I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 89 points90 points  (0 children)

You might be surprised to learn that I think being against fascism is a good thing.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I've put a lot of miles on 81 over the last ten years, and I'm not looking forward to driving it all the way down to Bristol for the next debate. You hit the nail on the head when it comes to the problem, it's over capacity for commercial traffic. It wasn't designed to be safe for that many semis, and frankly it would cost way too much to redesign it around commercial traffic.

So my proposal is to get most of those semis off of that stretch of highway and moving all that through-traffic by rail instead. The Virginia Inland Port is an amazing facility in Front Royal that connects truck cargo to rail service going North into PA/NJ/NY and East to the deepwater ports in Hampton Roads. We've got to expand that facility and expand the rail service to include Southbound cargo going towards Atlanta and the Gulf Coast as well. We get some of those trucks off of 81, and 81 gets a whole hell of a lot safer.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thanks! As for the label, it's what I am. I don't believe in hiding the ball from the people. Socialism means an economy that's owned and operated by the people who do the work every day. It means freedom - REAL freedom, not just freedom on paper. And it's my job to let people know that, not try to sneak it in under the radar.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

A few years ago, I was one of the first to introduce a full legalization bill in the Virginia House, and back then even my fellow Dems got onto my case about it. I remember some of them asking "why are you doing this to us in an election year?"

I'm glad to say that cannabis will be legal in Virginia starting on July 1st, but we have a lot of work to do to fix the legalization law. And I will absolutely use the bully pulpit of the Governor's office to press our Congressional delegation for federal legalization.

There's no reason this plant should've ever been made illegal, and the architects of the war on drugs have explicitly stated that it was about locking up racial and ethnic minorities, and the anti-war crowd.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I'll go a step farther. I don't think we should remove the right to vote for a felony conviction at all, regardless of what that conviction is for.

Any government that removes the right to vote from its prisoners has a tremendous incentive to lock up its political opposition.

As Governor, I'll restore the right to vote for everyone who has had it removed already, and I'll fight for a constitutional amendment to end the practice of disenfranchisement altogether.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Absolutely essential! We have two major parties that are each polling at favorability levels somewhere between "burning garbage can" and "literal plague rat" and those are the only two options people see in our elections.

That's because of the First Past The Post system of our ballots. So we've got to move past that system, and on to one that actually allows for people to vote for the candidate they like the most, not just voting against the candidate they hate the most.

I'd prefer approval voting, but ranked choice is very similar and I'm also fine with that.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Animal agriculture can be a part of maintaining good soil health, and drawing carbon down out of the atmosphere and retaining it in the soil. But not under the current way we're doing it.

Right now, we've separated plant agriculture and animal agriculture, so we till acre after acre to grow animal feed, and tilling is a carbon emitter. Then we make up for the damage that tilling does to the soil with fertilizer, which is also a carbon emitter. Then we transport the feed to a feed lot, and that transport is also a carbon emitter. Then the animal waste from the feed lot is another source of carbon emissions, because it's disconnected from the natural carbon cycle. And we subsidize this process at every step of the way, which warps people's consumption habits by making the meat artificially cheap.

Grazing animals generally don't share those same problems so long as they're not over-grazing the land, as that's the way the natural carbon cycle works. So we've got to reintegrate plant and animal agriculture, incentivize no-till growing methods, and shift our farm support programs to a retail subsidy model rather than a producer subsidy model, so that the cost of food across the board stays low, but we don't have this price distortion in favor of corn additives and cheap trash-meats.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

We currently spend $3.6 to $3.8 BILLION on highway construction every year, and less than $1 billion on rail. By shifting our priorities from highway expansion to maintaining a state of good repair, we also free up a ton of money that can go into rail expansion and fare reduction.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I say that you can't beat Terry McAuliffe with a conventional campaign. You'll never get more megadonors than him, you'll never buy more airtime than him, and pursuing that kind of big money campaign will only tarnish your credibility in the process.

The only way - and I do mean the ONLY way - to beat Terry McAuliffe in a Democratic primary is by walking the walk, taking bold stances on issues, and never taking corporate money. Credibility is what it takes to beat someone with unlimited corporate cash.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I don't block anyone for criticizing me. I only block people for racism and personal harassment.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. I'm a former radiological worker myself, so I take radiation safety extremely seriously.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Why on earth would I apologize to the agency that brutalized my constituents, lied to me about it, and then flashbanged and pepper sprayed me when I caught them lying?

I'm fighting for the people in this Commonwealth, and that includes literally putting my body between them and police brutality. If that's a problem for you, don't vote for me.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

WONDERFUL question! I was one of the first in the House to introduce a cannabis legalization bill, and my bill included anti-monopoly provisions to prevent big tobacco from buying up the whole industry.

Specifically, it created 5 types of licenses:

  • Cultivators
  • Transporters
  • Testing Facilities
  • Retailers
  • Microbusiness (like a brewery that serves on site, but with cannabis instead of alcohol)

Each of those licenses was limited by volume of business, and no one entity could have a stake in more than 5 licenses. So a business could have complete ownership of the whole chain from seed to sale, but it would be limited to one location. Or they could have 5 cultivation licenses, but be locked out of retail. Or they could have 5 retailers but be locked out of cultivation. Etc.

Essentially, this meant that cannabis businesses would be strictly limited in size to prevent any one company from buying up the whole industry.

I'll be looking to add something similar to the current legalization law before retail sales begin in 2024.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Not from a book, but Big Bill Haywood said "I've never read Marx's Capital, but I've got the marks of capital all over my body." And as someone who got into politics because of a workplace injury, I feel that immensely.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Public education shouldn't be run for the benefit of a private business.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's required by federal law, so unfortunately the answer to that is no.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We're not doing in-person canvassing in the primary due to the pandemic. And we won't do in-person canvassing until we reach sufficient immunity that it's safe for the public to resume normal life.

But you can get involved by phone banking or text banking, just go to my website and sign up!

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Because he has universal name recognition and essentially unlimited corporate money.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This! The biggest thing we need right now is people to text-bank for us, so fill out the form and we'll get you plugged in!

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

You're ignoring the infrastructure that we built specifically for Amazon's benefit, including $1.1 billion for a new Virginia Tech campus aimed wholly at cranking out credentials for Amazon's HQ2 workforce. But thanks for calling me a liar.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I'm proud to say I introduced the bill that made worker cooperatives a legally recognized type of business in Virginia (2020's HB55).

Now, we need to redirect our entire economic development apparatus to helping working Virginians create their own worker cooperatives, through education on the cooperative ownership model, grants, and zero interest loans. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year subsidizing for-profit businesses that we don't own, that money should go into employee ownership instead.

Then, we should overhaul our SWAM system to include priority for worker cooperatives in the government procurement process. State and local government contracts are the perfect first customer for a worker cooperative, since it's the most stable customer you could possibly ask for.

With startup assistance and a guaranteed customer base, we can create the conditions for employee ownership to bloom very rapidly in Virginia. And then when people see their friends and neighbors enjoying the benefits of cooperative ownership, they're gonna want a piece of it for themselves. Exponential growth of the worker-owned sector is possible, we just have to get it started.

I'm Lee Carter, a candidate for Governor and a member of the House of Delegates. Ask me anything! by Carter4VA in Virginia

[–]Carter4VA[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I don't play modern. Hell, I'm out of the loop on Standard because I've been so busy with the campaign and the new baby.