Candidate Profile: Andrew B. “Andy” Pittman (Va. District 94)

Andrew B. “Andy” Pittman is a Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates District 94. His name will appear on the ballot on November 7, 2023.

He is running against Phil Hernandez.

10 On Your Side reached out to all of the candidates running in this race with specific questions. The responses below came directly from the candidate and are unedited. If you do not see the candidate listed with a profile, we did not receive one.

Candidate Name:  Andrew B. “Andy” Pittman

Age:  53

Race: Virginia House of Delegates District 94

Party: Republican

Candidate Website:  www.AndyForNorfolk.com

Biography: As a Norfolk native and lifelong resident, I understand what matters most to our community and will work hard to keep our neighborhoods safe, make our economy strong, make sure parents are at the head of the table when it comes to their children’s education, and protect our Bay.  I live in the heart of Ocean View with my wife, Jessica, and two young children. Having stayed in the Commonwealth of Virginia for my education, I graduated from Norfolk Christian High School, James Madison University, and Washington & Lee School of Law.  I have had the honor of serving as an attorney at every level of government – federal, state, and local – including as a law clerk to the U.S. District Court in Norfolk and the Virginia Supreme Court, as well as an Associate City Attorney, where I represented law enforcement, fire, and rescue personnel in civil litigation defense. I also have extensive experience in private practice as a civil litigator.

Why are you running for this office?

We need to bring civility and common sense back to government. We need to respect the views of all our citizens. We need solutions, not slogans – leadership, not partisanship. We need a renewed community-centered focus on government that puts the needs of the citizens above the special interests and partisan political squabbles. Recently the General Assembly has favored criminals over victims and chosen to let California set Virginia energy policies.  If California bans cars, Virginia must follow.  That’s insane.  Our delegate should be from Norfolk and put Norfolk citizens ahead of Californians.  As your Delegate, I will always make sure that your voice is heard. I will fight to keep our neighborhoods safe, put law-abiding citizens ahead of violent criminals, restore funding for law enforcement, return the state surplus to the taxpayers, reform the tax code to bring better paying jobs back to Norfolk, control government spending, ensure that parents are fully involved in their children’s education, support our veterans, safeguard our liberties, and protect our Bay. Together, we can make our community the best place to live, work, do business, and raise our families.

What is the most important issue facing Virginia, and what is your position on it?

The top concern, at least in our district, is crime. Soft prosecutors, pro-criminal lawyers, and radical politicians who want to defund the police put criminals ahead of victims.  We need to reverse that trend and put the safety of our families, neighborhoods, and businesses first.  Our residences and businesses are under threat because emboldened criminals know they will not be prosecuted or in many cases even arrested because the prosecutors will not charge them.  As a result, property crime and theft are on the rise in Norfolk.  We need a return to common sense.  If you do the crime, you do the time.  We start by prosecuting the small crimes before they become big crimes.  We need to put violent criminals in jail where they belong so that we’re all safer.  We need to make sure that the criminal justice system is applied uniformly and fairly to all.  But we cannot just focus on punishment – we also need to emphasize deterrence and rehabilitation.  We should invest in job training and job placement and reintegration programs that help inmates return to society upon their release so that they can become productive citizens and less likely to commit future crimes.  Additionally, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  We should prioritize investment in youth mentorship programs that include successful business owners, community leaders, and successfully rehabilitated former inmates as mentors to steer our youth away from choosing to engage in criminal activity in the first place.  Ultimately, having fewer crimes committed, and thus fewer folks going to jail, will benefit everyone in our community.

What it the top challenge facing your district, and how would you address it?

The rising cost of living is making life unaffordable.  Home assessments have risen to unaffordable levels, Norfolk’s tax rate is the highest in Hampton Roads, and the state budget has ballooned to twice its size in the past ten years.  Inflation looks like it’s here to stay.  We need real, substantial tax relief for families now and to compete for companies we are losing to other states.  As your Delegate, I will always remember that government funds belong to you, not the government. We need to pass a state budget in a timely manner without leaving billions of dollars of surplus funds sitting in Richmond all year while families struggle to make ends meet and suffer from inflationary pressures back home. We need to ease the tax burden on individuals and businesses so that our workers can keep more of their hard-earned money and bring better paying jobs back to Norfolk. Also, many localities, like Norfolk, increase property assessments by as much as 5% to 7.5% or more per year. They often do not adjust the actual property tax rate, and then claim they are not increasing taxes, while in reality the effective tax rate increases proportionally to the increase in assessments. This hurts our neighbors on fixed incomes, especially our senior citizens. We need to place limits on the amounts by which localities may increase the effective tax rate imposed by increases in property assessments. In a nutshell, we need a return to common sense and bring civility back to government. We don’t need more professional politicians or lobbyists engaged in toxic partisanship. I’m a concerned neighbor like you who wants to work together to solve problems for our community. As the only candidate born and raised in Norfolk, I understand what matters most to our community, and will always put you ahead of politics.

What is your view on Governor Glen Youngkin’s proposal for a 15-week abortion ban with restrictions?

When it comes to abortion, we need solutions, not slogans. Virginians from all backgrounds and persuasions, whether they be Republican, Democrat, or Independent, truly want to see fewer abortions, not more. We need to approach this issue with common sense and compassion, and focus on areas where there is consensus on how to achieve that goal. We need to expand birth control access to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. We need greater support for mothers, not just in pre-natal and maternity care, but also through increased access to day care and job training and vocational skills for mothers who decide to keep their babies. The mother should not be left to fend for herself. Fathers should be required to financially support their children until they reach adulthood. We should also place greater emphasis on adoption and make it easier for would-be parents to adopt. Virtually everyone, with the exception of radical abortion extremists, opposes allowing abortion up until the moment of birth. The overwhelming consensus in the Commonwealth, shared by a vast majority of Virginians, is that a 15 week limit on abortion, when the unborn child can feel pain and the child’s sex can be determined, is a compassionate, humane, and reasonable limit on abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.

How do you feel about the politicization of public education?

As your Delegate, I will always remember that children belong to their parents, not the government. Parents matter and should be at the head of the table when it comes to their children’s education.  Parents send their children to school to learn math, reading, history, science and other core subjects.  They don’t send their children to school to be indoctrinated into radical concepts such as gender reclassification or to be placed in categories of “oppressors” and “oppressed.”  Unfortunately, our schools lately appear to be transforming into institutions of indoctrination that attack our fundamental values and teach our students to disdain their country through a skewed historical lens that focuses on societal problems and past injustices as opposed to the freedoms, liberties, and founding principles that make our country unique as the final bastion of liberty in the world.  We need to eliminate politics from the classroom and focus on learning.  We need to aggressively combat pandemic-era learning loss. We need a return to the basics – reading, writing, arithmetic – as well as an emphasis on an accurate portrayal of our nation’s history (including the good and the bad) and principles of good citizenship – to make sure our students are fully equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to become productive citizens and either enter college or the workforce upon graduation. 

What legislation would you plan to sponsor in your first year?

We need to restore common sense to our tax code to ease inflationary and cost of living pressures coming out of Washington, D.C., and to attract better paying jobs to Norfolk and Hampton Roads.  For example, Virginia’s minimum wage workers are in the highest tax bracket.  This does not make sense.  We should pass a significant tax cut that reforms Virginia income tax and makes it fair for all our workers.  Also, Virginia’s business tax is more than double the tax in North Carolina.  In practical terms, a business owner can relocate their business just a 30 minute drive south to cut the business tax by more than half.  That gives neighboring states, such as North Carolina, a huge competitive advantage over us when it comes to attracting jobs.  In addition to limiting new job opportunities, the high business tax makes it doubly more difficult for a business owner to start a job and succeed in Virginia.  We must change that by reducing the business tax rate to attract better paying jobs and provide our businesses with tax relief to help ward off adverse economic consequences of inflation. Finally, we need to place limits on the amounts by which localities may increase the effective tax rate imposed by increases in property assessments.

What is your view on unlimited campaign contributions? Should that change?

Given that my opponent gets most of his money from one special interest organization outside Hampton Roads, it would be easy to say yes and argue for campaign contribution limits.  However, we have seen in practical terms that individual spending limits just result in outside groups spending on their own to influence elections.  Plus, given the expense of running a campaign, individual contribution limits would have the ironic effect of making it more likely that only the super wealthy and elite could run for office.  Spending limits would also tip the balance of the scale in favor of large media outlets to determine the results of the elections as candidates of modest means would be unable to raise enough funds to penetrate through the media narrative.  Instead, the focus on campaign finance reform should be on greater transparency so that the voters know who is funding which candidates.  We should ban out of state campaign contributions, and prohibit candidates from spending campaign funds on personal expenses or to pay themselves or their family members.

How will you still value constituents with whom you disagree with?

I am a concerned neighbor like you who wants to work together to solve problems for our community.  Having grown up in a single family household with a mentally and physically challenged sibling, I have developed a deep appreciation and understanding of the need to be tolerant of others with differences, and to make sure they are included in the community.  After my parents separated when I was thirteen years old, I helped my mother care for my mentally and physically disabled sister.  Caring for them I experienced, both firsthand and through their eyes, the pain of ostracization and exclusion just for being different from the accepted norm.  These experiences have instilled in me a lifelong lesson of the importance of treating everyone with decency and respect, regardless whether they are different physically or hold differing views or opinions.  Unfortunately, so much of today’s politics is divisive and not inclusive.  I long for the time when President Ronald Reagan (R) and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D) would meet for a drink and hash out a compromise that moved the nation forward.  Too many people get elected promising to oppose the other side and then get nothing done.  The rhetoric needs to be toned down significantly, and we need to respect the views of all our fellow citizens.  We need solutions, not slogans – leadership, not partisanship.

Last session, legislation to help develop an arena in Norfolk was killed with blame behind placed on the untransparent nature of Norfolk Government. How will you interact with Norfolk City Government to make sure more opportunities aren’t lost?

We need greater transparency at all levels of government.  We need open and frank communications with our City’s elected officials, government workers, community leaders, and citizens to ensure that our citizens are getting the best representation and services possible.  Throughout the campaign, I have had the honor of visiting many community leaders, civic leagues, businesses, organizations, and everyday citizens to learn about their needs and concerns.  As your Delegate, I will continue that practice to make sure I stay fully aware of what matters most to our neighbors.  I do wish that our City leaders would focus less on casinos, arenas, malls, and light rail, and instead focus on filling the unacceptable level of vacancies in our police department, as well as filling the vacancies in other City departments, including the 911 call center, which is essential for a rapid emergency response to keep our communities safe.  The City also needs to focus on lowering the taxes on our homes, and to make sure that City resources are allocated evenly throughout the City, and not just focused on the Downtown area, so that each area of the City receives its fair share of City resources.