Writer thinks Colgan has been untruthful

Rick Hendrix
Published: March 11, 2008

A letter from Sen. Charles J. “Chuck” Colgan, D-Manassas, defending his votes for in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and his vote for a gas tax caught my eye. It was really an incredible letter. 

It began as an attempt to answer charges that he had “not followed through on promises made during (his) campaign.” Then incredibly, Senator Colgan acknowledges that he has broken both campaign pledges!

In answering the charge that he lied about opposition to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, he notes that the charge is “partly true,” but then defends his vote because the bill had a list of limits in it concerning which illegal immigrants would receive these benefits. He neglects however to mention that this bill, which he has voted for in the past, was the exact bill he was criticized for during the 2007 campaign.

Responding to criticism during the campaign for his support of a gas tax, Colgan reacted angrily at several public debates and in the final weeks of the campaign he promised he would “never support a gas tax again.” During these same public debates, Senator Colgan promised to repeal the abusive driver fees. When he was running to retain his office, both seemed doable. But now, after the campaign is over, according to the letter Colgan wrote to the paper, the repeal of the abusive driver fees makes a gas tax necessary. It should be noted that the driver fees would have raised $65 million dollars at most and the gas tax Colgan is now back to supporting would raise well over $1 billion.

While it was not a part of the previous letter, I was also very disappointed when Senator Colgan broke a third campaign promise.  He declared during the NAACP debate that “abstinence was the most
important thing we can teach our children.” This was in response to a question about teaching abstinence in our schools.Yet when the vote came to the floor of the Senate, Colgan did not vote. This lack of a vote killed the funding for this program. 

Last fall, I commented that I thought this was the first campaign where Colgan was being deliberately untruthful about his positions on the issues, just to win reelection. Sadly, it appears I was correct. The 29th District deserves better.

RICK HENDRIX

Bristow