AGE: 61
FAMILY: Married to Cathy (Fonseca) Marshall; five children, three of whom are living at home.
CAMPAIGN MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 421 Manassas, Va. 20108
CAMPAIGN PHONE: 703-361-5416
E-MAIL: bobmarshall@delegatebob.com
WEBSITE: www.delegatebob.com
OCCUPATION: Research Consultant
EMPLOYMENT: Self-Employed
EDUCATION: A.A., Montgomery College (Maryland); BA in History, Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina; M.A., in Humanities, California State at Dominguez Hills
QUALIFICATIONS: Elected 1991 and re-elected every two years since then; Vice Chairman, Counties Cities and Towns Committee; Chairman, Joint Stem Cell Research Subcommittee; Former Congressional Aide to three members of Congress: two U.S. House of Representatives (one Democrat, one Republican) and one U.S. Senate member; Staff director of a U.S. Senate Subcommittee.
1. What is your top public service accomplishment?
Helping my constituents with difficulties they may have with state government. I have helped with securing tax returns, cleaning culverts, placing stop signs and signals, helping with adoptions, child support enforcement, recovering property, helped 5,600 homeowners with an IRS ruling, get workmen's compensation help and pass four claims bills for individuals and businesses.
2. What sets you apart from the other candidate in the race?
I am the only candidate with experience in the General Assembly, fourteen years to be exact.
3. What is one thing you promise not to do if elected?
Raise taxes. I will consider tolls for new roads, however.
4. What is the biggest issue facing your district? What should be done to address it?
We must build VRE to Haymarket, repair current roads or build new roads that move the most people for the least money without opening up areas for massive development. The Tri-County Parkway should be built as an environmentally sensitive toll road connecting Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William on the Comprehensive Plan alignments. Other alignments will increase development in new areas. Press figures about the money needed to complete this road were too high as already constructed portions of the road were counted in the total. This can be done just as Route 288 was done near Richmond.
5. Is there any additional legislation in regard to abortion that you would support? Would you make any changes to the current laws and regulation about abortion in Virginia?
I would regulate abortion clinics for health and safety, require abortionists to carry liability insurance and be residents of Virginia, end the payment of Medicaid abortions in Virginia (there were 1547 paid Medicaid abortions in FY 2004), make it a class one misdemeanor to sell fetal aborted body parts, and make mandatory the reporting of abortion complications by persons who treat such injured women. The U.S. Supreme Court claims we cannot go further than this.
6. In Virginia, local governments have limited control of revenue and taxing authority. Should they have more? Less? What changes would you propose?
I would not support giving additional taxing authority to local governments. In Northern Virginia any locality either by a petition from citizens or by an ordinance from the governor body, can put a transportation referendum for an income tax on the ballot for from one quarter to 1 percent of income. The money has to be spent for transportation projects in the jurisdiction approving the referendum.
7. In Northern Virginia, property taxes have increased dramatically in recent years. What role should the state play in this?
I have voted to exempt senior and handicapped citizens from paying a portion of their real property tax. This year, I voted for a constitutional amendment to let localities exempt the first $100,000 of home value from the real estate tax. It passed the House, but not the Senate Finance Committee. Localities already do have the authority to restrict the assessment or rate of growth, but supervisors have not chosen to cap real property taxes to the extent they could.
8. What do you believe the role of the state should be in determining the status of same-sex couples in Virginia?
My statute, HB 751 passed over Gov. Mark Warner's objections last year, prevents Virginia from granting legal recognition equivalence of marriage to so-called same sex couples who get such a status from other countries or states. This does not take away rights of any citizens to own property, vote, have joint back accounts, appoint a medical decision maker, go to a public school, have friends visit them in a hospital and the like. One man, one woman marriage is the fundamental, irreducible social fact of just and orderly human existence for the nurturing of children and the benefit of society.
9. What are your views about public-private partnerships and other mechanisms to privatize Virginia's highway system? What are the caveats you would identify as we move forward with this process?
I oppose the sale of the Dulles Toll Road because: commuters were told tolls would end once the road was paid; the price offered recently is not the replacement cost for the road; all the proceeds from the sale are to go to building a gold plated version of Metro. The public-private partnership laws have not worked entirely the way they were envisioned. I got a law passed to require the disclosure of contract details once an unsolicited Public-Private Partnership Act contract is awarded for a road or school. Previously, this was not done.
10. Do you believe that illegal immigration is a problem in Virginia? If so, why, and what should be done?
I have supported cutting off non-emergency benefits and other state services to illegal immigrants. I voted to give the state police the authority to arrest illegals for immigration violations, but the U.S. Justice Departments says our jails aren't nice enough to detain illegal's for more than 72 hours if the federal immigration service fails to pick up immigration law breakers. I also voted to prevent illegals from getting in-state tuition at our colleges. But Gov. Warner vetoed this law last year. So, illegal aliens can still get in-state tuition, but servicemen defending America cannot. That is wrong.