Summary

VA Senate District 6

District Map (PDF)

Lynwood Lewis

Current Position: State Senator for VA Senate District 6 since 2014
Affiliation: Democrat

Candidate: 2019 State Senator VA Senate District 6

For more information, see Lynwood Lewis’s post.

Lynwood Lewis was born and raised on the Eastern Shore in the Town of Parksley. His family farmed on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for over three generations. He currently resides in Accomac where he is raising his 13 year-old son, John Zadoc.

Lewis graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 1984 with a BA in History and Political Science and went on to receive his JD from the University of Richmond. Lewis continues the general practice of law in Accomac, Virginia as a partner in the firm of Custis, Dix, Lewis & Custis, L.L.P.

First elected to the House of Delegates in 2003, Lewis served, while in House, on the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the Governor’s Aerospace Advisory Council and the Speaker of the House appointed him to the Health Insurance Reform Commission.

In January of 2014, he was elected to the Virginia Senate from the 6th District. Senator Lewis sits on the Committees of Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources, Local Government and Education and Health. He serves as Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Coastal Flooding and Adaptation in the General Assembly. Lewis has also been appointed to both the State Water Commission and the Modeling and Simulation Advisory Council.

Lewis was named the 2013 Outstanding Citizen of the Year by the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce. He has been named a Legislative Hero or Leader by the League of Conservation Voters five times – 2004, 2008, 2012, 2015 and 2018 – and in 2012 and 2013 he was awarded the Distinguished Advocate for Virginia Business by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. As a Senator, Lewis was named the 2015 Legislator of the Year by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Just recently, he received the Humane Society’s 2018 Humane Legislator Award, Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s 2018 Coastal Defender of the Year Award, the Sierra Club’s Legislative Leader Award and the HosPAC Healthcare Hero Award.

Elizabeth Lankford

Current Position: Owner of Blue Crab Company for
Affiliation: Republican

Candidate: 2019 State Senator VA Senate District 6

For more information, see Elizabeth Lankford’s post.

Growing up on the Eastern Shore Elizabeth Lankford learned about hard work and character. As a young girl, she was involved in her family’s agricultural business, seeing how the government can be both necessary and intrusive.

Now Elizabeth has decided to take the bold step into a run for State Senate because things haven’t gotten better while she was away. Opioids have spiraled out of control. Job growth hasn’t picked up despite the economy improving. Flooding isn’t just the same problem it was a decade ago but has gotten worse.  What we have right now isn’t working. It’s time for someone to step up and not just do the bare minimum needed to get re-elected. Things have to change.

Issues

Civil Rights

Lynwood Lewis

• Supports and co-sponsored Equal Rights Amendment
• Supports and co-sponsored legislation that would expand Virginia’s anti-discrimination in housing and employment laws to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

Criminal Justice Reform

• Fighting to end school-to-prison pipeline
• Supports and has co-sponsored decriminalization of marijuana
• Supports and co-sponsored legislation to end the harmful practice of suspending driver’s licenses for nonpayment of court fees
• Supports body cameras for law enforcement officers
• Supports targeted investments and prison reform that will substantially decrease recidivism rates
• Supported raising the felony threshold to $500 in 2018 and continues to support increasing threshold to $1000
• Supports reform of cash bail system in Virginia
• Supports banning the box to prevent discrimination in employment

Elizabeth Lankford

As a small businesswoman, Elizabeth knows that Right to Work enables an employee’s right to unionize while respecting those who wish to abstain.  Policies such as Right to Work have helped make Virginia a top ranked state for business. To bring prosperity to the 6th district, we must support our businesses and employees.

Economy

Lynwood Lewis

• Played and continues to play critical role in rural broadband deployment and expansion, fighting for prioritized funding and budget language changes to make grant funds more accessible
• Introduced and passed legislation to establish working waterfront economic development areas, allowing localities to incentivize investment and procure special zoning to cultivate much-needed working waterfronts, particularly in rural coastal areas
• Created and secured the initial seed funding for the Virginia Waterway Maintenance Fund, a fund that specifically addresses dire funding needs in rural coastal Virginia and waterways neglected by the US Coast Guard that have subsequently had their navigable markers removed. This legislation was a huge victory for rural coastal Virginia.
• Fought for inclusion of Northampton, Accomack and Mathews Counties in 2018 legislation that incentivizes investments by businesses that will create guaranteed high-paying jobs and will remain in those localities for a significant amount of time. After the inclusion of the rural counties in the 6th District, subsequently co-sponsored this critical rural development legislation.
• Long advocated for funding and policy that invests in and prioritizes the industries critical to the 6th District—industries like aquaculture, commercial fisheries, ecotourism, aerospace, trade, and forestry, as well as best management practices for farms and major investments in both the Port of Virginia and Wallops Flight Facility.
• Supported and fought for investments in the Eastern Shore Public Library, Eastern Shore Community College and Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital—all critical pieces of attracting and retaining businesses and workers
• Consistently fought for major structured investments in transportation infrastructure, roads and public transit, as well as working to address resiliency needs as it pertains to the regular flooding of roads in the 6th Senate District.
• Expanding both the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, projects that are long-overdue
• Recognized as an advocate specifically for small and locally-owned businesses in Hampton Roads and on the Eastern Shore
• Sponsored incentives for resiliency in building and business practices for commercial properties

Elizabeth Lankford

One of the main drivers of Elizabeth’s decision to run for State Senate was the lack of success seen with job creation in this district.  Better jobs mean a better economy. We need to attract young workers to come to, and stay in, the 6th district. This is not a Republican issue or Democratic issue.  This is about bringing prosperity to the area. She will seek out problem solvers in Richmond, regardless of what party they are in. 

Education

Lynwood Lewis

Elizabeth Lankford

K-12 Education
This is our future.  We must keep a focus on innovation in our schools and making the area appealing for the best teachers to want to work here.  Elizabeth will be an advocate for Virginia’s school voucher program in Richmond. 

Secondary Education
Costs are skyrocketing for secondary education.  Whether a student’s pathways lead to a four-year institution or a career tech program, we must invest in our future workforce. We are lucky to have many secondary education programs across the district and must support them and their students.

Environment

Lynwood Lewis

• Chair of Joint Subcommittee on Coastal Flooding and Adaptation
• Environmental Policy Liaison for the Senate Democratic Caucus
• Responsible for much of the successful policy that has passed in recent years regarding the environment as it pertains to Coastal Virginia, including:
  • 2016 SB282 : Established Shoreline Resiliency Fund
  • 2016 SB283: Fitting crab pots with turtle excluder device
  • 2016 SB307: Allows for authorization of emergency beach restoration in case of weather event that was state or national emergency
  • 2017 SB1518: Expands recycling programs to include beneficial use
  • 2018 SB265: Created cabinet-level position (Special Assistant to the Governor on Coastal Flooding and Adaptation), resulting in the hiring of Rear Admiral Ann Phillips and a fully-developed Coastal Plan
  • 2018 SJ21: Constitutional amendment to allow localities the ability to provide tax abatements to property owners who take flooding remediation efforts on existing properties. Passed on 2018 ballot and enabling legislation that set parameters passed in 2019.
  • 2019 SB1559: Expands C-PACE loan program to include shoreline resiliency improvements
  • 2019 SB1599: Protects vulnerable Eastern Shore aquifer and our groundwater supply through incentivized approach
• • Opposes opening our waters to off-shore drilling AND seismic testing
  • Supports carbon capping and has sponsored the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for several years, but Republican majority has stymied this
  • Supports moving away from plastic use, and has sponsored legislation to allow localities to ban or tax plastic bags
  • Supports and has co-sponsored legislation to increase both commercial and residential access to solar energy
  • Secured investments (Agricultural Best Management Practices) that helped farmers curb runoff pollution
  • Supports recycling of coal ash to protect public health and our drinking water
  • Supports increased funding for coastal resiliency, solutions to sea level rise, energy efficiency programs and green jobs
  • Secured investments to study and restore oyster populations, resulting in a healthier Chesapeake Bay and, in some tributaries, full restoration or near-full restoration of the native oyster

Elizabeth Lankford

We must improve our flood prevention measures.   We must improve our economy to be able to fund even more advanced measures.   If you believe in climate change or not, we can all agree that what puts us in the strongest position to make necessary changes, or respond to a natural disaster, is a strong economy.  That is what drives plans, innovations and improvements.

Health Care

Lynwood Lewis

• Fought for and successfully passed Medicaid Expansion, ensuring long-awaited healthcare access for an estimated 400,000 Virginians and saving rural hospitals across the state
• Supports greater access to and broader investments in mental health care and awareness in the Commonwealth
• Passed comprehensive legislation to address the opioid crisis; established regional overdose task force that is now established on the Eastern Shore
• Supports and has co-sponsored legislation to create and expand access to medicinal cannabis and supports a fully implemented medicinal marijuana program for the Commonwealth.
• Supports seeking ways to address the damage done by current Administration at federal level to health care affordability and accessibility
• Fought to make Eastern Shore Rural Health a designated care center for veterans,and will continue to fight for that designation and for the care that our veterans deserve
• Opposes piecemeal changes to Certificate of Public Need that could lead to less oversight in medical care and hospital closure
• Supports and helped pass legislation to end surprise billing by insurance companies

Elizabeth Lankford

People need easier access to lifesaving cures and the government should not be in the way of innovations.  Costs are too high and access is limited in the rural areas of our district.  We need more options for coverage and care. This includes access to mental health care and addiction care. Opioids have taken too many lives in our community and we must reach across the aisle to create a common sense solution. We need someone to go fight for change. 

Democracy

Lynwood Lewis

Voting Rights

• Supports and has sponsored legislation to repeal unnecessary and harmful Voter ID laws
• Supports and has co-sponsored legislation to enact no-excuse in-person absentee voting
• Supports restoration of voting rights to felons who have served their time
• Consistently sponsored and supported legislation to end partisan and political gerrymandering. Firmly believes that voters should pick their legislators, not the other way around.
• Opposes legislation that would allow any entity that takes taxpayer dollars to discriminate based on sexual orientation

Housing

Lynwood Lewis

• Supports continued increased investments in Housing Trust Fund in order to address a growing affordable housing crisis
• Helped pass and will continue to support legislative reforms that address the exorbitant eviction rate in Virginia, particularly in Richmond and Hampton Roads
• Supports and is focusing on addressing major infrastructure needs that inhibit new building or create barriers to existing improvements, like outdated sewer systems and aging water infrastructure.
• Supports investments in programming to educate Virginians as it pertains to housing accessibility and affordability
• Supports investments in energy efficiency and home rehabilitation efforts, both of which are sorely needed in rural Virginia and amongst a growing senior population
• Supports incentives that encourage developers to both (a) resilient and (b) rent to residents from mixed incomes
• Supports utilizing nearby intellectual capital (like ESCC, ODU, NASA, TCC) to extract innovative ideas for building and resiliency

More Issues

Lynwood Lewis

• Supports a woman’s right to access reproductive care and believes that all decisions regarding her care should be between a woman and her doctor
• Supports universal background checks on all guns purchased in the Commonwealth
• Supports red flag laws
• Opposes arming teachers
• Supports legislation to address food insecurities and food deserts
• Supports “hands free” legislation—Virginia has the highest rate of distracted driving in the country
• Supports in-state tuition for DACA recipients
• Supports Family and Medical Leave Act
• Recognizes critical problems within our current foster care system and supports reforms
• Supports new regulations and laws to address proliferation of elderly financial abuse; sponsored legislation to create elder abuse registry that was cost prohibitive and working in the interim to ensure the legislation that will be newly introduced (if elected) in 2020 can be implemented as intended