According to Ben Pershing a little while ago at the Washington Post’s Virginia Politics blog, Virginia freshmen GOP Representatives Morgan Griffith (VA-09) and Robert Hurt (VA-05) will land on two key committees: Energy and Commerce and Financial Services, respectively. While liberal soon-to-be former Representative Rick Boucher, whom Griffith defeated, served on Energy and Commerce, no Virginia member currently sits on the equally powerful Financial Services committee, making that a huge score for Hurt. On the downside, he’ll have to put up with Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who will assume the position of ranking member (see Housing Wire) after four disastrous years as its chairman. Freshmen appointments to both committees is unusual (even Boucher had to wait a few terms before his gig started).
The news especially was welcome for Hurt who made national headlines last month at the every-two-year-ritual House office lottery for freshman, where he had the misfortune of drawing the highest number and, therefore, the least desirable office space (see Jake Gibson at FoxNews.com). He needed the office karma of Kirk Cox. As for Virginia’s other freshman GOP House member, Scott Rigell (VA-02) is awaiting, but expected to get, a spot on the Armed Services Committee, an assignment Virginians from either party from that district almost always get because of the large military presence in Hampton Roads.
Delegate Morgan Griffith was always a strong, pro-life legislator for us. It is so sad that the man he hand-picked to replace him, Greg Habeeb, is not. Today, Habeeb made the following statement: “I do not oppose abortion “for any reason, even to save the life of a mother.”” See comment #4 from Mr. Habeeb himself: http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2010/12/12/greg-habeeb-fair-minded-pol-or-finger-in-the-wind-candidate/comment-page-1/#comment-94155
This young man does not have the maturity and does not have the values to be our delegate. He already has developed a reputation for changing his position on issues to try to appeal to whoever is asking him about it, so we really can’t trust whatever he may say.
He certainly can’t fill Mr. Griffith’s shoes. We need to get him to step aside so we can replace him with a pro-life candidate before it’s too late. The election to replace Mr. Griffith is coming up fast, on January 11, and Habeeb faces a strong Democratic opponent who already has much better name recognition, Ginger Mumpower. She’s a semi-conservative Democrat–says she’s pro-life herself but supports keeping abortion legal. That’s what most Democrats around here try to say, but it was shocking to have a Republican imitate her. Habeeb has been trying to copy whatever stance she takes on an issue and that probably made him say what he did today.
I’ve heard that the Party can replace a candidate before an election is held. What can we do? How do we do it? Does anybody have connections with the Salem Republican Party?
From what i read, he clearly says that he opposes abortion in any and all cases. It is wrong to abort a child for any reason. To kill a child to save the mother is still murder, even if it is well intended. I feel that Mr.Habeeb fully understands this point. The question that was posed to him was in a rather confusing format. His answer was also confusing, but when looked at in context it shows that he is strongly pro-life. I believe that you and many others simply misunderstood him.
@ Pete: I think you misunderstood his answer. As DeAnndra said, it was kind of confusing. His answer, as I read it, stated that he didn’t believe there were no exceptions, not that he believes that there are all exceptions, if that is any clearer.
@ DeAnndra: With all due respect, saving the life of the mother is a clear exception understood by Christian teaching under the doctrine of self-defense. The problem is that secularists have watered that down to “health of the mother” to which they include some very specious arguments as to what “health” means.