Democratic candidates for 11th District hold debate

By Kipp Hanley

Published: May 13, 2008

The four Democratic candidates running for U.S. Congress from the 11th District this year were quite diverse in their career paths and that was never more evident than during the course of their debate at the A.J. Ferlazzo Building in Woodbridge on Tuesday evening.

Lori Alexander is a 40-year-old physical therapist and Sierra Club member with limited political experience. Gerald Connolly is a 14-year politician and current Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman. Doug Denneny is a career Navy Top Gun instructor and Iraq War veteran looking to “serve again” and Leslie Byrne was the first woman in Virginia to be elected to the House of Representatives in the history of the state.

Yet the same theme was hammered home time and time again in the 90-minute debate and that was change. Perhaps nobody said it better than Alexander during her three-minute closing speech.

“This country is broke and we need a physical therapist to fix it,” said Alexander, who constantly referred to her poor upbringing and her compassion for all people.

Questions from the crowd varied from how, and how quickly would you get U.S. troops out of Iraq to the candidates opinions’ on illegal immigration and the Prince William County resolution last fall that was designed to combat it.

Of the four candidates, Alexander was the only one to not criticize — directly or indirectly — the county’s resolution that restricts some services to illegal immigrants and requires police to ask the immigration status of someone arrested for a serious or minor offense when there is probable cause to think that the person is in the country illegally.

“Yes, the federal government needs to do something about it ...but they [Prince WIlliam police] caught a child molester, an illegal immigrant who molested a 4-year-old child,” Alexander said. “You know what, if that law got a molester off our streets, it’s worth it.”

Conversely, Denneny was adamantly opposed to the resolution.

“I think the legislation that [Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman] Corey Stewart and others passed is abhorrent in 2008,” Denneny said. “The people who are codifying the law [are allowing] some level of racial profiling.”

The Democratic primary for the 11th District election is June 10. The district is made up of parts of Fairfax and Prince William County as well as the cities of Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park.