “flipping Democratic-majority state legislatures and Democrat-held state governorships for the express purpose of controlling redistricting.” And it worked.

Many argue that our current political situation is directly related to Project REDMAP. Without it, we may not have had Trump as president at all. The Republican Party evidently isn’t against gerrymandering as a practice; it deployed the most sophisticated attempt ever to use gerrymandering to lock in power at the state level. But Republicans are against it when it does not favor them!

For his part, Rob Wittman has been forthright in the past about gerrymandering. He says it’s bad… when it works against Republicans. (Wittman is always aligned with his party’s perspectives, no matter how morally bankrupt they are.) In 2016, he unsuccessfully argued that VA-03 was not drawn correctly because it disfavored the Republican Party. The Supreme Court told him to take a hike. But he’s said precisely nothing about gerrymandering where it favors Republicans, including the recent redistricting in Texas and North Carolina that pre-empted Virginia’s referendum. Are you shocked? No, neither are we.

Myth: “Obama and Spanberger say to vote NO.”

This myth is a product of a disinformation campaign that’s using images of Barack Obama and Governor Spanberger and out-of-context quotes to suggest they oppose the referendum. They have both explicitly released videos and messages urging a YES vote. Here’s Obama’s:

Here’s a report on Spanberger’s YES vote. The NAACP Virginia State Conference has held press conferences specifically to counter the disinformation campaign about Obama, and similar mailers targeting Black voters.

Sadly, disinformation campaigns are business-as-usual for Republican Party operatives nowadays. Rob Wittman continually publishes disinformation across his social media and repetitive emails, and billionaires such as Peter Thiel are actively funding lies/disinformation campaigns right now on the referendum.

It is true that Obama and Spanberger, and most Democratic politicians in Virginia, have campaigned against gerrymandering. The OneVirginia2021 campaign ran through 2021 and aimed to make gerrymandering impossible in Virginia. Obama and Spanberger (and several Wittman Watch volunteers!) supported that campaign. The independent redistricting commission was a product of OneVirginia2021’s efforts.

With the independent commission, Virginia’s Democrats and Republicans had declared a truce on gerrymandering. But then President Trump demanded that Republican-led states “find” more Republican seats in Congress. This clearly has changed everyone’s perspective on gerrymandering in Virginia. Obama, Spanberger, and others have seen that the truce has been violated, and the effects will blow back on all of us. They strongly urge all Virginians to vote YES.

Myth: “Redistricting is not something I need to care about.”

District maps are supposed to be drawn after every U.S. Census, which happens every 10 years. The Census shows who lives where in every state, and district maps should represent coherent communities based on that data. Mid-decade redistricting is extremely rare in U.S. history, but it has happened before: successfully in Texas in 2003, unsuccessfully in Colorado in 2003 (their state Supreme Court struck it down), and successfully in Georgia in 2005. In all three cases, the Republican Party initiated the mid-decade redistricting specifically to create partisan advantage in their states. And it worked: over 20 years later, the Republican Party maintains advantages in Texas and Georgia.

And now they’ve done it again, in Texas and North Carolina, with Florida and Missouri actively working on it too.

Myth: “Democrats started the redistricting war.”

Every state decides how to draw its own Congressional district maps. But NO state decided to redistrict at this time on its own. This latest mid-decade redistricting battle all started because President Trump demanded that Texas redistrict “to help keep [the] House majority.”

North Carolina has joined Texas in this effort, and they both did it without any referendum. Those state legislatures redrew their maps to skew more Congressional seats to the Republican Party without any consultation with their voters. Florida and Missouri are also working on their own redistricting efforts to skew their states toward Republican candidates.

Virginia’s Democratic legislators were watching this all unfold, even before the November 2025 elections. They noted that if any state pursued mid-decade redistricting to gerrymander their states, Virginia could counteract it. They went so far as to warn legislators across the country of Virginia’s ability to do so and, after winning majorities in the state, wrote it into a bill: “the General Assembly shall be authorized to modify one or more congressional districts … in the event that any State of the United States of America conducts a redistricting of such state’s congressional districts.” In other words: Virginia could redistrict its maps only if another U.S. state conducted a mid-decade redistricting of its own first. And of course that’s what has happened in Texas and North Carolina.

The bottom line is this: President Trump started this redistricting fight, and Virginia is not letting it go uncontested.

And Virginia isn’t alone in that response: California has preceded us, obtaining 64% approval for their new map. (Notice again how a Democratic Party led state went about redistricting only after getting permission from its voters to do so!)

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Myth: “The independent bipartisan commission works fine.” / “The bipartisan commission will be permanently eliminated by a YES vote in the referendum.”

In 2020, to avoid partisan gerrymandering in our state, Virginia voted to establish an independent commission for redistricting. It was first put to work in 2021, following the 2020 Census, but it didn’t quite go according to plan. Due to partisan bickering and COVID delays, the commission ended up in complete deadlock and the Virginia Supreme Court had to draw the maps. The idea that what we had was working fine is simply wrong. The kinks could be worked out in 2031 (for the next scheduled redistricting).

In any case, the April referendum would not change the bipartisan commission or the redistricting process after 2030. It would only authorize an adjustment for the next 4 years, until the next Census in 2030. Once that data is available, the state will turn to the independent commission to draw updated maps, which should be in place by the elections in 2031.

Myth: “Courts have found the referendum unconstitutional.”

No final ruling has been issued. The Virginia Supreme Court has twice allowed voting to proceed while reserving the constitutional question. It’s possible that they will rule the referendum unconstitutional after the election itself, but for now, the courts have specifically allowed the process to unfold.

Ultimately, the constitutionality of the referendum is for the courts to decide. The referendum itself is for the voters to decide.

Myth: “It’s not really about restoring fairness.”

“Finding” more red seats in Texas and North Carolina, and potentially Florida and Missouri, means that those states, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party will have more votes and power in Congress than they otherwise would. So, if Trump’s effort to claw back seats in Texas and other states works, and the House retains a Republican majority after the November elections, every Virginia voter will be impacted adversely. Even Virginians who vote Republican will be worse off because Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri may all have skewed representation in Congress.

During budget deliberations, for example, those states who have already gerrymandered their districts will have more voices in the House majority and will be able to send more federal dollars to their own states as a result. Allowing redistricting elsewhere to go unanswered means everyone in Virginia will lose out, while states who are willing to rig the rules will gain more dollars, influence, and power.

Trump’s redistricting demand also creates a dangerous precedent of presidents requesting more seats in Congress to cement a larger majority, and being “gifted” those seats by compliant state legislatures who redistrict on an as-needed basis. That’s not representative democracy at work; it’s subverting the will of the voting public.

So the referendum is absolutely about restoring fairness. A YES vote will allow new maps that will counteract the gerrymandering by the Republican Party in other states, somewhat restoring balance and fairness at the national level.

There is another aspect to the question of “fairness.” In gerrymandered states, it is always true that some votes count for less, by design. This is true for Democratic and Independent voters in Texas and North Carolina — and, should new maps be implemented in Virginia, Republican voters will also be sidelined. Gerrymandering always creates victors and victims. And this is why President Trump’s demands of Republican-led states are so pernicious and corrupt. He is effectively daring Democrat majority states to retaliate. Trump and his party appear to be preying on those who have a moral backbone, who don’t operate purely for political and power advantage, who really do care about our neighbors.

We must remember the national context in which this referendum is happening, and remind ourselves that all voters who are disenfranchised because of this mid-decade redistricting will suffer that consequence because of the greed, lust for power, and immorality of Donald J. Trump and his complicit collaborators like Rob Wittman.

In the future, it will be extremely important to put in place measures that prevent this kind of situation. A federal law defining and banning gerrymandering is needed. In its absence, we must use the tools we have.

Myth: “Virginia shouldn’t change because of events in other states.”

E pluribus unum. “Out of many, one.” This is the traditional motto of the United States, appearing on our Great Seal. And never has it been more appropriate to cite.

It’s tempting to think that we can limit our concerns to our state’s borders, that Virginians should only care about Virginia. But that’s simply a comforting fantasy. We need to care about ourselves first but not stop there, imagining that our fate is insulated from what happens in Washington D.C. or in other statehouses. We are part of a federal government system; we are purposefully linked to our neighboring states and every other U.S. state through our national economy and the policies that govern our freedoms, safety, and prosperity. We are subject to federal laws enacted by a Congress that draws its power from representatives of every state. What happens elsewhere impacts our own futures. And we must remember that, according to the Constitution, federal law supersedes state law.

We must think about redistricting from a national perspective. And when we do that, we must acknowledge that redistricting is about America as a whole, and Virginia’s part in that whole.

Myth: “Two wrongs don’t make a right” / “Both parties are as bad as each other.”

This isn’t a schoolyard game. Politics impacts our freedoms, our livelihoods, our safety, our protection, and almost every other thing we rely on in our country. Reliance on such a simple statement as “two wrongs don’t make a right” ignores the significance of what’s at stake. We believe gerrymandering should be illegal. But it’s not, and it’s been weaponized.

We must operate in the world that actually exists, not an idealized one in which only some people are subject to constraints of principled behavior. The fact is that one party has already broken the norm by redrawing maps mid-decade. Should we stand by and leave voters in some states with a dangerous advantage over the rest of us? Our choice now is to let one side lock in an advantage, or to try to offset it so the playing field is level. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” is morally laudable in a vacuum, but it’s strategically naive if someone has already changed the rules for themselves.

Finally, there is no principled neutrality if the alternative is asymmetric power. If Virginia refuses to respond to actions taken elsewhere, it only helps the side that is willing to move first; a blanket “two wrongs” objection can end up protecting the first wrongdoer’s advantage. That doesn’t make retaliatory redistricting ideal or desirable, but it does explain why it’s the least-bad, necessary option.

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What does Wittman Watch think about all this?

Wittman Watch is run by a group of volunteers, and we all live in VA-01. Some of us volunteered for the OneVirginia2021 campaign that resulted in the independent commission on redistricting. We know the arguments inside and out. This referendum raises difficult ethical and political questions for all of us and all Virginians, and that’s why this myth-busting article is so important.

All of us believe that, whether or not there’s a referendum, Rob Wittman will lose in November. We also acknowledge that gerrymandering has already happened in Texas and North Carolina, and Florida and Missouri are likely to follow. The President has demanded that these states stack the deck in his favor and, allowed to go unchallenged, American democracy is at risk of permanent and irreversible damage. The aggressor was not Virginia. Even if Virginia redraws its maps, it likely won’t entirely counterbalance the gerrymandering of other states.

We love our fellow Virginians. Wittman Watch was founded on the principle that, ultimately, all Virginians share more values and priorities than might otherwise seem apparent. Our state seal illustrates our obligation to each other:

The seal shows the female figure of Virtue standing victorious over Tyranny, and our motto: “Sic Semper Tyrannis” which means “Thus always to tyrants.” As Wikipedia notes:

This is a derived quote from the famous event in Roman history, attributed to Brutus upon his participation in the slaying of Caesar. (Caesar had been named perpetual dictator of Rome in the same year, and some senators believed he had ambitions to abolish the Roman Republic and establish himself as a monarch.)

President Trump is trying to corrupt our republic, and keep power for himself and his collaborators. This is tyranny. We believe that, as Virginians, no matter how difficult it may be, it is our obligation to stand up to such tyranny. Each of us will vote YES on the referendum — not happily, gleefully, or enthusiastically, but because it’s necessary.

And yet, more than anything, we believe this: how you vote is your decision to make.

Go and vote by April 21st!

We hope you feel and are more informed and empowered to go and vote in the referendum, and to discuss it with your friends and neighbors (and trolls?) online. Here are the key dates for all the upcoming elections in Virginia. The first column here shows all the dates for the referendum, and you can get an overview of it all from our February 17 post.

Remember you can share all our content for free. Invite your friends to subscribe to our feeds, so they are as informed and clear-of-mind as you!

How are YOU thinking about the referendum? Are you going to vote YES, or NO, or are you undecided? What factors are you considering or (if you voted already) what did you consider? Post in our comments and let’s have a conversation about it!

• Last week we wrote about the real threats to election integrity: the SAVE Act in its several iterations.

• On Tuesday, our Myth of the Week series continued: Is Wittman helping farmers? (Surprise: he is not.)

• Scroll down to see this week’s social media roundup.

• The Wittman Watch newsletter (but not social media) is taking a break for a few weeks. See you in April!
  Can’t wait? Take a look through our Archive.

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I do not believe Washington knows better than patients, families, and doctors how health care decisions should be made. Americans deserve the freedom to choose the care that works best for them — not a one-size-fits-all system dictated by federal bureaucrats.
- Congressman Rob Wittman

Think Rob Wittman believes that you’re entitled to control your own body and make your own medical decisions? Think again.

A key factor in reproductive rights is the concept of bodily autonomy: the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies and do with them as we see fit. In reproductive healthcare, this freedom relates to a range of procedures and tests like vasectomies, cervical cancer screenings, and in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

Science has produced more tools for supporting our reproductive health than ever before, including obstetric and gynecological care, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control, which allows us the freedom to choose when and how we grow our families.

But Wittman’s anti-reproductive freedom votes over the years paint a grim picture of how much he opposes our access to the full range of reproductive rights to which we’re entitled. He claims to be a champion of healthcare freedom, infant rights, and families — but all of that is a shield he uses to wage attacks on the health and freedom of pregnant people.

He also communicates in coded and anti-choice language such as “fetal personhood” and “born alive” to make it appear he’s protecting fetuses and infants, when in fact his true goal is to control every aspect of our reproductive lives.

Let’s examine his voting record on reproductive healthcare and rights in more detail.

Extreme personhood bills

Congressman Wittman prioritizes collections of cells above living human beings. How do we know this?

Between 2007-2021, he co-sponsored NINE extreme personhood bills, collectively called the Sanctity of Human Life Act. These bills allege that from the moment of conception or cloning, an embryo or even a fertilized egg has the same rights as any born person, including federal and state Constitutional rights. If any one of these bills passed, there would be catastrophic consequences.

By supporting extreme personhood bills, Wittman tells us he rejects the bodily autonomy of pregnant people — and by extension, the rest of us. His endorsement of these bills speaks to a thirst for control over the bodies of pregnant people, most of whom are cisgender women. Even more broadly, we can understand that Wittman somehow believes that medical decisions — specifically when they relate to the lives and bodies of women and of pregnant people — are best made by legislators with no insight into specifics or circumstances and with zero medical knowledge.

Wittman’s obsession with extreme personhood bills tells us he believes people with uteruses aren’t entitled to the same bodily freedoms and protections as everyone else, and that women especially are nothing more than vessels for breeding, with fewer rights and entitlements than the embryos they might carry. And if they experience pregnancy complications that could kill them? Wittman’s answer: tough luck.

That’s not reproductive freedom; that’s enslavement.

Abortion rights under attack

Pregnancy involves a multitude of complications and risks. Sometimes abortion is needed to save the life of the pregnant person, especially if that person is a child who became pregnant from incest or rape.

Constraints on abortion endanger pregnant people’s lives and health and can lead to forced births, sometimes under the most inhumane circumstances. There are multiple reasons people need safe, reliable, affordable, and timely access to abortion.

But as Wittman’s voting record reveals, he’s a staunch believer in forced birth and other cruel abortion restrictions. Here are a few examples of the many, many anti-abortion bills he voted for, signed, and/or co-sponsored:

• H. R. 3 (5/2011) - bans federal health coverage that includes abortion

• H. R. 5939 (7/2010) - bars funding for abortion under federal ACA plans

• H. R. 00003 (5/2011) - prohibits federal funding for abortion

• H. R. 1122 (3/2013) - prohibits school health centers from providing information about abortion

• H. R. 0217 (1/2013) - forbids family planning assistance that includes abortion

• H. R. 0036 (5/2015) - bans abortion after twenty weeks’ gestation, with a life of the mother exception

• H. R. 962 (2/2019) - to prevent infanticide, which is already illegal

• H.Con.Res.3 (2023) - resolution condemning violence against “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs)

“Crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) are not-for-profit centers with a specifically anti-choice agenda that deceptively target people who are suffering because of unplanned pregnancies. CPCs are not health care providers; they have an ideological mission to prevent people from accessing abortion care. Virginia’s CPCs outnumber actual reproductive healthcare providers by a ratio of 4:1. And as we saw in his voting record, Wittman voted to support them.

All the anti-abortion bills wholeheartedly embraced by Wittman have serious, life-threatening consequences. Imagine being pregnant while sick with cancer and having to choose between your health and bankruptcy (H. R. 3). H. R. 962 promotes a false narrative because federal and state infanticide laws already make it illegal to intentionally end an infant’s life. It’s designed to punish a pregnant person and their healthcare providers. The real goal of H. R. 962 is to “make abortion illegal, criminalizing patients and providers in the process.”

When asked on video about women being jailed for pregnancy outcomes, Wittman responded, “Protect those infants. Protect the infants that are born alive.” When further pressed, he added, “We’re protecting the women by protecting their infants that are born alive.”

His statement demands pushback because an “infant” is, by definition, a baby in the first stage of their childhood. A fetus who has not yet been born is not an infant. A pregnant person is never gestating an infant. By the time an infant exists, there is no pregnancy. Wittman’s claim of “protecting the women by protecting their infants” is completely nonsensical; there’s no universe in which penalizing women for pregnancy outcomes equates to protecting them. Perhaps he intentionally muddies the issue to hide the reproductive healthcare threat lurking beneath his deceptive language.

Wittman’s robotic repetition of anti-abortion and anti-reproductive-freedom talking points speaks volumes: he deems pregnant people less worthy of healthcare and support compared to the fetuses they gestate.

Here’s a better idea: let’s build a better nation and a more thriving economy by protecting the adults who are doing the work of nurturing new humans. That can be accomplished by ensuring they get the best medical care for their own health and the health of their children, during and after pregnancy. Let’s protect them with paid family leave, robust social safety nets, and other wraparound services that help them to navigate the complexity of pregnancy and its aftermath, and to thrive in family life.

Threats to our reproductive freedom

Reproductive freedom means we have the right to:

• Bodily autonomy

• Contraception, fertility treatment, and abortion

• Quality maternal and prenatal care

• Information about our bodies and reproductive systems

• The right to grow our families at a time of our choosing

Wittman doesn’t believe we should have those rights — or at least not many of them. Reproductive Freedom for All gave him a score of 0% in 2024. In that year, he voted:

• to rescind Title IX Protections

• to ban payment or reimbursement for service members who incurred abortion care-related expenses

• to stigmatize pregnant students and spread disinformation about abortion, and

• to fund anti-abortion centers.

In 2022, he voted against the Right to Contraception Act and the Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act. This threat to bodily autonomy cuts both ways: what’s to stop Wittman from going after men who want vasectomies? After all, men need reproductive healthcare, too.

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Wittman’s anti-reproductive healthcare votes cause ripple effects. For example, Virginia is the only Southern state without an abortion ban. State lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment for reproductive freedom in 2025 in part because Wittman and other legislators refuse to help enshrine abortion rights at the federal level.

Medical abortions are safe and effective, but Wittman ignored the science and voted to penalize the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for expanding access to mifepristone in 2023. That was another vote to endanger pregnant people. There’s a pattern here: why is he so preoccupied with punishing and criminalizing people’s reproductive health choices? Why does he believe it is his right or his job to make healthcare decisions, even on matters of life and death? Remember, he said: “I do not believe Washington knows better than patients, families, and doctors how health care decisions should be made. Americans deserve the freedom to choose the care that works best for them — not a one-size-fits-all system dictated by federal bureaucrats.” Wittman is a self-righteous hypocrite.

Ripping away healthcare, reproductive and otherwise

People of all genders need reproductive healthcare. Wittman has both sabotaged our reproductive healthcare access and voted to raise healthcare costs.

He voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more than 40 times. Then he broke the ACA and caused devastating cuts to Medicaid by voting for H. R.1, which sabotaged the healthcare coverage many VA-01 residents rely on to access reproductive care and all other medical care. 300,000 Virginians risk losing their healthcare coverage thanks to Wittman.

The $50.4 billion cuts from H. R. 1 put rural hospitals in VA-01 at risk of closing, endangering pregnant people who lack any other options for obstetric care. So much can go medically wrong surrounding a birth. If hospitals close, what can people do in the event of pregnancy complications or needing to give birth? Does Wittman have a plan to help, or will pregnant people bleed out or die during the hours-long drive to a distant hospital?

Wittman voted to defund Planned Parenthood (H. R. 3762; 2015). It’s worth noting that Planned Parenthood provides all sorts of preventive care services that extend way beyond abortion services and reproductive healthcare. The latest attack on Planned Parenthood is H. R.271 - Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2025, which would prevent people from accessing care and would cost taxpayers $52 million over 10 years. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so no doubt Wittman will be the first in line to vote “Yea.”

Adoption pressure

Wittman supports cruel family separation over financially supporting pregnant people when they’re in crisis. His Adoption Information Act, if passed, would force family planning services “to provide pamphlets containing contact information for adoption centers to anyone receiving family planning services.” If the family services providers refused to share the pamphlets, they’d lose federal funding.

This draconian tactic would pressure economically disadvantaged pregnant people into relinquishing their children. By introducing and promoting this bill, Wittman fails to prioritize keeping families intact by giving them the necessary financial assistance to help them raise their own children. Instead, it signals his preference for family separation and traumatizing children who are removed from their birth families due to financial hardship.

If his bill passed and some pregnant people chose adoption under duress as a result, it would mean they would lose their child and their right to grow their family at a time of their choosing. Wittman’s “pro-family” claims aren’t about family at all; they are about transferring control and autonomy from families to legislators.

Why does Wittman oppose reproductive freedom?

By voting against reproductive freedom time and time again, Wittman has inserted himself between patients and their doctors, wrestling for control over their reproductive healthcare and rights. He is anti-bodily autonomy, anti-abortion, and anti-reproductive freedom.

His motivation may not be money; in 2024, he only took a $500 donation from National Pro-Life Alliance, a Christian anti-abortion group. It seems that Wittman’s anti-reproductive freedom stance is both ideologically and politically motivated, to keep forced-birth voters on his side. His actions and voting record reveal he’ll only allow reproductive healthcare on his terms — terms so cruel they endanger lives and threaten everyone’s core freedom of bodily autonomy. There is no clause in the Constitution that gives him the right to make those decisions.

Whether it’s extreme personhood bills, forced birth, or denying accessible and affordable reproductive care to pregnant people, Wittman’s hypocrisy on reproductive healthcare and rights knows no bounds.

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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.

MYTH:

Farmers are better off with Wittman.

REALITY:

Wittman’s votes create chaos and risks for farmers.

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Farmers are the lifeblood of VA-01, but economic pressures over the past year have been squeezing them dry. Is their way of life on the brink of extinction in our district?

Congressman Rob Wittman claims he has “consistently supported efforts to put more money back in the pockets of Virginians.” That doesn’t seem to be working for Virginia’s farmers, as rural residents of VA-01 fight to make ends meet and describe themselves as “just struggling and doing whatever we can…to survive.”

Farmers across America have been experiencing tough times for years, only to suffer even more under Trump’s chaotic federal policies, which Wittman unhesitatingly votes to support. And there doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Trump administration routinely produces instability and uncertainty for farmers and rural communities. While tariffs and rising healthcare costs are the primary sources of turbulence for farmers, the sources of chaos for farmers are everywhere in Wittman’s votes:

• Shrinking export markets as America’s relationships are damaged and retaliatory boycotts ensue, making prices drop

• Dismantling of federal agencies that once bought over $5 billion from US farmers, and unpredictable federal aid relief for farmers

• Sinking dollar exchange rates

• Continuing inflation and increasing costs of supplies and materials

• Spiraling business and weather insurance costs

• Intimidation and reduction of the migrant workforce farmers rely on

• Attacks on federal economic guardrails and institutions, such as the Federal Reserve, that create instability across the whole economy

Farmers are wondering if it’s worth staying in business as the federal government is weaponized against them in President Trump’s manufactured trade wars.

To see what Wittman has done to help farmers overcome the challenges, we looked at the biggest sources of chaos: tariffs and healthcare costs.

Tariff terrors threaten to sink farms

Agriculture is Virginia’s top industry, employing about 300,000 people. In VA-01, soybeans and grains are among the most-farmed crops. That makes VA-01 particularly vulnerable to chaotic economic and international trade policies. Trump’s tariffs have devastated once-healthy agricultural profits, transforming them into steep losses almost overnight.

Vague promises of federal subsidies can’t compensate for an unpredictable market, and farmers are skeptical of federal assurances of financial relief in the form of bridge payments that materialize too late or not at all. (And even if the payments appear, input costs will rise in response, reducing the effectiveness of those same payments!) At this point, many VA-01 farmers may have no choice but to liquidate their assets.

Wittman has failed to act to keep farmers from drowning. In 2025, some Congressional Republicans introduced or supported bills that would have provided relief for farmers in VA-01 by ending tariffs and/or requiring their explicit approval by Congress. Wittman was not among them.

Healthcare cuts hit farmers hard

Farming is extremely dangerous work by any measure. Farmers die at a rate of seven times the national average. They die by suicide at about twice the rate of the general population. They sustain injuries from toxic chemicals, exposure to the elements, and heavy machinery accidents, all of which result in steep costs from lost work in addition to medical expenses. Farmers’ very lives and livelihoods depend on having affordable, comprehensive health insurance.

27% of the agricultural workforce relies on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, but then Wittman broke the ACA. Now those same agricultural workers are overwhelmed by crippling medical debt and skyrocketing premiums that, in some cases, have quadrupled.

H. R. 1 also dictates that Marketplace enrollees must pay back health care subsidies at tax time if their farms do sufficiently well during the year. This places farmers in an impossible bind, forcing them to choose between a profitable farm business and essential healthcare subsidies.

Farmers need and deserve a representative who ensures access to reliable, affordable healthcare so they can focus their energy on their business instead of worrying about how they’re going to pay for their expensive premiums. Instead of ensuring stability, Wittman stirs the chaos pot. His H. R. 1 vote slashed Medicaid and increased health insurance costs, creating an untenable situation for rural hospitals and clinics — which stand to lose billions of dollars annually and could be forced to close — while simultaneously swelling the ranks of uninsured patients. Wittman knew multiple rural health facilities would be at risk of closing from Medicaid cuts, yet he still voted for H. R. 1.

Wittman also did not object to Trump’s illegal five-state funding freeze of childcare subsidies and family assistance funds in Democratic-run states. Now that Virginia has elected a Democratic governor, it’s not a stretch to expect that Virginia could be next.

A farming bust would lead to catastrophic job losses, closure of rural hospitals, and slashed social services, making it difficult or impossible for farmers and rural residents to survive tough times. Unfortunately for those farmers, Wittman is in no hurry to mitigate or in any way address the damage caused by his votes on healthcare bills.

Wittman’s “Farmageddon” is upon us

Wittman says, “Our nation’s farmers work tirelessly to keep the world fueled and fed.” But his words ring hollow. Instead he turns his back on farmers again and again as they are relentlessly pummeled by tariffs; the end of USAID; shrinking earnings; healthcare cuts; chaotic federal policies; rising costs; mental health crises; and government shutdowns. Wittman stands idly by, occasionally chatting with farmers and posing for photo ops, as all of the turmoil he’s voted for shatters the lives of farmers in VA-01.

How can Rob Wittman actually help Virginia’s farmers and rural communities? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

• Last week we wrote about how Wittman is an environmental catastrophe.

• On Tuesday we returned to our Myth of the Week series: Is Wittman a moderate? (Nope.)

• Scroll down to see this week’s social media roundup.

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“Fraud, waste, and abuse” is a go-to phrase for Republicans, including Rob Wittman, when they’re trying to justify attacks on the foundations of our country. Accusations of fraud — even when they have no merit — serve to undercut trust in institutions, and open the door to “reforms” that the public would otherwise reject. Under President Trump (and with Rob Wittman’s support), Medicaid, SNAP, the ACA, USAID, the Education Department, and many other programs and agencies have been accused of rampant “fraud, waste, and abuse,” and consequently shredded — with no evidence to support the pretext that supposedly justified their destruction.

For those who aim to accumulate and hold onto power, our system of elections is an inconvenient complication. People who have worked to destroy the values, principles, policies, and institutions that voters hold dear cannot tolerate the possibility (or probability!) of those same voters ejecting them from office. In that context, rigging the voting system becomes an essential tactic to retain power.

Lest there be any doubt about the Trump administration’s goals for the upcoming elections, just read what Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, said earlier this month:

“When it gets to Election Day, we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.”

— Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, February 13, 2026

Donald Trump has baselessly asserted that our voting systems are full of fraud. This isn’t new; the accusations began during his first term. The violent insurrection of January 6th, 2021 was the direct result of his disproven complaints that he lost because the election was somehow rigged. Since being re-elected in 2024 (via that same, supposedly fraud-ridden system), Trump has further amplified the accusations, and a complicit Republican majority in both houses of Congress has played along. The threat to our system of elections grows as Congress considers two new bills that will “reform” elections - with the same pattern of destruction in aid of the wealthy and powerful, at the grave expense of everyone else.

Voter fraud is a lie

If you’re at least 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, you’re eligible to vote. Each state has its own laws that govern its local, state, and federal elections. Most states require voters to register as residents in their states. Some states prevent individuals who are incarcerated, have been convicted of a felony, or have been determined to have a “mental incapacity” from voting. Otherwise, if you meet the requirements, you are an eligible voter. It is your right (and indeed your duty) to vote, because voting is the most vital and direct way in which we participate in and perpetuate our republic.

Trump and Rob Wittman have actively promoted the lie of “voter fraud” for years, with particular focus on alleged voting by non-citizens, and especially by immigrants who have entered the country illegally. In 2018 Wittman sent out a poll asking constituents if “citizenship should be required to vote,” even though U.S. citizenship is and has always been a requirement to vote in federal elections. He consistently supports “voter integrity” measures such as requiring documentary proof of citizenship, which U.S. states already handle effectively using existing processes. When Wittman voted for the Big Ugly Bill (H. R. 1), he stated that removing “deceased, ineligible, and non-citizen beneficiaries” from the voter rolls would “strengthen integrity.”

The facts are clear: accusations of rampant voter fraud are lies. The Brennan Center found only about 30 cases of voter inconsistencies — mainly resulting from confusion, not malice — out of 158 million votes cast in 2024. This is an error rate of 0.00001%. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation finds that voter fraud is an exceptionally rare phenomenon, affecting 0.001% of submitted ballots. Their voter fraud database found only 68 cases of undocumented immigrants voting since the 1980s. The existing system of shared responsibilities among federal, state, and local election officials assures multiple registration and voter roll checks to prevent illegal voting — which, by all measures, are working exactly as they should. An error rate of 0.00001% can be expressed another way: voting integrity measures are effective 99.99999% of the time — as close to perfect as can reasonably be managed. Illegal votes have never swayed elections one way or another. In other words: voter fraud is a lie.

Regardless, in March 2025, Trump signed an executive order to “nationalize” elections. He tried to walk it back, but the damage was done; Wittman and the Republican majority in the House validated his desires by proposing and passing legislation to disenfranchise voters, purge voter rolls, and make voting more difficult — all disguised as solutions to voter fraud problems that did not and do not exist.

Voter suppression in three Acts

Voter suppression attacks the two major steps of voting: how people register to vote, and how they cast their ballots. Three different bills are in play: the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, and the MEGA Act. The House and Senate have added amendments to each one to add more restrictions and fewer options for registration and voting. Here’s a summary of how the provisions of these bills compare and relate to one another.

Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act
(S. 128, passed the House in April 2025)

The SAVE Act focuses on voter registration. It introduces significant challenges, burdens, and confusion for voters and election officials. It also destroys the Constitutionally-mandated line between federal and state responsibilities.

• Requires in-person documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote

  • Birth certificate, U.S. passport, Consular Report of Birth Abroad, Certificate of Citizenship, or Naturalization Certificate

  • Online and mail registration become effectively impossible, since they still require in-person presentation of documents

• Requires in-person documentary proof of citizenship for any changes to registration, such as a change of address

  • Frequent movers must repeatedly locate and present original documents

• Married women who have taken their spouse’s name, and anyone who has had a legal name change, will face a major documentation mismatch problem when their birth certificate (or other citizenship document) does not match their married or changed name

The Brennan Center identifies the SAVE Act as the “worst voting law passed by Congress in recent memory.” A bipartisan group of 60 elected officials noted:

“The SAVE Act places an unfunded, unworkable, and legally risky burden on election administrators without offering the necessary resources of implementation support.”

In requiring changes to federal registration requirements, the Act would necessitate two separate sets of required paperwork: one for federal elections and another for state elections. That change would double the work for election officials, confuse voters, and lead to unwarranted delays and/or removal of eligible voters from the rolls.

The SAVE Act places new, unnecessarily stringent requirements on voters to provide official proof of citizenship in person.

• Many voters, especially rural voters and seniors, do not have access to paper copies of their birth certificates, or the means to acquire them.

• First-time voters would require official documentary proof of citizenship in addition to an approved ID in order to register to vote.

• Rural voters and voters with disabilities might have to travel long distances to present their proof of citizenship in person, since online or mail-in registration is prohibited.

• Voters who move even within the same state will be required to present documentation again when they update the address on their registrations. Approximately 9% of voters move within a state during the year, and may not update their driver’s licenses (which requires a fee) until they expire.

• Passports can be used but, according to the State Department, 52% of voters do not have a passport. Since new passports cost $165 (and a renewal costs $130), this provision is in effect a return to Jim Crow-era poll taxes.

• Any woman who has changed her name upon marriage will be unable to meet the requirement for her current legal name to match the name on her birth certificate. Pew Research suggests that 79-80% of married women in opposite-sex marriages take their spouses’ last names. This issue will affect approximately 69 million married women nationwide, and is a misogynistic encroachment on the voting rights of a huge segment of the population.

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And remember: these new requirements, new costs for citizens, and new inconveniences do not solve any real problem. It makes no sense to make registration harder when only 65% of eligible Americans voted in the last election. If anything, this low level of participation is an argument for making registration easier and simpler for eligible voters.

While the SAVE Act passed the House in 2025, it didn’t pass the Senate, so it was effectively dead. But then along came…

SAVE America Act (a.k.a. “the new SAVE Act”)
(S. 3752, passed the House in February 2026)

The SAVE America Act originated in the Senate in February. It builds on the framework of the original SAVE Act and adds even more layers of registration requirements, as well as complications to the voting process itself.

• Effectively eliminates online, mail‑in, and automatic registration

• Adds civil and criminal penalties for election officials who err in collecting all required documents, even if the person is in fact a citizen and eligible to vote

• Married women who face documentation mismatch would need a marriage certificate, divorce decree, or court order to connect their proof-of-citizenship document to their current legal name for registration

  • If unavailable, a married woman may present “an affidavit signed by the applicant attesting that the name on the documentation is a previous name of the applicant”; the Act says nothing about what form this “affidavit” might take, burdening the states with another unfunded mandate

  • Provides exceptions for absent military service members and their families

• Additional nationwide requirement to show government-issued photo ID when voting

  • Passport, driver’s license or state ID, military ID, some tribal IDs

  • If no photo ID, may vote via provisional ballot

• Voters who face the greatest registration and documentation challenges include Native Americans, naturalized citizens, low-income and rural voters, voters of color, and voters with disabilities

The SAVE America Act requires primary citizenship evidence to be presented upon registration: a birth certificate, a U.S. passport, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, a Certificate of Citizenship, or a Naturalization Certificate. The big difference between the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act is the additional requirement to present photo ID at the polls — but not just any photo ID. Acceptable photo IDs include a driver’s license that explicitly states U.S. citizenship (not a universal feature); a passport; a state ID; a military ID; or a tribal ID (but only if it contains a photo, an expiration date, and states U.S. citizenship, which most do not). A student ID — even one issued by a state university — is not valid for in-person voting in the state where the student attends school, nor is it valid for voting by mail in the state where the student permanently resides.

The final destructive blow is that the House version of this bill directs states to run their voter rolls through the Department of Homeland Security, forcing states to violate federal law that blocks sharing private information. Thus far, Virginia has refused to hand over unredacted voter rolls and is currently being sued by the Department of Justice.

The SAVE America Act takes what was awful about the SAVE Act and turns it up to 11.

Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act
(H. R. 7300; introduced in the House January 2026)

This focuses on the act of voting itself, while overlapping with the SAVE America Act’s registration requirements.

• Requires proof of citizenship at the polls, at the time of voting

  • Government-issued photo ID required

• Imposes national rules on mail ballots (received by close of polls on Election Day)

• Bans ballot harvesting

• Bans universal vote‑by‑mail

• Bans ranked‑choice voting in federal elections

• Mandates paper ballots

• Expanded enforcement mechanisms, including civil and criminal penalties for election officials

• Mandates centralized, official statewide voter registration databases as the controlling list for federal elections

• Ends the 90-day quiet period before elections, which was designed to protect voters from being thrown off the rolls shortly before an election

The radical and un-American MEGA Act imposes unfunded and burdensome mandates on state and local election officials. With drastically reduced personnel and reduced funding, local officials would be required to purge voter rolls every 30 days — a huge administrative hurdle. Meanwhile, the Trump administration cut $60 million from the 2025-2026 budget designated for election security and administrative support at the federal and state levels. In the U.S., there are about 10,000 voting districts and one million election officials. There has been a massive exodus of election officials since the Trump turmoil of the 2020 election. According to media sources, 36-39% of voting districts have lost local chiefs or directors of elections, 50% of Western states have lost local chiefs, and 50% of all election sites have lost volunteer workers. The 30-day voter purge is consequently entirely unworkable, even if it were necessary — which it most assuredly is not!

Local election officials deciding whether to accept or reject a voter’s documentation would open themselves and their offices up to lawsuits and dire consequences for honest mistakes, effectively incentivizing the rejection of legitimate documentation. Officials could be prosecuted for failure to collect, verify, and retain appropriate documentation from voters. Voters could sue for undue delay in processing registration materials. The act would impose unfunded mandates in that state and local officials would need to provide additional personnel and financial resources to verify and complete the registration and voting procedures.

The MEGA bill prohibits universal mail-in voting; states would no longer be permitted to send ballots automatically to all active registered voters. This would immediately affect eight states and Washington DC, which routinely mail ballots to registered voters. Military voters and those living abroad might not have a practical way to present in-person documentary proof of citizenship, particularly if they need to register or re-register as a voter. Also, the MEGA bill tightens restrictions on who is allowed to return a filled-out ballot, which would prevent civic and community organizations from collecting and delivering voters’ completed ballots.

The MEGA Act requires that ballots be received (not mailed) by the close of polls on Election Day. The U.S. Post Office’s aggressive cutting of mail service, along with the new policy that mail will no longer be postmarked the same day it is received by USPS, threatens the disenfranchisement of rural and low-income voters as well as citizens with disabilities.

The MEGA Act would ban ranked choice voting (RCV) in federal elections. RCV is a method by which voters rank candidates in order of preference. RCV was used in New York City for their latest mayoral race, and Maine and Alaska have used it for federal elections since 2018 and 2022 respectively. RCV offers voters greater representation of their views because it doesn’t limit voters to a two-party system. And this is likely why Republicans want to ban it: greater variety of choices would dilute their chances of a majority, even after suppressing votes.

Passing these bills would SAVE nothing and be a MEGA disaster for election integrity

If any of the suite of SAVE/MEGA bills were to pass, they would become law for the 2026 election — just a few months from now. This haphazard, ill-conceived, and dangerous legislation would unleash chaos on election offices nationwide, and impose burdens that many would-be voters will be unable to resolve in such a short time. And this is, of course, the point.

In his endorsement of the SAVE Act and its rotten tendrils, Wittman demonstrates his craven willingness to prevent legal and eligible voters from casting a ballot. He has consistently supported voter fraud and “election integrity” legislation, endorsed unneeded expansion of citizenship checks, and overemphasized election security. In 2021, he voted to void Pennsylvania’s electors and reluctantly accepted Biden’s win. He has voted in favor of the SAVE Act and SAVE America Acts, and regularly touts these votes to his constituents. His actions are mirrored by scores of Republican members of Congress nationwide.

In special elections and state races across the country, Republicans are being booted out of office by angry constituents. Voter suppression is the last-ditch strategy of a desperate party and administration — so fearful of voters that their only hope is to prevent millions of citizens from exercising their Constitutional right to vote. Trump said ominously in 2024 that “You won’t have to vote anymore.” Now the complicit Wittman stands ready to make these words a reality. In supporting these Acts, Wittman will permanently install an autocrat in the White House and give himself a paycheck for life — at the cost of your vote, our democracy, and the American republic.

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MYTH:

Rob Wittman is a moderate, common-sense conservative.

REALITY:

Wittman is hard-right MAGA.

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Rob Wittman wants us to see him as a steady, practical conservative, above partisan extremes. But when independent organizations and advocacy groups score his actual votes, he lands far to the right among his fellow members of Congress.

Wittman repeatedly sides with anti-worker rights groups, anti-LGBTQ organizations, absolutist anti-abortion activists, and extreme deregulation advocates. He is currently backing the SAVE America Act and MEGA Act, which aim to significantly restrict our voting rights and facilitate a federal takeover of elections. Wittman is not a reliable ally to the VA-01 farmers he represents, with his passive greenlighting of tariffs that destroyed their markets. Nor is he willing to protect older Americans’ Social Security or the Medicare that many families rely on. And he’s been complicit with the gutting of Medicaid, affordable healthcare, and access to hospitals.

The AFL‑CIO gave him a 5% score for 2024, and just 13% over the course of his career for his votes against workers’ rights and protections. The Alliance for Retired Americans and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare both give him a 0% score. That’s ZERO. The GovTrack project funded by the independent Civic Impulse puts Wittman in the top 6.7% of right-leaning representatives in the House.

There is nothing moderate about Wittman’s record. While he portrays himself as a moderate, he lines up obediently with the far-right policy agenda of Trump and Project 2025.

Voting to gut protections for workers

The AFL-CIO scorecard tracks Wittman’s abysmal voting record on worker protections going back to 2009, and all we have to do is look at a few recent votes to see that whenever workers’ rights conflict with corporate power, Wittman’s loyalties are with monied corporations, not the majority of people in VA-01. In the last two years alone, he has repeatedly voted for measures that weaken worker protections and empower large corporations.

Wittman backed the CHOICE Arrangement Act, which pushes bare-bones health plans that skip essential benefits like emergency care, maternity coverage, and prescription drugs. That’s the opposite of what we’d expect from a “family-focused” representative who wants the best for his constituents. These radical omissions from our healthcare coverage expose all of us to financial disaster when emergencies occur or babies arrive.

The Separation of Powers Restoration Act got Wittman’s support. This Act is designed to destroy the 1984 Chevron deference principle which mandates that when judges don’t fully understand a statute, they defer to the experts in the relevant agency. Federal agencies (are supposed to) employ scientists, engineers, and health experts to advise them on things like worker safety standards and consumer protections. This “Restoration” Act allows corporations to ignore the experts and find a sympathetic judge who will simply rule in their favor, essentially allowing corporations to cut corners on our safety to maximize their profits.

Wittman also voted for the REINS Act, which would block agencies from implementing protections for workers and regular citizens without rapid congressional approval — a subtle but super important move. It means that rules on things like our exposure to toxic chemicals, extreme heat, and toxic air and water pollution are subject to an automatic veto if both chambers of Congress don’t explicitly approve them. This is a sinister way to use the dysfunction of Congress to avoid the implementation of worker and citizen protections. It’s also a convenient way for lobbyists of powerful industries — some of whom might be among Wittman’s big donors — to stall protections.

Hard-line economic and social policy votes

On economic and social issues, Wittman’s voting record follows the same hard line. He has backed aggressive attempts to roll back health coverage, social supports, and reproductive rights — even when those efforts demonstrably threaten our health and wellbeing. He has repeatedly supported efforts to undo or undermine the Affordable Care Act — he voted against it 40 times! — despite the fact that it expanded coverage and consumer protections for millions, including over 34,300 in VA-01.

Wittman also voted for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which advances a sweeping anti-abortion agenda and moves federal law toward the frighteningly absolutist stance of the religious right.​ This would preclude medical intervention even when pregnancies go horribly wrong for mother and fetus, and would put the lives and safety of pregnant people at extreme risk. If you have any doubt he means business, just look at the NINE times he co-sponsored extreme personhood bills between 2007-2021, which grant full constitutional protections to a fetus at the moment of conception. That’s two cells with the same constitutional rights as you or I. This is by no means a “moderate” stance.

In the realm of fiscal policy, Wittman’s support for the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 signaled his willingness to embrace deep domestic cuts — billions of dollars slashed from programs that fund health care, food assistance, student debt relief, and veterans’ medical care. And of course, in recent months we’ve all watched him enthusiastically vote for H.R. 1, which slashed billions more from those important and life-saving programs while granting his corporate and wealthy donors the tax cuts they covet. Not coincidentally, only 1.5% of Wittman’s donations come from small individual contributions of $200 or less. In light of that fact, his extremist, corporate-friendly positions start to make a lot of sense.

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Immigration, border policy, and “open borders” rhetoric

Wittman has offered only praise of the Trump/Stephen Miller/Kristi Noem immigration enforcement tactics. His overtly enthusiastic support for ICE activity at the same time they were violently and aggressively operating in Minneapolis was truly nauseating.

Immigration enforcement is a necessary reality in every country. In America, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) has existed in some form since 1952 and has been amended multiple times. ICE was created after the establishment of the DHS in 2003, and the immigration laws authorize officers to arrest without a warrant if they have “reason to believe” an individual is removable and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, and then to detain that person. BUT the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable seizures and excessive force during an arrest. The tactics we’ve witnessed in Minneapolis have violated that amendment. Wittman should voice his concern, not support the aggression. The Secure the Border Act of 2023, for which Wittman voted, further amended immigration law focusing solely on punitive enforcement initiatives, significantly expanding immigration detention, and removal; and restricting asylum options and reducing protections for children.

The result is that as noncitizen immigrants are detained, families are left terrified, often unable to locate their loved ones for days, and at times financially destitute. This approach harms all workers, regardless of immigration status, and the businesses they own or for which they work. It drives people into the shadows, makes them afraid to seek help when crime happens, and prevents them from seeking necessary healthcare for fear of abduction. Wittman could have backed reforms that pair enforcement with worker protections and humanitarian safeguards.​ He could have pushed and voted for 2024’s proposed bipartisan immigration bill, which would have stemmed immigration and even would have enacted some of Trump’s original immigration initiatives, such as construction of the border wall. Instead, alongside his fellow MAGA acolytes, he bowed to Trump’s demands to kill the bill in order to keep immigration a campaign issue in 2024.

Elections, democracy, and the Trump-era right

Wittman’s posture on democracy and elections also underscores just how closely he tracks with Trump-era extremism. After the 2020 election, he joined efforts to object to the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, lending credence to the Big Lie that the election was somehow illegitimate, even as multiple courts and state officials upheld its integrity. When questioned, Wittman tried to present his objection as a routine “debate,” but objections like his were central to a coordinated effort to cast doubt on a lawful, certified election.​ Even though Wittman described the events of January 6, 2021 as “completely unacceptable, undemocratic, un-American, and criminal,” he nevertheless refused to impeach Trump on the grounds that “impeaching the lame-duck President before the peaceful transition of power occurs [would] only further inflame emotions and further divide the Nation.”

Wittman voted for H. R. 7109, which would add intimidating questions about immigration status to the census. It aims to discourage immigrant participation, thereby undermining an accurate count that communities rely on for fair representation and funding.​

Wittman also backed H. R. 9495, a bill allowing the Treasury Department to strip tax‑exempt status from nonprofits (including unions), based solely on unsubstantiated accusations and without a fair hearing. This would give the President a powerful tool to punish and silence dissent.

Wittman’s votes in January 2020 have a direct line to the administration’s new, larger attempts to stifle voting. At this moment, Wittman is a big supporter of the SAVE America Act, which would impose burdensome proof‑of‑citizenship requirements to vote (not just to register to vote) and create new hurdles for many eligible American citizens — especially working‑class voters with less time, less money, and less access to documentation. To be clear, registration will require a passport, birth certificate, or military ID. And if the name on a person’s current ID doesn’t match those other documents (due to a legal name change, for instance), they will not be able to register to vote, despite being legally eligible. Wittman also just voted for the related MEGA Act, which even the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute warns would threaten state authority and control over elections. This suite of acts seeks to solve virtually non-existent “voter fraud” by curtailing voting rights and mail-in voting, eliminating registration by mail, and disenfranchising many groups including military voters, married women, and rural, disabled, trans, and elderly voters.

Far-right and dangerously reshaping our lives

The gap between how Wittman tries to market his brand and his actual voting record could not be more stark. He tries to claim he is a common-sense conservative. But when you strip away the selectively-worded, boastful press releases, the condescending constituent letters, and the performative photo ops and look at how he actually votes, what emerges is far from moderation. It is in fact a consistent vote for the far-right project reshaping American lives, communities, law and politics — at our expense.​

Wittman is not a moderate conservative. He is a radical member of the MAGA operation that aims to steal power, keep it, and do to you whatever they want, for their own gain and profit.

What do you think about Wittman’s faux-moderate posturing? Let us know by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

• Last week we wrote about how Wittman serves big donors instead of us.

• State of the Race: On Tuesday we paused our Myth of the Week series to bring you an important Virginia election/redistricting update. (Myth of the Week will be back next week!)

• You’ll find this week’s social media roundup here.

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Virginia’s First District is rich in natural resources that benefit us all. Responsible and effective stewardship of these critical resources is a job for all of us — including and especially VA-01 Congressman Rob Wittman. Environmental damage over the decades suggests that we must all do better, particularly the elected officials who have influence and power. Every Virginian is entitled to a healthy community, environmental stability, and a sustainable future. What has Wittman done in service of those goals?

Virginia’s environment in and around VA-01

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the country. Historically, it’s been plagued by pollution, habitat loss, and overfishing. The Chesapeake Bay Agreement of 1983 launched a decades-long restoration effort. In 2025, the governors of both Virginia and Maryland recommitted to the program. But the Trump Administration’s drastic budget cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), deregulation efforts, and rollback of the Clean Water Act threaten the Bay anew.

Climate change has already affected Virginia; a 2025 Virginia Climate Assessment by the state’s scientists “warns of rising heat, worsening flooding and economic losses.” The storm surges, heat waves, and tidal flooding in our future will have the greatest impact on historically marginalized, economically vulnerable communities.

The James River is one of Virginia’s most prominent landmarks, yet its history of pollution has harmed Virginians’ health and reduced our life expectancy. Currently, dozens of commercial businesses — including Honeywell and AdvanSix — can legally dump waste into the James River. Farms and residential areas leak nitrogen and phosphorus into the waterways.

Wetlands are the natural and critical infrastructure of Virginia’s shorelines. The EPA loosened regulations on wetlands despite Virginia’s loss of wetlands happening sooner than expected. Legislation is desperately needed to help preserve our wetlands before we lose them permanently.

Data center dangers

Virginia is known as the data center capital of the world, and this comes at a staggering environmental cost. Even as these specialized facilities process the data we use in our daily lives, they harm our environment in multiple ways:

• Air, water, and noise pollution

• Damage to ecosystems

• High resource demands (water and energy usage, land depletion)

• Health risks from “forever chemicals” (PFAS)

• Environmental injustice from data center concentration in low-income/historically marginalized communities

Data center companies may claim that they target rural areas for job creation purposes, but in reality it’s for the “lower construction costs, abundant land… network connectivity and access to reliable, affordable electricity.” The result is large-scale environmental damage and disruption of Virginia’s rural landscapes.

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The Omega Protein problem

Wittman likes to pose with his bright yellow hard hat to fool us into thinking he’s protecting the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem along with Virginia’s economic interests. Don’t fall for his act. This poser ignores fish conservationists who have long been sounding the alarm about Omega Protein’s harmful fishing practices and damage to menhaden fish stocks.

He expresses no concern that the company is channeling profits to a Canadian company rather than Virginia. Why? We have to speculate, but certain facts may be indicative of his intentions. Wittman has received donations from Omega Protein since 2006. His son, according to his Facebook profile, works for Omega Protein. His wife and son responded to a petition in April 2025 about imposing restrictions on Omega Protein’s menhaden fishing in Virginia (search for “Wittman” in the PDF). It certainly seems like Wittman’s family is benefiting from Omega Protein’s continued operations and are eager for that to continue.

Yet Virginians understand the stakes — 92% of voters support “increased protection of menhaden.” This situation is yet another example of Wittman putting big business and foreign interests over his constituents, fisherpeople, and the First District’s environment.

Rather than putting restrictions on Omega Protein, Wittman allowed them to wreak havoc on wildlife such as ospreys, dolphins, and bald eagles. Lawmakers in the General Assembly, and notably not Wittman, are considering legislative action to halt Omega Protein’s harmful practices until science can establish what’s actually happening in the Bay.

What has Wittman done for Virginia’s environment?

Wittman says he values conservation and the environment. He’s a self-described “lifelong conservationist” and talks up his environmental credentials. When he was appointed as the Vice Chairperson of the House Natural Resources Committee, he pointedly mentioned his background as a former marine scientist. Wittman also co-chairs the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Taskforce. He often refers to his fishing hobby, and we’ve seen the fish decorating his office walls in his many photo ops.

To date, Wittman claims to have:

• Led the effort to maintain the Chesapeake Bay Program

• Introduced four renewable energy bills in 2011 (a whopping 15 years ago)

• Introduced the Chesapeake Bay Accountability and Recovery Act and America’s Conservation Enhancement Reauthorization Act, which were signed into law

• Introduced bills to protect against coastal flooding, support wildlife, and protect wetlands

Despite what Wittman says he accomplished, the evidence shows that his claims aren’t supported by his votes or his behavior.

During his tenure, Wittman:

• Voted in 2022 against the Inflation Reduction Act that funded renewable energy across America. Later, he hypocritically took credit for the Port of Virginia infrastructure funded by that very same Act!

• Voted to roll back clean water safeguards, threatening our drinking water, the wetlands that protect our ecosystems and communities, and the rivers we fish.

• Voted against electric vehicle tax credits

• Voted to increase our exposure to lead. Scientists proved that lead is toxic to humans, which is why the EPA cracked down on lead products in the 1970s.

  • To make matters worse, President Trump’s EPA might loosen enforcement of the 2024 Lead and Cooper rule requiring water systems to replace old lead pipes. Yet Wittman still prioritized the “need” of sportsmen to hunt and fish over our health.

Just last week, Wittman stayed silent as Trump unlawfully and unilaterally repealed the Endangerment Act, the 2009 landmark legal and scientific ruling that determined that greenhouse gases and climate pollution pose a serious public health threat. This is the backbone of all measures aimed at preventing climate catastrophe. As a public health and marine science professional, Wittman has to know this is reckless. It endangers all of Virginia’s natural resources and puts people in peril as we face extreme weather events..

More evidence: the League of Conservation Voters gave Wittman the abysmal score of 3% in 2024. In that year alone, he recorded 33 anti-environment votes. Clearly he’s focused on short-term gains that benefit himself and his donors. The evidence proves that Wittman is woefully underperforming on environmentalism and conservation. Instead of preserving Virginia’s environment for future generations AND creating economic benefit for all of us, he seems happy to hook a largemouth bass and rake in the donations from corporations that destroy the natural resources from which they profit – leaving VA-01 to live with and clean up their mess.

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How much money does it take to buy Wittman’s loyalty?

Just between 2023 and 2024, Wittman — shall we call him PAC-man? — gobbled up $982,346 in PAC donations. $68,000 of that came from oil and gas, mining, chemical & manufacturing, and electric utilities.

Chemical & related manufacturing

• Advansix Inc.: $2,500 (yes, the very same Advansix that’s dumping waste into the James River!)

• DuPont Co: $10,000

Electric utilities

• BWX Technologies (nuclear energy): $10,000

• Dominion Energy: $10,000

• Natural Rural Electric Cooperative Assn: $3,500

Oil & gas

• Chevron Corp: $2,500

• Crowley Maritime: $2,000

• GE Aerospace: $9,500

• Halliburton Co: $2,500

• Saltchuk Resources: $2,500

• Southern Co Gas: $7,500

• Valero Energy: $2,500

• Washington Gas Light Co: $1,000

• Williams Companies: $1,000

Mining

• National Mining Association: $1,000

Wittman received $17,000 in PAC donations from fisheries and wildlife organizations, but that’s a paltry amount compared to what his campaign raked in from Big Energy donors and reveals where his true loyalty lies.

[Data via Open Secrets: PAC $ from “Natural and Energy Resources” from 2023-2024 (Based on Federal Election Commission data available electronically on February 06, 2025)]

Wittman enriches himself with Big Energy stocks and utility rate hikes

Wittman not only takes money from Big Energy — he actively invests in it. He has purchased stocks in one Big Energy company after another: Dominion Energy, Chevron Corporation, WEC Energy Group, Nextera Energy, Duke Energy, and PEPCO Holdings.

He pretends to care about “lowering energy costs for families,” but stands idly by while utility rate hikes are actually increasing Virginians’ energy bills by hundreds of dollars.

Electric bills have jumped 13% since President Trump took office, inflicting economic pain on the people of VA-01 — but Wittman actually stands to benefit from a utility rate hike:

“Public financial disclosures show Wittman owning up to $15,000 in NextEra Energy stock, the world’s largest electric utility holding company.”

Then he had the gall to blame data centers for the rate hike when in fact it was spurred in part by “the Trump administration canceling $53.05 billion in clean energy investments.”

Adding fuel to the fire, Wittman’s H. R. 1 vote put polluters above people and spurred construction of data centers across the country. He double dips by taking Big Energy PAC donations and profiting from his stocks in fossil fuel companies. And we First District residents are paying the price — with our money, quality of life, environment, and health.

Wittman gaslights us by insisting that fossil fuels are necessary, even though renewable energy can be utilized at a fraction of the cost and time. Renewable energy also doesn’t demand the sacrifice of constituents’ health and well-being. But Wittman would rather line his pockets with money from Big Energy donors and stock investments.

What’s Wittman’s problem with renewable energy?

Wittman implies that clean air, clean water, and environmental protections can only be achieved at the expense of economic prosperity and national security. That’s both simplistic and wrong. The complex reality is that the nation’s economy, security, and environmental issues are interlinked in a number of ways.

Green energy is good for Virginia’s economy. For example, the EPA’s Solar for All program was designed to expand solar projects, create new jobs, and lower energy bills. We save money from energy efficiency measures, and less pollution means healthier families (which also saves money in medical bills) and more resilient communities.

Transitioning to green energy can co-exist with accommodating profit-seeking utility companies and Big Tech. One strategy to create a win-win is to strengthen current environmental laws. Another is Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which not only improved public health, but also provided a huge windfall in proceeds to protect vulnerable communities from flooding; upgrade inefficient housing; fund affordable, energy-efficient housing; and reduce the energy bills of low-income families. All of that is compatible with companies like Dominion generating higher profits.

Wittman claims to support policies that promote “clean energy” (the name itself a deliberate deception) — and notably not green energy. This distinction is important. What’s the difference?

Green energy comes from renewable energy resources like wind and solar and causes minimal environmental impact. It also can’t be monopolized — what Wittman calls “clean energy” (think gas and nuclear) can be monopolized. So Wittman supports the monopolization of “clean” energy on behalf of his fossil fuel and Big Tech donors, who stand to profit from heavy industry projects like nuclear reactors.

Wittman touts the benefits of wind energy, but when the Trump Administration tried to block Virginia’s offshore wind project (CVOW), he didn’t object; he only pledged to “remain engaged with the Department of Interior” about the problem. Go get ‘em, tiger.

At the same time, Wittman would love for us to believe he’s an advocate for wind energy and the prosperity it will bring to VA-01. So he wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth gently requesting, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, that Hegseth please, kindly, ever-so-sweetly justify why he and President Trump put $11 billion of investment and Virginia jobs at risk. Utter hypocrisy.

Wittman is gung-ho for gas energy even as environmental groups oppose Dominion Energy’s plans for a gas plant, which would release deadly air pollutants. The State Corporation Commission cleared the way for it in 2025. When built, some of Wittman’s constituents will be at risk of suffering health problems from air pollution generated by the gas plant. Does anyone imagine Wittman will help them access free treatment for a condition they couldn’t avoid, and that he did nothing to prevent? We’re not holding our breath.

The deadly cost of American energy independence

Rob Wittman believes in an “America First energy strategy,” an isolationist and zero-sum approach. He thinks we should have “responsible energy independence” and diversify our oil and gas supply to “prepare for potential energy emergencies.” Is that why he is against low-cost green energy and commended the Trump administration for illegally invading Venezuela to seize its crude oil? And what does he mean by his ominous warning of “potential energy emergencies”? Is that a real danger, or a false threat that gives him an excuse to enrich the fossil fuel industry and himself in the process?

The U.S. military killed fishermen in the lead up to the Venezuelan oil seizure, and Wittman did nothing to stop it. People died, supposedly for America’s energy needs — a cost no one with a moral compass wants to pay. Filling our cars with gas shouldn’t ever be paid for in blood.

A hypocrite, not a champion

It’s clear that Wittman has barely lifted a finger to stop ongoing pollution, erosion, and climate change problems, nor to stem the latest tidal wave of attacks on Virginia from the Trump administration. Instead, he paves the way for Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry to bulldoze VA-01’s most precious resources and exploit them, for their gain as well as his own. He’s working for THEIR interests, not ours — even though we, his constituents, live in the communities and on the land affected by these problems and policies. His “environmentalist” claims are hypocritical and cynical attempts to dupe voters, simply so he and his buddies can continue making profits at our expense.

How can Wittman — or his successor — protect the environment and people of VA-01 while boosting the economy? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

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Our social media channels respond quickest to whatever Wittman does or says. Here’s a selection from the past week. Click on each post to see them on BlueSky (no account necessary). Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to get immediate updates each time we post.

We sent Rob Wittman 24 valentines in 24 hours for Valentine’s Day. Here’s one; you can see the other 23 here (scroll up on the BlueSky page).

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Myth of the Week will return next Tuesday.

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We posted about the state of the VA-01 election in January, and a lot has happened since, so it’s time for an update. We’ll cover:

• Virginia’s redistricting

• The candidates remaining in the race

• Dates and deadlines you need to know

New map! New map!

It looks likely that Virginia’s Congressional district maps are going to change. VPAP has an outstanding collection of resources on this, including a search that’ll show you what district you’ll be in should these maps be passed. But how exactly will these maps be passed (or not), and when?

The new map was released on February 5th. It now needs to be voted on through the legislature and signed into law by Governor Spanberger. Assuming that happens, there will be a special statewide referendum on April 21st where you will vote for or against the redistricting. Should the people of Virginia vote for it - and the Virginia Supreme Court doesn’t rule against the whole effort - the new map will go into effect for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 congressional elections.

The legislature has not given itself the power to continue to redraw maps. That power will expire after 2030, when the new census will be taken and the process will return to that which exists today, which means the independent Commission will be responsible for all maps.

A shifting candidate landscape

Since our last update on the state of the VA-01 race, Lisa Vedernikova Khanna has dropped out of the race while just last week Jacob Roginsky became an official candidate for the First District. Here are all the ways (that we know of) you can find them:

We’re in something of a limbo state right now, since the districts could change significantly as of April 22nd. Inevitably, there are big questions as to how the electoral competitions may shape up. If the maps don’t pass, the field of candidates for VA-01 will remain as it is now. If the maps DO pass, we have limited info on how the candidacies will change. Some candidates have already announced their intentions for that scenario; others haven’t yet. Here’s what we understand so far if the new maps go into effect:

• Elizabeth Dempsey-Beggs will stay in the new VA-01

• Salaam Bhatti, Shannon Taylor, and Mel Tull will switch to the new VA-05

• Lewis Littlepage will switch to the new VA-08

• Tim Cywinski and Ericka Kopp support the new maps but haven’t said what they’ll do if they pass

• Jacob Roginsky hasn’t announced his intentions

• Rob Wittman hypocritically opposes the maps and hasn’t announced what he’ll do if they pass.

Some are speculating that, if the maps are passed, Wittman will retire rather than try to compete in the new VA-01 or VA-08. We’re not so sure. In any case, the competition in VA-01 or any of the three new districts will be more significant than Wittman has ever encountered in his career.

The dates you need to know, and what to do NOW

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There will be three elections in Virginia this year:

• Special statewide referendum

• Democratic Party primary (there is no Republican primary because no other Republican is running against Wittman)

• US federal elections for the House of Representatives

The table above has all the dates for each election. The action starts as early as March 6th! So here’s what you need to do now:

1. Register to vote! All the instructions are here. You can do it online or at multiple convenient locations across the state.

2. Encourage your family and friends to register to vote! Make it a party - have a coffee or hardier beverage, grab your laptops/phones, and get it done. Or go do it in person, together. Get prepped to exercise your democratic rights as US citizens!

3. Find out where you can vote in person! The polling place finder makes this simple. Enter your details and it’ll tell you exactly where to go on Election Day.

4. Help get candidates on the ballot! People can’t just ask to be on electoral ballots. They need to show the community supports their candidacy by getting signatures on petitions. There have been and will continue to be multiple petition-signing events, so look out for those and ensure your favored candidates are on the ballots. (This only applies to the Democratic primary this year.)

5. Vote early! Early in-person voting is tremendously convenient. All the info is here. You can vote early at many locations across the state (usually not your polling place!), which are controlled by your local registrar, and this site lets you find contact details for those excellent people.

6. Vote early - by mail! Won’t be in town on Election Day, or just want to get this done now? No problem: request your absentee ballot and submit it early. You can request your absentee ballot right here.

7. Vote on Election Day! If you haven’t voted early in-person or by mail, you can stroll up to your local polling place on Election Day and cast your vote. You’ll get a sticker, a glow of satisfaction, and the knowledge that you’ve done your part as an American citizen.

That’s not so complicated, right? There are moves afoot to make voting more complicated — the so-called “SAVE America Act” and “Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act.” Wittman has already voted for the former, and he’ll likely do the same for the latter, because they would skew the Republican Party’s chances of winning to a possibly insurmountable degree. These costly and unnecessary Acts address a voter fraud problem that simply doesn’t exist. They’d eliminate mail-in voting, and would jeopardize the votes of the military, married women, and elderly, disabled, rural, and overseas Americans. The SAVE America and MEGA Acts should not be passed by Congress because they rip away people’s voting rights for no reason. Tell your representatives that!

Strange times

These are certainly strange times in which we live. The redistricting maps add to the turbulence, but the process is still reasonably straightforward.

Ten people, including Wittman, are running in VA-01 right now. In the comments, let us know your thoughts about the race and how candidates can best beat Wittman, no matter which district he runs in. You can also comment on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and Reddit.

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On 12 February Rob Wittman was a guest on the John Fredericks Show, “America’s Godzilla of the TRUTH!”, apparently. This is Wittman in his favorite environment: among fellow conservatives. So we took some notes. Here’s what he said. First, here’s the video if you’d like to watch it.

The other guests were Chris Saxman (former VA Delegate for HD-20 (Staunton)), Iowa State Representative Steve Holt, and Iowa State Representative Eddie Andrews, who’s a candidate for Governor there this year.

Next Chair of the House Armed Services Committee?

Fredericks asserted that Wittman “will be the next Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most powerful positions in government, especially under President Trump.” The idea that Wittman would be in charge of the ASC should terrify anyone who values integrity and backbone.

Filibuster

Wittman advocates a return to a speaking filibuster in the Senate. He believes the Senate can (should?) change the rules for specific votes, such as that for DHS funding, as he doesn’t doubt that the Democrats will eliminate the filibuster entirely if they win a majority.

(Fact break: Democrats could have eliminated the filibuster in 2009-2010, 2013-2014, and 2021-2022. But they didn’t, as they rightfully feared how Republicans could use that power once they regained the majority. The Dems did change the rules in 2013 for executive branch and lower court nominations, and in 2017 Republicans extended that to Supreme Court nominations. No party has eliminated the filibuster to apply to regular legislation. So while the fear that Wittman mentioned could happen, it hasn’t yet occurred despite several opportunities to do so. What’s happened that makes them think it’s more likely now, we wonder?)

Wittman expressed fears that, if the Senate doesn’t change the rules and pass whatever they want, voters will think that the Republican majority didn’t get anything done during this term.

The fact that Wittman is even suggesting that Democrats might win a majority in the Senate is astounding compared to where things were just a year ago. Wittman believes a Democratic majority in the Senate is possible and already fears the consequences.

This fear was amped up as Fredericks commented that Democrats are “radical whack jobs.” We don’t often use emojis on here but: 🙄 seems appropriate.

Tariffs

This just floored us. Wittman said that tariffs are too complex for Congress to debate, so it’s wise to hand Trump all that power. Congress can step in when they feel it necessary, Wittman suggested, but otherwise the Executive is best placed to handle tariffs.

Essentially, Wittman believes that the deliberative process that the Constitution designed in and assigned to Congress is too much for Congress to handle. So he advocates just… giving it up.

The lack of respect and adherence to the Constitution is simply incredible, especially from a nine-term member of Congress. He’s clearly unwilling or unable to do the job he’s been elected to do.

Epstein Files

“Transparency is the best thing,” Wittman said, and noted that whole documents shouldn’t be redacted. He expressed concern that innocent people’s names not be released in the files, but also noted that redacting those names is “easy.”

He’s not once questioned DOJ AG Bondi’s failure on all these counts, or her failure to redact the names of victims of Epstein, which should have been “easy.”

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Virginia Redistricting

Host Fredericks said that he suspects Virginia is being redistricted to target Wittman. Aside from the transparent pandering to his guest, clearly he hasn’t seen the election results from last year. VA-01 is competitive with or without redistricting!

When this show was recorded, the Virginia Supreme Court hadn’t handed down its ruling that the referendum can proceed, and that they’d rule on the redistricting attempt after the election. But Wittman predicted during this show that the Supreme Court wouldn’t undermine the lower court decision, and wanted a ruling before early voting starts. He was likely disappointed last Friday evening!

Rob said that, if redistricting proceeds, Republican voices will be silenced, “and also independents!” he added quickly. Wittman said that Democrats believe that what happened in Texas was wrong, and now they’re righting a wrong with another wrong. It’s “irrational and contradictory,” he said.

At Wittman Watch, we believe that when Virginians voted for an independent redistricting commission in 2020, America looked very different than today. The events of 2025 have changed an incredible amount — including Virginians’ understanding of how other states have super-sized their weaponization of redistricting for political gain. Wittman is choosing to ignore these facts, and playing the conservative card of “respect the institutions!” while his party and this president lay waste to government agencies, legal precedent, and established policy. So his wailing complaints ring very hollow. In fact, they’re disgustingly hypocritical.

Upcoming Election

“Can Republicans hold the House?” Fredericks asked. Wittman was unequivocal: “Absolutely.” He believes that the Trump-led return to a manufacturing economy will bring prosperity again. Wittman’s claim is, of course, merely a hopeful fantasy. In 2025, the US added just 5,000 manufacturing jobs, and only 130,000 jobs overall. For comparison: in 2024 the US added 1.46 million new jobs…. but don’t mention Biden!

He said this year’s tax refunds will be “impactful for families,” and that Republicans have “done good things on healthcare with more to come.” (We know that’s all a load of nonsense.) He acknowledged that people need to sense for themselves that things are getting better. Ironically, he noted that this one place where Biden’s campaign failed: the economy was improving but people didn’t feel it yet, and voted the Dems out.

But we thought Trump won because he’s an unstoppable force of nature? Hmm!

ICE, and “removing the 20 million illegals Biden let in”

Wittman struck a relatively balanced note here…mostly.

He reported that VA-01 constituents want people who are here illegally and have committed crimes to be deported. Similarly, if someone entered illegally, was deported, and then returned illegally, they must also be permanently deported.

“What about the other 20m?” Fredericks asked. We must “find another way to deal with that,” said Wittman. He noted that people who have entered the US illegally are contributing to the economy, so we must look at people on a case by case basis. If “these people” are contributing to society, and paying taxes, “we need to find a way to keep those people here.” He also had a note of alarm: “The economy would flip upside down if those people were to be deported. “

But he’s not in favor of amnesty. “No. Absolutely not.” People need to be accountable for breaking the law, he said, but the immigration system is broken. He wants Congress to create legal pathways so people who have entered illegally and contribute to the economy can be here legally. He emphasized that we shouldn’t grant citizenship to these individuals but ensure people have legal status, so they don’t have to look over their shoulder all the time. He stressed, “We need these individuals for the economy.”

(Fact break: This is not a new idea. The Registry Act of 1929 allowed certain people who had entered before 1921 and were of “good moral character” to register as permanent residents despite lacking proper authorization. In 1986, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which was a lot like the 1929 Act. In 1990 Congress wrote the Immigration Act, signed by George H. W. Bush, which created Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that applied to nationals of certain countries. And of course there is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), signed by Obama in 2012. Wittman could have voted to make TPS and DACA permanent, under the DREAM Act of 2019, but instead he voted No. If Wittman were actually in favor of what he says he’s in favor of, he would have at least voted in favor or DACA and TPS. He didn’t. Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe.)

Rob has only endorsed what ICE has been doing, in Minnesota and across the country, despite all evidence showing the arrest of US citizens, people who have committed no crimes, and the murders of citizens.

We wonder whether his moderate tone here reflects the positions he takes in more private conversations. Sadly we’ll never know because we’re not among Wittman’s favored company.

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An underlying tone of fear and delusion

As we watched this video, we were struck by two things.

First, an undertone of fear pervaded the entire show: fear of gerrymandering, voter impressions, Democrat rule-making in the Senate, and election loss. Wittman and his peers are playing defense.

Second, Wittman’s beliefs aren’t bound to facts. His assertion that a return to manufacturing will bring prosperity is hopeful fantasy. His statements on how illegal immigration should be handled are completely misaligned with Trump/Miller’s policies, and his own votes. His position on Congress’s role in setting tariffs is unconstitutional. Name a belief or position and it isn’t backed up by the facts.

Fredericks noted that Wittman has a Ph.D. “I call him Dr. Wittman,” he said. As a scientist, Rob knows objective facts don’t lie. So how can he hold these beliefs? Is he delusional? Or is Wittman choosing to ignore the facts? And, if so, why is he doing that?

Tell us what you think in the comments.

• Last week we wrote about why Wittman refuses to hold town hall meetings.

• On Tuesday we continued our Myth of the Week series: Does Wittman help families?

• Scroll down to see our social media roundup for the week.

(This post was updated on 17 February to include data about candidate Jason Knapp.)

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He who pays the piper calls the tune. So who pays Wittman? We looked at his campaign finance filings to find out, and the answer is: almost no individuals in VA-01 at all, and mostly defense companies and single-issue lobbyists. What does that mean? Wittman doesn’t feel accountable to us, the regular people of VA-01.

In the American political system, money does buy influence. Every electoral candidate’s campaign files quarterly financial reports with the FEC. The reports identify which individuals and organizations contributed to each candidate, as well as when and how much. An examination of these facts shows us where a candidate’s loyalties lie.

(Note: The latest campaign finance reports preceded the release of Virginia’s proposed redistricting maps, which won’t be approved before late April. Until the new maps are finalized or discarded, we’ll continue to compare Wittman to the Democratic candidates running in VA-01 as it exists today.)

When we take a look at the numbers, there are some very clear conclusions to draw from Wittman’s campaign funding.

Wittman has minimal popular support in VA-01

** Grassroots support for Wittman is astonishingly low. Just 1.5% of his funds came from individuals donating less than $200. A typical candidate might get 15-20% from small donors. Wittman’s 1.5% is a damning indictment of how disconnected he is from people in VA-01.

Defense companies pay to play — conflicts of interest be damned

The FEC lists the individuals and entities that donate to candidates, but it doesn’t code them by industry. Fortunately, OpenSecrets.org does! They’re working on the 2025 data now, but we can see from 2024 data that 21% of Wittman’s money came from defense or defense aerospace companies (and individuals associated with those industries). Wittman is Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Surely Wittman wouldn’t accept money from companies whose work he oversees as a legislator…? Come on, you know the answer to that. Even worse: many of these corporate donors aren’t even based in Virginia, let alone the First District, so his influence is being bought to benefit people he doesn’t even represent!

Lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PACs) use their funds to influence Wittman

The Netanyahu-supporting American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was his second-largest contributor organization. Is it coincidental that Wittman has supported Israel military aid packages and NDAA provisions funding joint U.S.-Israeli military AI development? No, we don’t think so, either.

Wealthy folks donate heavily. People associated with defense, real estate, and finance/insurance, as well as retirees, dominate his individual donations.

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Cash advantage but diminishing grassroots momentum

Wittman has large cash reserves…

… But he lacks momentum for November.

Wittman has $3.2 million on hand right now, but he raised only $309,356 in Q4. Shannon Taylor alone raised $376,520 in that same time period.

Wittman’s fundraising efforts are slowing down just when we would expect them to be accelerating

In Q4, he raised 12.5% of his whole year’s funds, while Taylor got 49.1%, Melvin Tull achieved 28.9%, Salaam Bhatti hit 19.2%, and Jason Knapp kicked off his campaign fundraising. As a group, Wittman’s opponents handily outraised him in Q4. Remember: Wittman’s an incumbent whose party has the House majority, the Senate majority, AND the Presidency. He should be raking in the donations right now in the run-up to the election, but he’s not — contributions are slowing down. That’s an ominous sign for Wittman’s ambitions to retain our seat in Congress, whether or not Virginia is redistricted.

Wittman’s money comes from large donors, organizations, and companies he oversees as a legislator, as well as from lobbyists — and almost nothing comes from grassroots contributions from the people of VA-01.

It’s clear that regular people haven’t given Wittman money. But do they give anyone money? Yes — they absolutely do!

Regular people in VA-01 overwhelmingly favor Wittman’s opponents

Let’s look at some of the candidates running against Wittman whose data was made available by the FEC. (Data for Jason Knapp was not complete at the time of our initial review, and we added it on 2/17/26; Elizabeth Dempsey-Beggs, Ericka Kopp, Tim Cywinski, and Lewis Littlepage had minimal or zero donations in the past quarter.)

• Shannon Taylor: 17.4% of her funds came from individuals donating less than $200 (look for “Unitemized individual contributions” on the report, and divide that by “Total receipts”).

• Melvin Tull, Jason Knapp, and Salaam Bhatti: 17.3%, 20.4%, and 27.5% respectively.

So Taylor, Tull, Knapp, and Bhatti are handily meeting or (in Bhatti’s case) exceeding expectations on their share of small donors, which is extremely promising.

Of these donations, most arise from the reputations and professional backgrounds of the candidates — Taylor as a prosecutor, Tull as a business lawyer, Knapp as a veteran and business owner, and Bhatti as a public interest lawyer — and the local VA-01 communities in which they’ve served and worked. Donations are also coming from professional organizations such as legal professional groups. These are candidates who know and are powered by the people they aim to serve — the exact opposite of Rob Wittman, who refuses to even hold a town hall in our district.

Accountability is key

If we want to uphold and improve America’s democracy, we need to begin with what the people of VA-01 want and need, NOT what Wittman’s big donors and puppet-masters are paying him to deliver.

So what do you want? Wittman, who relies on PACs and defense‑industry money, and doesn’t try to listen to regular people in VA-01 at all? Or someone like Taylor, Tull, or Bhatti, whose fundraising is driven by small contributions, local professionals, and communities whose identities and livelihoods are directly tied to the issues at stake?

Money isn’t the whole story. But it is the clearest, most verifiable sign of whose calls get answered first by whoever occupies VA-01’s seat in Congress. The fundraising data makes one thing undeniable:

Wittman has the money machine. His opponents have the people of this district.

Will that be enough to overcome a seven‑figure incumbent war chest? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

You can ensure your priorities are advanced by donating to whichever candidate(s) you are excited about. We recommend checking out the candidates in this Speed Dating video from mid-January, and then using the links below to donate to whomever best reflects your values, hopes, and needs. (The list is ordered by candidate’s last name.)

• Salaam Bhatti

• Tim Cywinski

• Elizabeth Dempsey-Beggs

• Jason Knapp

• Ericka Kopp

• Lewis Littlepage

• Shannon Taylor

• Melvin Tull

• Rob Wittman (yes, we’re including him too; he’s running in VA-01, after all!)

** This graph was updated on 2/12/26 12:06pm to correctly match the numbers in the text.

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As seen on our socials

Our social media channels respond quickest to whatever Wittman does or says. Here’s a selection from the past week. Click on each post to see them on BlueSky (no account necessary). Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to get immediate updates each time we post.

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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.

MYTH:

Rob Wittman helps families.

REALITY:

Rob Wittman makes families poorer, less healthy, and less stable.

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Families of all configurations have similar needs: childcare, public education, healthcare, housing, and social safety nets. Whatever our specific families look like, we all deserve support systems that enable us to thrive. We need plentiful, equitable, and accessible family-centric resources.

We live in a country that claims to value families and cherish children, yet many of our systems are structured to penalize families and deny them access to support and resources. For a rich country like America, this is shameful and inexcusable.

Congressman Rob Wittman claims he’s all about family values and that he wants families to have opportunities to grow. He says he believes in expanding maternal healthcare, improving childcare access, and advocating for in-vitro fertilization (IVF). An adoptee (as he repeatedly reminds us in his emails), Wittman has supported adoption-related legislation. He has opposed reproductive rights, supports forced birth, and has co-sponsored multiple iterations of “fetal personhood” laws. Wittman talks a lot about supporting families, but his actions tell a different story.

How much does Wittman really deliver for families?

Good intentions do not necessarily make good legislation

Wittman co-sponsored one promising bill to help military families, but his other family-related bills — whether they passed or not — are deeply flawed and fall perilously short. Here’s the lowdown:

• Assuring Navigation of Compact Help For Ongoing Relocation (ANCHOR) for Military Families Act (H. R. 3566)

  • Introduced in the House in May 2025, and has not progressed

  • Would help ease the strain of relocation for military families

  • Wittman is one of 15 bipartisan co-sponsors

  • Has an equivalent bill in the Senate

• Adoption Information Act

  • Sponsored by Wittman; introduced in the House January 2025, but has not progressed

  • Would force family planning services “to provide pamphlets containing contact information for adoption centers to anyone receiving family planning services”

  • Would pressure economically disadvantaged pregnant people into relinquishing their children

  • Prioritizes adoption over keeping families intact by giving them needed financial assistance to help them raise their children

• Sanctity of Human Life Act (multiple versions)

  • Wittman co-sponsored NINE extreme personhood bills with this title between 2007-2021

  • These bills hold that from the moment of conception, a fetus has the same rights as any born person, including federal and state Constitutional rights

  • Catastrophic repercussions if passed:

    • Criminalization of pregnant people and their medical providers

    • Curtails our right to make our own reproductive health decisions

    • Creates chaos and ambiguity in the law: “The ambiguity of exclusions and exceptions combined with the exorbitant penalties for violating abortion bans chills lifesaving healthcare.”

    • Raises issues about when, whether and how the rights of the fetus “person” supercede those of the pregnant person

  • Fetal personhood measures have resulted in the criminalization of hundreds of women after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022.

We are thankful for one thing: Wittman’s ideas are so bad, or he is so epically unpopular and inept among his colleagues in Congress, that his bills haven’t progressed very far. But when we examine his ideas and their implications, we are horrified. These are the ways he thinks American families can be made better? Separating parents from their children and criminalizing reproductive healthcare? This isn’t valuing families; it’s political terrorism.

Wittman’s votes harm families

Whether Wittman co-sponsors family-related legislation or just votes for it, his track record leaves havoc in its wake.

He voted for H. R. 1 — the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that’s anything but —resulting in devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, resources relied upon by millions of families to make ends meet. Wittman prioritized tax breaks for billionaires over American families.

Wittman also opposed the American Families Plan, a “$1.8 trillion investment in children and families” to help them “recover from the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and existing gaps across our systems.” Wittman’s statement reveals his deep disdain for social safety nets:

“In each case, the Biden Administration’s answers always seem to be massive spending bills expanding the government’s role in public life.”

So when the U.S. government does step up to help families avoid poverty, Wittman does his utmost to erect a blockade. And Wittman’s objection to “expanding the government’s role in public life” is hypocritical in light of his support for laws that extend government regulation to the physical bodies of people who are pregnant or who might become pregnant.

Wittman’s family-focused bills are few and far between, revealing his hypocrisy as a representative who claims to value families so much. Instead, when families need him to show up, Wittman shows himself out. And his personhood and adoption bills threaten the bodily autonomy of pregnant people and prioritize family separation as the best solution for poverty.

Wittman supports Trump policies that destroy family unity

Wittman’s silent complicity erodes the ability of American families to function on a daily basis. Parents who have to work multiple jobs just to survive in the economic wreckage of the Trump Administration have less time and fewer resources to devote to their children’s upbringing. Wittman’s vote to give an obscene amount of funding to DHS means immigrant families face the constant, looming threat of deportation. When ICE agents rampage wantonly through our neighborhoods, schools, and churches, killing mothers and sons, it’s neither safe nor healthy for any family — regardless of their immigration status, citizenship, economic status, or political affiliation.

Many of Wittman’s Congressional colleagues work to feed and educate children. Examples include LA-02 Representative Troy Carter’s RAYS Act (H.R. 7092) to help K-12 students more easily access mental health resources, and NM-03 Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez’s Every Child Deserves a Head Start Act of 2025 (H.R. 5774). But Wittman votes for legislation that lets ICE kidnap children and imprison them, sometimes in facilities thousands of miles away, separated from parents and guardians, removed from their homes, families, and schools — for crimes they did not commit.

What actions could Wittman take to support families?

Wittman should step up for families, not trample all over them. He could introduce bills for universal childcare and a Child Tax Credit, and advocate for a direct cash transfer program to help lift young parents out of poverty and secure housing.

He could oppose legislation that seeks to criminalize pregnant people. He could help enshrine reproductive freedom at the federal level, empowering people to grow their families at a time of their choosing, and removing legal barriers to necessary medical care.

Wittman could grow a spine and do everything within his power to stop the Trump administration from further dismantling the Department of Education.

He could work in conjunction with Virginia’s state representatives on policies that invest in families and provide them with long-term stability.

Valuing families is a popular thing to claim, and Wittman is a populist. But his actions and his votes have worked against families in VA-01. Families are poorer, less healthy, and less stable than ever before because of Wittman and the policies he supports.

What actions do you think Congressman Rob Wittman should take to support families? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

• Last week we wrote about Wittman’s failure to uphold the Constitution.

• We continued our Myth of the Week series: Does Wittman care about public education?

• Scroll down to see our social media roundup for the week.

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Accountability to constituents is a significant responsibility shared by all Members of Congress. After all, they’re in our seats in Congress, and their jobs are to represent We the People.

One key way to demonstrate accountability is to host in-person town halls in order to provide legislative updates, field questions, and listen to constituent concerns. That is, unless you’re VA-01 Congressman Rob Wittman — in which case you honor neither tradition nor your core responsibility to answer to constituents.

Let’s be clear: refusing to host in-person town halls is not normal. Why does Wittman refuse to engage face-to-face with the people he’s supposed to serve?

A history of substandard engagement

Wittman hasn’t hosted an in-person town hall since at least March 2019. That refusal to engage reduces opportunities for him to represent the people of VA-01 in concrete, meaningful ways. A little listening can go a long way, yet Wittman consistently deprives his constituents of even that much.

Instead, he cuts corners by doing telephone town halls with preselected questions, hiding behind his computer screen for virtual events, and hosting limited community meetings, all while claiming to “value face-to-face interactions” with constituents. He’s also reduced the number of events his staff holds, and limits them to the communities where he has the most support: preaching to the choir, as it were.

His limited-access in-person meetings include community seminars and service organization meetings on topics such as fraud prevention, social media safety, and tax roundtables with local businesses. And sometimes he meets with donors at $500-a-seat fundraisers in swanky steakhouses (in this case, hours before a government shutdown).

Wittman has only hosted a handful of telephone town halls per year since 2009. He claims it’s a “highly effective and inclusive way to connect with thousands of constituents across the district at once,” increasing participation by those with busy schedules or limited mobility.

An eyebrow-raising problem is that telephone town halls allow Wittman to pre-screen questions. And he has limited them to an hour, which isn’t nearly enough time to properly address constituent concerns, especially if hundreds of people attend.

While virtual and phone town hall formats offer accessibility and flexibility, they’re nowhere near enough to meet constituent needs.

Why do we care about in-person town halls?

Barring barriers such as pandemics, residents are entitled to expect to see their representative in person. There’s a need for basic human connection between constituents and the representatives who have pledged to serve them. It reinforces the idea that the representative is interested in constituents’ needs, and not just their votes. It’s also one way to verify that a representative is actively doing their job.

Why are in-person town halls necessary?

• They show that a representative sincerely cares about and engages with their constituents

• They build trust and morale

• The representative demonstrates transparency and a willingness to be accountable for their actions and votes

• Attendees can’t be screened or excluded by criteria such as party membership

• The representative demonstrates a willingness and capacity to address unpredictable questions and topics

• They create a sense of community and purpose

• They can build momentum towards achieving legislative action that benefits constituents

By refusing to host in-person town halls, Wittman has lost touch with his constituents. He can’t effectively serve us if he’s routinely avoiding meaningful contact with us. More importantly, he has lost our trust in his ability to stand up for our needs and concerns.

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An abdication of duty

In the second half of 2025, Wittman was part of a general trend of Republican representatives avoiding in-person town halls. Why? Because Americans were upset and furious about legislative and other havoc the Trump administration unleashed, including megabill H.R. 1.

Deep cuts to Medicaid, cuts to clean energy incentives, grave threats to social safety nets, and an exploding federal deficit caused by tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy are some of the many issues constituents want their representatives to answer for. Now we can add to the list ICE aggression, the administration’s unconstitutional attacks on Venezuela and other countries, and affordability problems here at home.

Republicans may be avoiding in-person town halls in part to avoid facing angry constituents/protesters, but their main motivation seems to be protecting President Trump from accountability. Wittman is a complicit member of an entire political party that’s doing its utmost to help the President — a convicted felon — continue his rampage of corruption and cruelty.

Intense scrutiny over the lack of Republican town halls (examples here, here, and here) has been driven by constituents upset about the lack of opportunities to speak to their representatives in person. As Roger Chesley of the Virginia Mercury wrote:

“You [Rob Wittman] also skirted a chance to meet with your own constituents in April during a congressional recess, after the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advised GOP members not to hold in-person town halls. Many Republican lawmakers followed that gutless advice.”

Wittman may be scared of his constituents because we expect him to answer uncomfortable questions and address activities he knows he cannot legitimately and popularly support. It’s equally likely that he just doesn’t care about us, regardless of party affiliation. People who voted for him are just as likely to suffer from his voting record under President Trump. For example, let’s look at H. R. 1, Trump’s signature bill that Wittman continually defends. “Red” states (which tend to be poorer, more rural, more Medicaid‑dependent, with less willingness or capacity to replace federal dollars) are positioned to be worse off overall than “blue” states, which are better able to cushion the blow through higher taxes and policy countermeasures. The VA-01 district is a mixture of “red” and “blue,” but those who need the most support will be worse off as a consequence of H. R. 1.

No matter whether or why you voted Wittman into office, none of us deserves to lose healthcare, housing, food, or jobs for political reasons.

In 2025, constituents showed up in droves at Wittman’s office locations to voice their frustrations about being ignored. Wittman also cancelled mobile office hours in several locations, rather than have his staff engage with constituents as often as possible.

He has such an abysmal town hall record that other representatives have to step up to do his job for him, as in the case of the “Where Is Wittman?” Town Hall with Senator Ghazala Hashmi. Constituents have also taken the matter into their own hands, hosting their own town halls without Wittman to highlight the fact that he would not hold them himself.

Let’s sit with that scenario for a moment: Wittman has abdicated his responsibility so thoroughly that we, his constituents, are left to our own devices to draw his attention to the issues that matter to us.

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What should we do about Wittman’s refusal to hold town halls?

We shouldn’t have to ask this question, but Wittman’s lack of commitment to town halls isn’t normal, nor is it right.

We can appeal to Wittman through calls and emails and advocate for him to do his duty, but since his past behavior is the best predictor of his future behavior, other strategies will likely yield more fruitful results.

Here are ideas for action we can take:

• Sign the petitions to help get challengers to Wittman on the VA-01 ballot. Then vote Rob Wittman out of office in November. As soon as we flip the First District, we’ll have a representative committed to hosting in-person town halls.

  • Upcoming petition signings (not a complete list!):

    • Saturday, Feb. 7 and Saturday. Feb. 14 — stop by Historic Triangle Dems HQ, 113K Palace Ln, Williamsburg from 10 am to noon.

    • Saturday, Feb. 7 — stop by Tabb Library, 100 Long Green Blvd, Tabb from 1:30 to 3:30pm.

    • Saturday, Feb. 14 — stop by Elite Coffee & Lounge, 7500 Richmond Rd Suite B, Norge (former location of Anonymous Coffee) from noon to 2pm.

    • If you know of another, add it in the comments.

• Support the candidates by donating to their campaigns, volunteering, signing up for their newsletters, attending their events, and sharing information about them on social media. (You can find their contact details here.)

• Attend town halls hosted by other representatives who appear in Rob Wittman’s stead. The more people show up, the stronger the message.

• Write “Letters to the Editor” about Wittman’s lack of in-person town halls. We might not be able to shame him into doing them, but the message will inform voters about his apathy.

• If possible, host a constituent town hall yourself. Allow plenty of time to advertise beforehand and put out a press release (and make sure to send it to us!). At this rate, constituent town halls are about as official as the First District is going to get.

• Share this article to help others understand the importance of in-person town halls.

Note that Wittman Watch covers all challengers to Wittman, regardless of political affiliation. So far, eight Democrat candidates have declared their opposition to him. Should someone aligned with the Republican Party do so, we’ll highlight them too. We encourage a broad field of challengers and amplify what they have to say, and encourage constituents to sign petitions to get challengers on the ballot.

What do you think about Rob Wittman avoiding in-person town halls? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

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As seen on our socials

Our social media channels respond quickest to whatever Wittman does or says. Here’s a selection from the past week. Click on each post to see them on BlueSky (no account necessary). Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to get immediate updates each time we post.

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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.

You know that guy in class who barely touched the project but somehow ends up holding the trophy in the photo? That’s our Wittman, who has been touting a few bipartisan environmental wins in the House and committee, as if they’re his personal triumphs. Could he be avoiding other topics?

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His real achievements are few and far between, so we’ve noticed that when he’s even a minor player in a success, he rushes to the front of the victory parade. A recent example is the communication his office sent out recently titled “Wittman Secures Funding for Chesapeake Bay,” as if he is the primary mover on this legislation.

In reality, it isn’t Wittman securing the funding. This bill is a broadly supported, 397-28 vote renewal of an existing Chesapeake Bay program (with a bit of increased funding this year) first embedded in the 2024 omnibus bill, itself the product of decades of Bay policy and the 1983 Chesapeake Bay Program compact. The modern Chesapeake Bay Program reflects years of work by lawmakers like Ben Cardin, John Sarbanes, Jen Elfreth, Andy Harris, Bobby Scott, Steny Hoyer, and multiple governors and state leaders, as well as advocacy groups including the Choose Clean Water Coalition, which organized hundreds of organizations across the region.

The other recent announcement was of the House Natural Resources Committee clearing the MAWS Act (Mitigation and Watermen Support Act) for which Wittman is a co‑sponsor. This is a creative policy in our opinion, and we commend Wittman for supporting it. We congratulate Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D‑MD) for initiating the effort, crafting the policy, and building the coalition, including bringing Wittman and Kiggins on board to help bring it through committee.

The MAWS Act is designed to turn invasive blue catfish into a commercial and pet‑food opportunity while supporting local watermen, a creative answer to a real problem for the Chesapeake Bay. Thanks are due primarily to Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) for doing the real work.

So, while Congressman Wittman shows up to the (figurative) ribbon‑cutting — others do the hard work. It’s a classic move: when the heavy lifting’s done, Wittman’s there to lift the trophy.

MYTH:

Rob Wittman cares about public education.

REALITY:

Rob Wittman stood by while the Trump Administration took a sledgehammer to public education.

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Congressman Rob Wittman presents himself as pro-education. He claims to care deeply about teachers and about student success, and often reminds us that his wife and one of his parents were public school teachers. Besides vague statements about how important it is, what has Wittman actually done for public education?

Public education is essential to America’s economic and democratic future. That’s what Virginia’s own Thomas Jefferson believed, and why he advocated for state-funded, secular education systems. Public education builds and defends the republic by lifting up all Americans and fostering informed and capable communities that expand economic opportunities for all.

Control of public education is split between local, state, and federal governments. Local and state governments exert the most influence over schools in their districts, but what happens in the Department of Education impacts public education everywhere, including VA-01.

Wittman has failed to fight for us in four main areas associated with public education:

• Dismantling of the Department of Education

• Erosion of civil rights protections and local autonomy in schools

• Cuts to the Education Department

• Efforts to replace public/secular schools with private/Christian schools

Let’s do our homework on each of these points.

Dismantling of the Department of Education

The Trump Administration’s Project 2025 aims to eliminate the Education Department and “radically reform public education” in order to engineer a system that favors “parental choice” and erodes civil rights. “Parental choice” means redirecting money “from a universal public system towards an exclusionary private one.” The core argument for dismantling the Education Department comes from Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s unfounded and unsupported claim that America’s public schools are failing their students and that students are being “subjected to radical anti-American ideology.”

President Trump can’t close the Department of Education without Congressional approval, but that hasn’t stopped him from exploiting loopholes to change how the Education Department is run. The Trump administration slashed the number of Education Department staff by half – costing taxpayers $28 million – and wrote executive orders pressuring school divisions to end their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and policies.

In response, Wittman advocated for public education reforms and said that there’s “a more compassionate way to go about this” than dismantling the Education Department. Where are Wittman’s actions to back up those words? If he has “more compassionate” concrete strategies for improving the Education Department, he should have proposed them already.

Wittman also said: “Major policy changes, such as the elimination of a federal department, must be thoroughly examined through the legislative process in Congress.” If Wittman does indeed believe in the power of Congress – which is hard to fathom, based on his actions – the issue still remains: the Trump administration has zero respect for Congressional authority. Wittman hasn’t done anything to stop Trump and Secretary McMahon from upending public schools and slashing their budgets.

Erosion of civil rights protections and local autonomy in schools

During the second Trump Administration, the Education Department rolled back civil rights protections. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has a backlog of over 1,000 racial harassment investigations, the majority involving harassment of Black students. Instead of resolving those cases, the agency has focused more on investigating claims of “discrimination against white students.” The OCR has also been dragging its feet in starting investigations of new racial harassment complaints. Wittman has done nothing and said nothing to determine why this is the case.

The Department of Education, to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) law, is responsible for ensuring schools meet the needs of disabled students. But during the 2025 government shutdown, the Trump Administration decimated the Education Department’s special education services. (A judge temporarily halted the staffing cuts in October.) Wittman did nothing.

The Education Department targeted five Virginia school districts, threatening to suspend or cut their federal funding because of the school’s transgender bathroom and locker room policies. There were also moves in 2025 to ban trans female athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. Yet again, Wittman did nothing even as sanctions on trans athletes drew widespread criticism. He was called to task for failing to protect trans students:

“Shame on the Republican congresspeople from Virginia who chose fealty to Trump – and their political future – over their constituents. And shame on me for thinking Rep. Rob Wittman, a Westmoreland Republican who ultimately voted for this monstrosity after expressing reservations, would put Virginians over party.” (via Virginia Mercury)

Wittman gets an F for his utter failure to protect students.

Cuts to the Education Department

Although the majority of funding for K-12 schools comes from state and local sources, federal cuts (or the threat of cuts) still had enormous impact on Virginia, especially on low-income students. Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine condemned the Trump Administration for what they claim is the illegal withholding of “$108 million in federal funding earmarked for Virginia’s K-12 schools.” Congress had approved the funding for “teacher training, after-school programs, mental health resources and more.”

The Trump Administration’s objection to transgender student policies in Virginia schools placed “$300 million in federal funding at risk for more than 386,000 students.” Federal funding for public schools cannot be made contingent on policies enacted at the district and state level. Local school policy is not the domain of the federal government, nor subject to its ideological demands. Wittman should know this, but he hasn’t done anything to protect VA-01 from Trump’s overreach.

After the Department of Education terminated VCU’s Teacher Residency Program grant because some aspects of the program (such as teacher diversity and educational equity for underserved students) conflicted with the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies, Wittman asked Secretary McMahon to let VCU have “the opportunity to rewrite their grant application to ensure it complies with the president’s policy priorities.” Translation: Erase everything DEI-related in the grant to get it reinstated. Essentially, Wittman tried to solve a problem that he helped create. In the end, a federal judge reinstated the funds.

Except for his meek and ineffective intervention with the VCU Teacher Residency Program grant, Wittman has been silent about the Trump Administration withholding funds from VA-01 schools. Clearly he refuses to stand up in any meaningful way to prevent federal plundering of education funds. That’s no way to protect students.

Efforts to replace public/secular schools with private/Christian schools

Wittman notes in his statement on education: “Strengthening America’s education system is important in fostering innovation and promoting economic security.”

Note that he didn’t specify “public” education. Why the omission? The answer lies in Project 2025, which has a stated goal of “instilling Christian values into public schools” — a precursor to the ultimate goal of “a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars.”

Wittman voted for H.R. 1, which included “an ‘unprecedented’ tax credit for a national school voucher program.” He gave the green light to funnel our tax dollars into charter and religious schools, and under-regulated homeschooling — all at the expense of public schools. A dollar diverted to a private institution has multiplier effects in subtracting money from public schools, diminishing opportunities for anyone who cannot pay for education directly.

Private schools without transparency or oversight are opportunities to misuse taxpayer funds designated for public education. There’s evidence that the voucher system can serve as a channel for “nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among… private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public.” America is in a tug-of-war between people who want public, secular schools and those who want private, religious ones. At a time when the Trump Administration is downright hostile to public education, why hasn’t Wittman condemned these attacks?

If his goals align with the Trump Administration’s, then he only favors education for certain Americans: white, wealthy, and Christian. Perhaps Wittman thinks that if he keeps us uneducated and ignorant, we won’t understand the harm he’s unleashing.

What else has Wittman done?

Has Wittman done anything good with education initiatives? We can point to a couple of examples, but they come with the massive caveat that certain people benefit at the dire expense of others.

• Wittman introduced the bipartisan Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act to help students pay for post-secondary training programs. This became law in July 2025. One potential benefit of this law is that it can help increase the number of long-term care workers. But the law itself privileges those with enough income to stash money in Section 529 accounts — the wealthiest among us benefit the most!

• Wittman’s PROPEL Act “would expand access to Career and Technical Education (CTE) by opening up federal Pell Grants for short term vocational or technical training and apprenticeships.” One of the provisions of H. R. 1, for which Wittman voted, allows for the expansion of Pell Grants to job training programs.

But for the little good these programs do, H.R. 1 causes an overwhelming amount of damage. The fact that it contains some reasonable provisions (even though they most benefit the wealthy) cannot outweigh the overall catastrophic consequences of this disastrous bill.

Wittman is destroying the public education that preserves and builds our republic

Public education is vital and works best as a government-led system that provides accessible learning to all. It unifies a diverse population, shapes civic values and behavior, promotes social-emotional learning, trains students for the workforce, helps reduce inequality, and prepares America to be more prosperous and democratic.

But Wittman’s (in)actions show that he doesn’t care if we lose the knowledge, community, and training that enhance our quality of life. His empty words demonstrate how little he cares about preserving public education as part of the bedrock of American society.

What action should Wittman take to protect our public education system? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

• Last week we wrote about Wittman’s silent complicity.

• We continued our Myth of the Week series: Does Wittman save you money?

• We’ve added: How to contact Wittman. Use it often!

• Scroll down to see our social media roundup for the week.

Defending our rights is his job. And he’s terrible at it

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The Congressional Oath of Office that Rob Wittman has taken 10 times over the last 20 years says:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Is Wittman fulfilling this oath? Since Trump took office, we’ve seen escalating violations of the Constitution:

• First Amendment: Right to free speech and dissent

• Second Amendment: Right to keep and bear arms

• Fourth Amendment: Protection from unreasonable search

• Fifth Amendment: Right to due process

• Sixth Amendment: Right to fair and open trials

• Fourteenth Amendment: Right to equal protection under the law

• Article I: Powers of Congress to pass laws and spend funds

• Article II: Power of the Executive to execute the laws made by Congress

To date, Wittman has not voted even once to hold the Executive to account, pass legislation, or invoke any power of Congressional oversight in relation to clear constitutional violations.

Wittman has betrayed — and continues to betray — his Congressional Oath, and enables deadly attacks on our Constitution. Let's take a look at what he is (or isn't) doing, and what he must do in order to uphold his responsibilities as our representative.

First Amendment Violations: You may not speak freely or question the government

The First Amendment protects the right to speak, write, organize, and complain to and about the government without punishment. Alex Pretti, a peaceful protestor in Minneapolis, was killed by federal agents while exercising his First Amendment rights. This shocking violation demonstrates that a centerpiece of this administration’s strategy to retain power is a campaign of retaliation against critics and oppression of free speech.

The First Amendment also includes the right to assemble peacefully. The protestors in Minneapolis and across the country — the overwhelming majority of whom are neither engaging in nor inciting aggression — are exercising their right of assembly. For that, some of them are being executed, violently attacked, arrested, and detained by state-sponsored thugs.

Journalists have been banned from the White House, advocacy organizations have seen federal grants yanked after they criticized administration policies, and entire entities — universities, cities, even the Federal Reserve — have been threatened with investigation and/or funding cuts for expressing (or even permitting) views the Trump administration dislikes. These abuses thwart the First Amendment’s specific protection of free speech.

Lawsuits catalogued by legal watchdogs routinely cite the First Amendment in challenging these actions, arguing that the government is granting benefits and access, and revoking rights and allocations, on the basis of political loyalty rather than the law.

Wittman isn’t protecting your free speech. He’s actively supporting its oppression, including the use of lethal retaliation when you use your rights of free speech and assembly.

Instead, he could:

• Pass strong anti‑retaliation laws (like the proposed NOPE Act) to give people and organizations a clear right to sue federal officials who punish them for protected speech, and to recover damages and fees

• Use aggressive oversight to require Inspectors General to audit agencies for speech‑related retaliation and report to Congress, and to require mandatory discipline for officials who violate First Amendment standards

• Propose to tie agency funding to written, enforceable bans on viewpoint‑based retaliation against media, advocacy groups, and law firms

Second Amendment Violations: Your gun is their permission to kill you

Alex Pretti had a legally-owned, holstered weapon when he went to the protest in Minneapolis. He never touched, let alone brandished, that weapon. He was wrestled to the ground and pistol-whipped. A federal agent removed the weapon from Mr. Pretti’s holster, and after he was disarmed, he was shot to death in a hail of 10 bullets. Trump administration officials stated that Mr. Pretti’s possession of the weapon at the protest was sufficient cause for his execution by federal agents. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said:

“When you are bearing arms and confronted by law enforcement, you are raising… the risk of force being used against you.”

Their claim is that if you have a weapon in your possession and you encounter law enforcement agents — even if you never brandish that weapon, even if it’s holstered, even if agents have already disarmed you — you and your family should understand when you’re executed in the middle of an American city street.

Wittman says he’s a gun rights advocate; he even has a whole page on his website about the Second Amendment:

“As a gun owner myself, I believe that the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms must be protected. No law-abiding American should be denied their Constitutional rights without reason or due process. … Know that I will always stand up for my constituents’ rights, including the right to privacy and to bear arms.” [our emphasis]

The National Rifle Association says that what happened in Minneapolis was illegal and a violation of the Second Amendment. And what has Wittman said or done about this so far? Nothing.

Wittman is not protecting your Second Amendment rights. He may claim otherwise, but when his party or preferred President says that up is down and down is up, he’ll be silent and complicit.

Fourth & Fifth Amendment Violations: Illegal searches, no fair trials - when they accuse you, you’re already guilty and convicted

The Fifth Amendment says the government cannot take away a person’s life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. The Fourth Amendment provides protection against unreasonable search and seizure. In practice, that means officers need good reasons to arrest and detain people and must follow the law when stopping, searching, or making arrests.

For example, ICE cannot enter private property without legal search warrants and cannot abduct, disappear or murder anyone. Yet we’re all witnessing these actions — no matter how the administration tries to gaslight us. The revelations about the “May 12 Memo” issued to ICE agents, which falsely claims agents only need an administrative rather than a judicial warrant to enter and search homes, demonstrate how flagrantly the Fourth Amendment is being violated.

But this isn’t just about ICE. Trump’s politically-motivated executive orders and zeroing out of Congressionally-mandated appropriations have led to lost funding, jobs, and opportunities without clear justification or due process. When the administration unilaterally punishes whole programs, institutions, demographic groups, or entire states because of what they teach or say (which is a First Amendment violation as well), we have effectively lost our due process protections; any president can, with the stroke of a pen, nullify our rights, take away our property, and threaten our lives.

The administration’s actions with ICE, executive orders, and misappropriation of Congressionally approved funds are wilfully breaking the law and trampling the Constitution. Again, Wittman could be doing a whole lot. He could:

• Strengthen the laws limiting raids, data collection, and surveillance, with clear warrant and reporting requirements, and automatic consequences when agencies defy court rulings

• Remind DHS and ICE that agents and administrators will be held accountable, including in criminal court

• Engage in oversight – the job of Congress. Wittman could move to condition or cut appropriations for agencies such as DHS and ICE that repeatedly violate court rulings on due process, and require Inspectors General to audit mass firings, raids, and funding cuts for legality

Sixth Amendment Violations: Attacking lawyers and the right to counsel

Americans are free to hire lawyers and bring cases, even against the president. The Sixth Amendment protects the right to counsel in criminal cases, and the broader system depends on lawyers being able to represent clients who may hold political views different from those of the administration. Yet Trump has targeted specific law firms that represent his opponents, threatening government work and trying to scare other firms away from similar cases.

Wittman could author a bill making it unlawful for any federal official to threaten contracts, clearances, or grants because a firm or lawyer took a case against the administration.

What has he actually done? Nothing.

Fourteenth Amendment Violations: Your citizenship and equality under the law is conditional on whatever they decide

The Fourteenth Amendment says that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, and that all people must get equal protection under the law. Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship for some children of non‑citizens directly clashes with that text, and judges have already stepped in to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment also says that the government cannot punish people for who they are — everyone must get “equal protection.” Policies that single out immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, or certain communities for harsher treatment therefore violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Clearly, the news coming out of Minnesota and elsewhere shows different groups of people being treated differently, according to the whims of the administration.

What could Wittman do? Plenty! He could:

• Expand civil‑rights enforcement powers so individuals can fight discriminatory policies in court, including fees and damages

• Bar federal funds for any program that denies benefits to or disregards rights for citizens claiming birthright citizenship, as per the Fourteenth Amendment

Article I and II Violations: Congress and Wittman are kneeling to the Executive

Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to raise and spend money; no funds may be drawn from the Treasury except as legally appropriated by Congress. As the chamber of Congress that most directly represents the people, the House holds the power of the purse. Abandonment of that responsibility shifts power not only from Congress, but from us, the American people.

In practice, Article I only works when Congress writes specific spending laws, enforces deadlines for appropriations, and punishes presidents who refuse to spend or who reallocate money without permission.

Article II of the Constitution requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Historically this clause has been understood to forbid presidents from suspending, nullifying, or selectively enforcing laws based solely on policy disagreements. Modern presidents have pushed this boundary, but Trump’s second term has paired non‑enforcement with aggressive claims that he can ignore or rewrite statutes that constrain his agenda.

Congress passes annual spending laws (that start in the House) to outline exactly how funds are allocated. The Trump administration has looked for ways to freeze, delay, or redirect money Congress already approved, especially when the funded program conflicts with the administration’s political goals. In plain language: instead of spending money the way Congress ordered, the administration treats those instructions like mere suggestions and instead illegally shifts funds to the President’s own priorities.

The courts have determined that Trump has used illegal executive orders to ignore how money was to be spent, and to revoke billions of dollars in appropriations for USAID, scientific research, and public health.

Wittman could:

• Author or co-sponsor a bill that penalizes any individual or institution that withholds or reallocates appropriated money without Congressional approval

• Use his position as Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee to demand answers on why funds are being misdirected or withheld by the Executive

• Demand (not “write a letter” or “strongly advocate,” which is what he has historically done) that funds for science research be distributed to Virginia’s universities, that coastal wind power projects not be paused, and that all allocations already made are honored.

Where is Congress? Where is Wittman, a senior member of the House? Without the participation of Republicans who control both the House and the Senate, pushback to rein in the Trump administration fails. Wittman is part of this complicit cabal.

Wittman is shredding the Constitution when he must defend it

Rob Wittman swore to uphold the Constitution, but he sits watching from the sidelines while Trump’s second term tears it up. It’s clear that Wittman has the tools to fight illegal raids, political retaliation, and the president’s power grab, but instead he leaves his constituents vulnerable and his Congressional Oath exposed as empty words. The Trump administration’s assaults on free speech, due process, equal protection, and even Congress’s own power of the purse are well documented, yet Wittman offers zero pushback — no bills, no hearings, no oversight.

He’s failing at the most basic element of the job he was elected to do: defending our Constitutional rights. It’s time for us to demand he resign immediately, and elect someone who will carry out that honorable duty.

What do you think Wittman should do to protect our rights according to the Constitution? Comment here or on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

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MYTH:

Wittman saves me money / I pay less in taxes with Wittman in office.

REALITY:

Very wealthy people will save a lot of money because of tax cuts. 90% of us will be worse off; any savings are offset by other exploding expenses.

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Wittman has claimed he saves his constituents money. Is that true? Let’s follow the money!

If you’re one of the top 10% of wealthy people in Virginia, you might think Rob Wittman is doing a solid job for you because H.R. 1 secured you $13,600 in savings. But if you’re not in the top 10%, Wittman isn’t saving you anything. A tax cut may look like good news for you, but when you consider costs from tariffs, health insurance, fewer jobs, and higher state taxes (a likely consequence of H.R. 1’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP), all of a sudden you’re losing money.

“Meaningful wins”... for the wealthy

Wittman claimed to have scored “meaningful wins” for Virginians in 2025, but our breakdown tells the real story. He claims his office fields daily calls from families struggling to afford the basics, but he offers no concrete legislative solutions to help them pay for utilities and groceries. Contrast Wittman’s inaction with state senator Danica Roem’s bill to provide free breakfast to all public school students.

As we’ve previously reported, Wittman voted to eliminate 11,000 Virginia jobs. As if facilitating catastrophic job losses weren’t enough, he refers to H.R. 1 as “the Working Families Tax Cut” — while its primary function is to secure massive gains for the ultra-wealthy. Wittman has spent more time gaslighting us than decreasing the cost of living in Virginia.

In 2025, Trump’s tariffs cost the average Virginia household approximately $1,700-$2,100. That includes increased costs for basic needs like clothing and cars. Wittman did nothing to stop these reckless tariffs from wrecking families’ budgets.

Meanwhile, rising food costs have forced nearly half of Virginians into debt. Many also suffer from volatile energy prices. Energy bills are soaring because Wittman voted to end green energy credits. He may have voted to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay (for a limited time), but then he sabotaged that gain by voting to let the Child Tax Credits and State & Local Taxes (SALT) caps expire.

It gets worse. Wittman once insisted that the federal government must “[spend] taxpayer dollars wisely.” But analysis reveals that DOGE cuts to the federal workforce cost taxpayers $10 billion. The government literally paid federal workers to sit at home instead of doing their jobs — a classic case of Wittman saying one thing and doing another.

H.R. 1 will increase the national debt by $3.4 TRILLION. Wittman claims he’s a “fiscal conservative,” which sounds great. Turns out that he means you and your kids should shoulder that huge debt and your household should suffer, while he quietly transfers your tax dollars to the wealthy.

Household budgets exploded by healthcare costs

Wittman and Trump promised to make America more affordable. Healthcare premiums for everyone have skyrocketed as a direct result of H.R. 1’s cuts to Medicaid and the administration’s failure to extend ACA subsidies. The bottom line? Virginians’ healthcare costs are now 140% higher than in 2025. Wittman didn’t protect us from this. Instead, he helped make it happen.

It’s true that Wittman voted to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies in January 2026, but context matters. First he voted against advancing the measure, and then only voted for the bill because he knew it would die in the Senate.

Second, Wittman’s statement about his vote contradicts his prior messaging against the subsidies. Was Wittman’s vote to extend the ACA subsidies genuine? Or was it performative politics, given the upcoming midterm election? His prior record and statements certainly suggest the latter.

And if our healthcare system is “too expensive,” as he claimed, why isn’t he advocating for universal healthcare or stronger oversight of health insurance companies? Why isn’t he drafting legislation to make billionaires pay their fair share of taxes, a measure that would address America’s wealth inequality and fund the healthcare that he knows we need?

Wittman is not saving us money, but he’s making plenty for himself and his donors

Rob Wittman’s voting record shows he’s earmarking tax dollars for anything but our pockets — at a time when people across the Commonwealth are going hungry, suffering job loss, losing their housing, and having trouble making ends meet. Meanwhile, Wittman himself may get up to $59,300 in savings from the bill for which he voted.

If VA-01 constituents were saving so much money thanks to Wittman, we’d be shouting about it from the rooftops. Instead, most of us are tightening our belts while he’s busy counting his $5.6 million net worth.

The tax cuts Wittman trumpets are not real for 90% of us, while the costs of groceries, cars, equipment, housing, childcare, and almost everything else continue to spiral upwards. That’s not a good deal.

What should Congressman Wittman do to actually save you money? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

• Last week we wrote about the lies and deceptions in the Republican scheme to break the ACA, and we kicked off our Myth of the Week series: Is Wittman good for the military & veterans?

• ICYMI: here’s the video from the VA-01 candidate online forum that was held on January 15th. Get to know the contenders to oust Wittman!

• Scroll down to see our social media roundup for the week.

When Wittman says nothing, it’s a loud statement we can’t ignore

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The 2025 Virginia elections revealed that voters had strong concerns about many issues. Some are evergreen, such as the stagnant minimum wage; affordability and availability of housing; and expensive childcare. Other issues were the result of the global pandemic. And still others were produced or exacerbated by the excesses of the Trump presidency: tax cuts for the rich, removal of climate protections, and the economic chaos of H.R. 1. With the help of Congressional Republicans, the Trump administration slashed social safety nets and introduced new obstacles and skyrocketing expenses for healthcare.

Through all the chaos, confusion, and catastrophe, there’s been one constant element: VA-01 Congressman Rob Wittman’s silence. And by silence, we mean both literal silence and a lack of condemnation — of corruption, criminality, and cruelty being unleashed upon all kinds of people in America. Wittman routinely fails to condemn the administration’s wrongs and acknowledge the harm inflicted on his constituents and the nation as a whole.

Wittman’s silence equals complicity. By refusing to criticize policies that hurt us, he has aligned himself with the corrupt, illegal, and criminal acts of the Trump administration.

Let’s take stock of the issues on which Wittman has been silent that are deeply impactful to First District voters.

Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela and threats against Greenland

Wittman commended the invasion of Venezuela that has killed at least 80 people, including civilians, and voted to reject Congressman McGovern’s Bipartisan War Powers Resolution. So far he’s kept quiet on Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, another sovereign nation, against the will of its own people.

Wittman’s silence about previous, similar geopolitical situations reveals his hypocrisy on the issue. VA-01 candidate Salaam Bhatti rightly points out:

The Republican representative I’m challenging commended Trump’s unjust attack on Venezuela. If Wittman truly cared about narcoterrorism, he’d have spoken out against Trump pardoning [the] former Honduran President, one of the biggest narcoterrorists.

Wittman’s silence over the pardoning of Juan Orlando Hernández demonstrates that he has priorities other than protecting Americans from narcoterrorism. Will he claim responsibility for the further harm to national security or costs that may result from the invasion and occupation of Venezuela? His history tells us he’s most likely to keep his mouth shut. This is an unconscionable choice from the Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee.

Jobs and unemployment

A mere four months into the second Trump administration, Northern Virginia had to brace for steep job losses, both federal and in the private sector. Those job losses peaked by October. Fast-forward to December, when 2025 capped off the worst year for hiring since 2020. Under DOGE’s reign of terror, tens of thousands of federal employees lost their jobs. Immigration restrictions made companies hesitant to hire non-citizens. By the end of 2025, unemployment rose to 4.4%.

Wittman was particularly ineffective about DOGE’s havoc; he actually “voted to codify billions of dollars in DOGE cuts.” He voted that way in a state that has 234,000 federal workers. For once, he didn’t stay silent, insisting he was concerned about “waste, fraud and abuse.”

Maybe this time he should have kept his mouth shut. That would have saved us the $10bn that it cost to pay workers whom DOGE ordered to stay at home.

Affordability

Despite dire economic data, President Trump has called affordability concerns a “hoax.” Rob Wittman must agree, because he’s been silent about this outrageous claim. Does Wittman think his constituents’ affordability concerns are “fake news” and a “fake narrative” perpetrated by Democrats?

When the government shut down in October 2025, food banks saw a massive increase in clients. The state of Virginia launched a food drive to address food insecurities resulting from the pause in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The food bank surge happened alongside already-increasing food prices. Some hoax! Does Wittman think we shouldn’t believe our own eyes and wallets when we shop at the grocery store?

The affordability crisis has affected all areas of our lives. Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (VA-16) raised the alarm about Virginia’s housing market. Millions of Americans covered by the ACA are facing price hikes after subsidies expired. And Virginians’ power bills are soaring.

The evidence is loud and clear. Who does Wittman think should take responsibility for America’s affordability crisis? President Trump’s policies? Tariffs? We’ll never know because he’s been — wait for it — silent about it.

Trump’s blocking of Virginia’s offshore wind project

Wittman hasn’t openly or strongly objected to the Trump administration’s pushback against renewable energy, an action that put the brakes on Virginia’s offshore wind project, threatening 11,000 jobs, increasing energy prices, and destroying a driver of $2 billion of economic activity. His statement reads in part:

As it relates to the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, ratepayers have contributed to the completion of this project, and it is critical that this investment is upheld. I will continue to monitor and advocate for the Commonwealth on this effort.

Note the passive voice: “it is critical that this investment is upheld.” Wittman specifically avoids stating that he will ensure the upholding. “Monitoring and advocating” isn’t the same as condemning the Trump administration for the unlawful blocking of wind energy projects.

In putting a stop to the offshore wind project, Trump ignored a judge’s ruling. Why doesn’t Wittman object to this egregious behavior? Why does he fail to respond to this energy crisis?

Maybe Wittman secretly agrees with Trump’s action. Maybe he fears being targeted by Trump if he takes a stronger stance. Or maybe, for all his faux-environmentalist bluster, he simply doesn’t care about his constituents and Virginia’s renewable energy needs.

Trump’s criminality and corruption

President Trump is a 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated rapist. We can’t point you to a statement by Congressman Wittman about those facts because it doesn’t seem to exist. Rather than object to a convicted-felon president who was also found liable for sexual assault, Wittman practically rolled out the red carpet for Trump’s second term.

Trump’s abuses of power are legion. Trump enriches himself with crypto currency. He accepts gifts that demonstrate a “blatant disregard for ethics rules.” Trump has created a “pay-to-play administration.” Public Citizen makes the case that the Trump administration is the most lawless in America’s history.

The more the list of crime and corruption grows, the quieter Wittman gets. Does this mean he and Trump are two peas in a pod?

ICE

ICE agents have been responsible for multiple shootings, physical assaults, and the deaths of US citizens and residents. The murder of U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis sent shockwaves across the country. Her death sparked national outrage, mass protests, district-wide school closings, and Congresswoman Robin Kelly filing articles of impeachment for Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security.

If ever there was a time for Wittman to break his silence, it was in the wake of this tragedy. But he didn’t. He didn’t file articles of impeachment against Noem or President Trump, nor did he object to the FBI blocking the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from investigating the case. He just… let everything slide.

In Virginia, ICE arrested a J.R. Tucker high school student. Migrant farm workers in the Commonwealth fear being kidnapped by ICE. ICE sweeps have engulfed Chesterfield County. Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan (VA-04) didn’t stay silent about this ICE overreach; she demanded answers. Why hasn’t Rob Wittman?

He voted for H.R. 1, which budgeted an unprecedented $170 billion for ICE to build more immigration detention centers and increase deportation operations. This has already resulted in ICE detaining at least 170 American citizens, and arresting 130 more who “interfered,” including a dozen elected officials.

ICE agents have been discriminating against people based on their skin color. “Kavanaugh stops” — incidents of racial profiling — have resulted in the detention of U.S. citizens. That means anyone in the First District with brown skin could be profiled next.

Wittman’s silence about ICE’s violence sends the message that he is untroubled about the rule of law, racial profiling, and civil rights. It seems that if these rights are threatened in VA-01 — which has a diverse population of many minorities — Wittman will let it happen without comment.

Dismantling the Department of Education

One would think that being married to a person who’d been a public-school educator for decades would alarm a certain Congressman about Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, but Wittman has been largely — you guessed it — silent about it.

He advocated for federal funding for VCU’s Teacher Residency Program, which includes him “respectfully” requesting that VCU have “the opportunity to rewrite their grant application to ensure it complies with the president’s policy priorities.” That’s a far cry from using all the congressional tools at his disposal to halt Linda McMahon and others from accomplishing their goal of dismantling America’s public school system.

Wittman’s silence about one of the bedrocks of American society tells his constituents that he doesn’t value public K-12 and state schools, the developmental needs of children, or an educated populace. The less educated American citizens are, the more easily an authoritarian government can control them. Is that Wittman’s goal?

Instead of introducing legislation to improve the existing system, Wittman is twiddling his thumbs. Staying silent about the dismantling of public schools amounts to support for destructive policies.

Data centers

The dangers posed by data centers have been well-documented. Virginia is currently the data center capital of America. Why, then, is Wittman so silent about their threat to his constituents’ health and environments?

Relatedly, Wittman is silent about the tech billionaires’ thirst for infinite energy, which has already led to a proliferation of data centers that don’t serve the interests of the communities in which they’re built. Instead, they drive up utility bills, cause pollution, squander water resources, and devour tax subsidies. Meanwhile, as noted above, he has said nothing about Trump’s pause of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, which would have lowered energy prices across Virginia.

By remaining silent, Wittman puts corporate interests over people. He aligns himself with billionaires who hoard resources, leaving the rest of us with crumbs.

Healthcare

The list of current threats to medical research, our healthcare system, and healthcare coverage is wide-ranging:

• Closed health clinics

• Risk of multiple rural hospitals shutting down

• A compromised, gutted CDC

• Funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health

• Attacks on science and vaccines

• HHS Secretary RFK Jr., who is anti-vaccine

In 2025, Wittman said one thing about preserving access to affordable healthcare, but his behavior told a different story. As the Virginia Mercury notes:

Specifically, Wittman, who represents Virginian’s 1st Congressional District, and Kiggans, who represents Virginia’s 2nd District, should prove they did not lie when they pledged to protect their constituents’ access to Medicaid and affordable health care.

While spreading disinformation about the contents of H.R. 1, he’s been silent about its devastating effects, which he voted for wholeheartedly. And now, his constituents are at risk of crushing medical debt, untreated illnesses, and losing healthcare altogether.

Wittman’s silence is complicity.

Wittman’s silence is betrayal.

With Wittman in our seat in Congress, our lives, safety, and prosperity are at enormous risk.

What do you think about Rob Wittman’s silence on issues that matter to you? Comment here or on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

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MYTH:

Wittman is good for the military and veterans.

REALITY:

He’s been spectacularly ineffective at managing the district’s military priorities, in both defense spending and veterans’ issues.

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Much of Virginia’s defense spending results from geographic and economic realities rather than any individual’s congressional action. VA-01 receives substantial defense contracts regardless of representation due to Norfolk Naval Station, Pentagon proximity, and established contractor relationships. Has Wittman helped VA-01 exceed expectations, or delivered exponential growth based on our geographic and economic foundations? Plainly and simply: no.

As we wrote on our social channels about a Politico article that lamented his possible exit from Congress, he hasn’t secured anywhere near enough for the region’s defense installations and industries.

• His ineptitude has let other states benefit more from defense spending, even though he’s Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee! VA’s defense economy grew just 6.5% from FY2020 to FY2023 - lagging behind the 67% national defense spending increases of 2007 to 2023. VA’s share of state GDP attributable to defense declined from 11.3% in FY2020 to 9.7% in FY2023.

• Wittman has secured things like $2.2m military construction projects and Naval Weapons Station Yorktown infrastructure, but these are incremental gains, not transformative economic interventions. He’s just barely punching the clock.

• He keeps putting our people in harm’s way without justification. As Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, he has said nothing about Pete Hegseth’s security leaks, illegal attacks on Venezuela, the National Guard in US cities, or anything else. He is silently complicit with Trump’s unauthorized, illegal, unjustified military actions within and against other nations.

Wittman has delivered some benefits:

• 97% of Bethel Manor Elementary School’s student body in York County is military-connected (i.e. children of Langley AFB personnel), and Wittman helped get $3.25m for new classrooms to alleviate overcrowding.

• He secured $2.2m for Naval Weapons Station Yorktown to upgrade shore power infrastructure, improving operational readiness for Virginia-class submarines and working conditions for sailors and dock workers.

Wittman’s mediocre tenure becomes more starkly obvious when compared to other members of Congress in similar districts:

• Elaine Luria (formerly of D-VA-02, 2019-2023), in just two terms (compared to Wittman’s nine terms) secured $15 million for Norfolk Harbor operations and led bipartisan efforts on military healthcare. Despite her short tenure, she achieved district-specific appropriations comparable to Wittman’s - imagine what she might do when she’s re-elected in 2026!

• Joe Courtney (D-CT, 2007-present) represents Connecticut’s submarine-manufacturing district. He secured $1 billion in additional Virginia-class funding, and $615 million in advanced procurement. Courtney’s successes demonstrate superior tactical legislative effectiveness on submarine issues specifically.

• Mike Rogers (R-AL, 2003-present) is the House Armed Services Committee chairman. He secured $197 million in military construction for Alabama in FY2026, including $50 million for Anniston Army Depot and $55 million for Redstone Arsenal.

With regard to veterans, Wittman frequently proposes other legislation to benefit our veterans, but that ends up going nowhere. The Veterans Collaboration Act, BRAVE Act (veteran mental health notification system), Veterans Choice Accountability Act, and Veterans Affairs Transfer of Information Act are just fantasies without any concrete, delivered benefits for veterans and their families.

Tellingly, as far as we can determine, no veterans’ group has ever endorsed Wittman. The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), AMVETS, VoteVets, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), and similar groups have never associated themselves with Wittman, except for some public speaking events. On the other hand, VoteVets has endorsed several Democratic Party candidates (including Elaine Luria for VA-02), and some of the candidates for VA-01 are demonstrating their own veteran status and military credentials (Jason Knapp, Elizabeth Dempsey-Beggs, Mel Tull, Lewis Littlepage).

We can’t afford to have ineffective Wittman occupy our seat in Congress. From the mid-2030s, Hampton Roads (where defense spending comprises 39% of the economy) will be the center of the AUKUS submarine agreement, and could benefit from $40bn annual submarine construction spending. Do we trust Wittman to capture those opportunities? HECK NO.

So when someone claims that Wittman is effective for VA-01’s military and veterans, you have evidence to the contrary. We really need someone who’ll drive this district to ever-greater growth — from which the military, veterans, and all of us can benefit.

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He makes a number of claims about the “Working Families Act” (a marketing name he and the Republican Propaganda Machine made up when the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was justifiably mocked as a terrible name), which is more accurately known as H.R. 1.

Wittman claims:

• Most people will see income increases ❌

• The top 20% will carry more tax burden ❌

• Every eligible filer will get a $1,000 tax refund ❌

• There’s $191 billion of net new tax relief nationwide ❌

• “No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security” ❌

• 2017 standard deduction increases and lower tax rates are made permanent

• Child Tax Credit is boosted to $2,200 and indexed to inflation

• Access to childcare tax relief and paid leave tax are expanded

And here’s his conclusion, verbatim:

“The bottom line is: You can expect to keep more of what you earn. In Congress, I’m focused on delivering meaningful, lasting relief for hardworking Americans — waitresses, welders, seniors, parents, business owners, and everyone striving to get ahead.”

There’s a lot to go through here, but let’s start with what’s true and accurate.

• The standard deduction has doubled and is now permanent ✔️

• Child Tax Credit (an under-used credit for employers) is indeed boosted to $2,200 ✔️

• Childcare tax provisions are as stated ✔️

Aaaand, that’s it. Everything else is a half-truth or simply deceitful. Let’s explore these together!

The tax cut that gives your money to the wealthy

While H.R. 1 increases the standard deduction, and temporarily (and in a limited way) lowers taxes on tips, social security, and overtime, it also cuts $1.2 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP. Over 100,000 people in VA-01 rely on Medicaid; that’s 1 in 8 of us, including over 18,000 children. This means that what the government might give with one hand, it takes away and also steals your wallet with the other hand. But what does that mean in practice?

For a start, the claim that most of us will see income increases is far more complex than Wittman portrays. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that:

• Lowest-income families will lose $1,200/year on average (equivalent to 3.1% of their income)

• Middle-income families will gain around $800-$1,200/year (but that’s not the whole story!)

• The top 10% will get around $13,600/year on average

So 60% of the tax benefits of H.R. 1 flow to the top 25% of earners. Once we factor in the impact of tariffs, 90% of us — 90%! — will lose 7% of our income over the decade. Here’s what that looks like:

• $40,000 income becomes $37,200

• $80,000 income becomes $74,400

• $120,000 income becomes $111,600

• …and so on

A graph from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation shows the impact quite clearly:

The claim that the top 20% will carry more burden is technically accurate but deeply misleading, as it ignores the fact that they already pay 83.6% of federal taxes and that this law delivers the largest dollar gains to the wealthiest people.

But your healthcare? No, that’s taken away. Your affordable household goods? No, tariffs are destroying that. Your lower energy prices? No, we’re going to dig up old dinosaurs and burn them because that’s super efficient compared to free wind or solar, apparently. And so on.

That $1,000 refund is clerical, and never to be repeated

Many of us will get a refund of about $1,000 this year because the IRS didn’t update the tax tables, to make your refunds look good. Each year, the IRS is supposed to update the tax withholding tables — the numbers that tell employers how much to take out of our paychecks each pay period — so we don’t have a huge tax burden at the end of the year. They chose not to do that this year, so most of us have had too much withheld from our paychecks.

This means each of us has unwittingly given the government an interest-free loan all year. If you feel annoyed about that, good — you should be! And as we know, spending cuts will harm low-income households more than the tax cuts will benefit them. The tax tables will be updated for 2026, but the impact of tariffs and increased healthcare costs alone will wipe out any gains we may have had from the H.R. 1 tax cuts.

Wittman suggests we should be delighted to be getting $1,000 back. That’s only happening because of a clerical error (at best) or a scheme to withhold more money from us (at worst). Either way, this is not something he should crow about like a victory. He should instead be demanding the government pay us all interest on the loan we all provided.

Tips, overtime, and Social Security will be taxed again

We’ve covered most of this ground before:

• “No tax on tips and overtime”: Only up to $25,000, and not for most middle class households. Also, it expires in 2028. Classic Republican ploy: temporary and deferred tax cut for regular people, permanent and immediate cuts for billionaires.

• “Tax relief for seniors”: H.R.1 gives a $6,000 deduction for seniors (65+), which expires in 2028, and phases out starting at $75k (single filer) or $150k (joint) MAGI, up to $175k/250k. This is not “no tax on Social Security,” as Wittman claims. Further, the credit’s design means upper middle class seniors will get nothing at all (as the tax credit phases out for them), and less wealthy seniors only get a little for just three years. Then what? Again, temporary tax cuts for you, permanent gains for the ultra-wealthy (of any age) through the broader provisions of the new law.

Wittman’s most egregious misrepresentation is the phrase “no tax” on Social Security. As we just reviewed, that’s just flat-out wrong: Social Security is still taxed but there’s now a limited, temporary credit in play.

It’s what Wittman doesn’t say that is most damning

The most significant aspect of Wittman’s email is not what it says, but what it systematically omits, making the whole thing an exercise in disinformation. Let’s examine the cuts to benefits and the tax details that Wittman has chosen not to highlight for you because he knows you won’t like them.

Medicaid cuts devastate VA-01

The law cuts $1.2 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP over 10 years, including a 12% reduction in Medicaid spending and the addition of new work requirements. In Virginia’s First District:

• 100,900 residents rely on Medicaid (12.5% of the population)

• 18,300 children depend on Medicaid coverage

• 31,700 low-wage workers receive Medicaid

• Major hospitals in the district derive 16-22% of revenue from Medicaid

Wittman’s email mentions none of these facts. He voted for legislation that will force many of us and our neighbors to lose health coverage entirely or face drastically higher premiums.

Tax benefits go to the wealthy while the poor lose money

As we wrote above, the lowest-income households will see their resources decline by 3.1% while the top 10% will see massive gains. The law is more regressive than any major legislation in decades. Wittman presents the opposite impression by citing a cherry-picked analysis.

Massive deficit and debt ceiling increases

The law explodes the budget deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years and raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. Wittman, who has historically positioned himself as fiscally conservative, makes no mention of this. Why? If he’s such a fiscal conservative, why is he failing to scream the House down about these generationally gigantic increases, and the burden he’s placing on Americans for generations to come? It’s simple hypocrisy and political gamesmanship, where we all lose while he and his friends steal our futures.

And he may be profiting himself, up to $59,300

Wittman himself stands to gain between $19,900 and $59,300 from tax provisions in legislation he voted for, according to analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (which Wittman disputes, naturally). His net worth is approximately $5.6 million, placing him in the richest 5% of Virginians who receive nearly half of the state’s tax cuts. His email doesn’t say anything about this, and his conflict of interest is not disclosed.

Temporary benefits for you, permanent for the top 10%

Wittman states provisions will be “made permanent” but fails to clarify that the popular provisions he highlights (tips, overtime, Social Security and senior deductions) are all temporary, expiring after 2028. Only provisions that primarily benefit higher earners (estate tax increases, pass-through deductions, corporate provisions) are permanent. Once again, the wealthy get permanent benefits while the rest of us get a token offering in the meantime.

Don’t let Wittman’s artificial sugar make you sick

Wittman’s email is a fine example of carefully crafted disinformation. Many of us in VA-01 care deeply about paying less tax, and Wittman’s message tries to speak directly to that concern. Wittman’s selective framing of the facts and omission of key information about the new law means his message is fundamentally dishonest — it is designed to mislead those of us who care about affordability, tax cuts, and the economy. The fact is, most of us will have less income and be less able to afford stuff because of H.R. 1. Even the name “Working Families Tax Cut Act” is designed to confuse matters. The law hugely benefits the wealthy by taking resources away from working families.

Stay focused. Understand and see through this disinformation campaign. Wittman isn’t working for us. He’s working for his donors and his party’s interests, and we must secure better representation in Congress for VA-01.

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The questions asked of the group were (paraphrased!):

1. How will you lower costs for Virginians?

2. What’s the one issue you’re most passionate about?

3. What does the phrase “American Dream” mean to you? How will you help people achieve it?

4. If you were given $10m, how would you use it to help VA01?

5. Why are you are the best candidate to beat Wittman?

This was the first time that all the candidates were gathered in one place to answer the same questions. We were struck by how consistent the candidates were in identifying the issues on which Wittman is failing: affordability, protecting the Constitution, reining in an out-of-control Executive, healthcare access, rural infrastructure, and building opportunity for people in VA-01, among others.

HTDems announced that, on a to-be-announced date, there will be an in-person meet-and-greet at their office in Williamsburg. We’ll post information about that when we have it.

Congratulations to the HTDems for organizing this excellent event, and to each of the candidates for their participation.