Congressional candidates in Virginia's 11th district debate issues ahead of special election
It comes as early voting has already begun in the Virginia 11th Congressional District special election, scheduled for September 9.
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Each candidate, Democrat James Walkinshaw and Republican Stewart Whitson, began with opening remarks about why they are running for Congress.
'I'm running for Congress to take on Trump and his allies,' Walkinshaw said. He also called Whitson a Trump ally.
'They want somebody who is going to come in and actually deliver results,' Whitson said. He also said the district, which has consistently voted blue in recent years, actually wants a candidate to provide change.
Among the topics debated: immigration enforcement, Gaza, climate change, education, and federal workers.
Walkinshaw said the first bill he would sponsor if elected would be one to eliminate DOGE. Meanwhile, Whiston said he would sponsor the REINS Act.
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Before the debate, each candidate spoke with DC News Now about crucial issues in the district, which covers Fairfax County and City.
On affordability:
Whiston: 'One of the biggest drivers is inflation. And the biggest drivers of inflation are reckless spending at the executive branch level. And so we don't have a revenue problem in DC, what we have is a spending problem. And if we want to get that under control, we have to stop the wasteful spending. We don't need to raise taxes. We actually need to lower taxes, put that money into people's pockets so they can invest in the economy and grow the economy. But if we stop the reckless spending, that'll solve a lot of the problems. How do we do that? We do that through the REINS Act.'
Walkinshaw: 'Well, the first thing we need to do to make life more affordable is repeal the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. And this is a difference between me and my opponent. He supports Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which I call the Big BS Bill, and I don't… That bill is going to make life a lot less affordable for a lot of Virginians. We need to repeal it, and then we need to go to work bringing down the cost of health care, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, building 3 to 5 million new homes in this country.
On federal government workforce cuts:
Walkinshaw: The first thing I'll do is stand up and speak out about the outrageous, disgusting treatment that federal workers are enduring, Federal workers who are our neighbors here in Northern Virginia are dedicated public servants, most of whom could have made a lot more money working in the private sector, but they enjoy and find passion in serving the American people. And that service should never be denigrated. It should be celebrated. And this administration is not just firing them, it's attacking them, attacking them in very personal ways. So I'm going to stand up and speak out about that, tell the stories of federal workers who have been viciously attacked by this administration, and support legislation to end DOGE, to defund DOGE, and restore Congress as the decision maker for federal spending.
Whitson: 'I am a former federal worker. I spent a decade in the FBI. So I know… better than anyone that when a federal worker loses their job, it doesn't just impact that person. It impacts their entire family. And so the people I'm talking to, what they're interested in is, okay, where do we go from here? How do we fix the problem? And so I would fix it in a couple of ways… Number one, if there's good employees in the federal government that got pushed out of the federal government and they want to come back in, I want to find a way to bring them back in. The second thing I want to do is I want to create new opportunities in our economy where they can use the expertise and all the experience they had as a federal worker to launch a new career that's going to pay them more and still give them the same satisfaction they had.'
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