Covering Annandale, Bailey's Crossroads, Lincolnia, and Seven Corners in Fairfax County, Virginia

Senate candidate Yasmine Taeb faults Saslaw’s ties to Dominion

Virginia Senate candidate speaks to voters. 

The main priority of Yasmine Taeb, a candidate for the 35th District in the Virginia Senate, is “to get corporate money out of politics.”

She is going up against Senate Minority Leader Dick Saslaw in the Democratic primary. Unlike Sawslaw, Taeb will not accept campaign contributions from corporations

Saslaw, who’s been in the Senate for 40 years, has raised more than $1.4 million in campaign funds, including $350,500 from Dominion Energy, his top donor, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Taeb has so far raised $70,352, all of it from individuals.

Utility monopolies, like Dominion, are state-regulated corporations and should not be allowed to make political contributions, Taeb said at a campaign meet-and-greet session in Falls Church March 10.

“The majority of voters I spoke to feel they haven’t had a voice in Richmond, that the system is corrupt,” Taeb says. She wants to take corporate money out of politics “to make the process more fair for voters.”

“Saslaw calls me anti-Dominion,” she says. “It so much more than that. It’s about abandoning the Virginia way of pay-to-play politics. We have to make sure our elected officials are more accessible and more accountable to voters.”

Karen Torrent, an attorney and energy consultant, who is also critical of Saslaw’s connection to Dominion, is also running in the Democratic primary for the District 35 Senate seat. No Republican candidates have come forward yet.

Among other priorities, Taeb would raise the minimum wage, repeal right-to-work laws, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, prevent gun violence, repeal the death penalty, support women’s right to choose, and bar localities from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“There are tens of thousands of undocumented families in Virginia,” she says. “Children go to bed every night not knowing if their parents will be picked up by ICE.”

Taeb, an attorney who mostly represents refugees and asylum seekers, says “these are the communities under attack most aggressively by the [Trump] Administration.” She feels a connection with those groups, as her family emigrated from Iran to the United States though the southern border with Mexico when she was in the second grade “when the immigration laws were much more humane.”

11 responses to “Senate candidate Yasmine Taeb faults Saslaw’s ties to Dominion

  1. Maybe I'm missing something, but if Taeb believes there are "… tens of thousands of undocumented families in Virginia…” why are we obligated to let them remain? She may be content with the idea that it's ok for Mason District to be overrun with illegals, but I certainly am not. – Sparky

    1. Sparky, please be real with me. What harm is someone who is undocumented doing to you, in this day in age of full employment. Sure, if they get paid under the table they are skirting income tax, which if they were filing for they’d probably get most of it back anyways because of their tax rate. But everyone pays sales tax. Everyone pays real estate taxes in some form (whether directly or through the landlord). I suppose they aren’t paying property taxes, but that is only because of VA laws that prevent them from registering without documentation. But at this point we’re talking a couple hundred dollars max. Is that worth the family separations? Is that worth the economic drain of taking away labor from employers that desperately need employees?

      The answer I typically hear is “they should come in legally”, but that ignores the fact that this abomination of an administration has cut legal immigration quotas so it has become that much harder for people to legally immigrate.

      Now, I do agree that if someone that is undocumented commits a felony we should deport them. But until that happens, and until we have a better legal system, I say live and let live.

    2. Please…justification of coming in illegally has nothing to do with it being easy or hard to immigrate legally. First off, the immigration numbers of those obtaining legal permanent resident status in the U.S. in 2017 (1.13 million green cards) are consistent with those of the last decade and higher than most of the 90's. Yes, Trump has limited asylum totals but for better or worse, asylum seekers have always been a small percentage of total US immigrants. It is a matter of fairness. It is unfair to those immigrants who attempt to follow the rules. It is unfair to illegally increase the competition for jobs in this full employment economy (which lowers salaries). It is unfair for people that break the law to take a share of the pie that is provided for those who do things legally. Ask yourself, why is breaking into a house a felony but breaking into the country not? Would you be OK if some stranger snuck in or you let a salesperson in the house and they wound up not leaving and living there? Of course not because that would not be fair. If you disagree with the current legal immigration policy (like I do), work to change that. Don't pretend like there is no distinction between legal and illegal immigration.

  2. I don’t like Saslaw’s dominion connections, but I also am a fan of our Senator currently being the Senate Minority Leader, which means should the senate flip, he would become the majority leader and set the priorities of that chamber.

    If either of these challengers win, the leadership would likely fall to the next most senior member, and therefore out of district 35 (no one should have any preconceptions that if either of these ladies win and the senate flips that they would become leader as a junior senator).

    The other thing that unnerves me about these challengers is that neither have prior political experience of any serious significance that I can tell. Generally I’d expect someone wishing to be a senator to have had some level of success at the local level or perhaps in the house of delegates.

    1. First off, Yasmine has lived locally for a decade and is one of the few elected statewide members of the Democratic National Committee. Second, i would say that there is little value ensuring one of the least progressive senators in one of the most progressive districts be allowed to decide the democratic agenda in 2020. Saslaw is an impediment to change especially due to his corporate connections. And since he has had no incentive until recently, hehas little connection to the district and the needs of his constituents so why would we assume he will fight for them if given the chance.

  3. Jeffery, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not have “some level of success at the local level” or in New York’s Legislature, and she is doing just fine in the US. Congress; and all evidence indicates she has far more influence on the decisions made by the U.S. House Democratic Majority then our entrenched local Congressmen, Beyer and Connolly.

    Considering the Democratic Party of Virginia saw fit to nominate to high State elective office (Governor and Attorney General) two old white men who had the bad judgement and insensitivity to wear blackface when they were young adults; I would not be so quick to dismiss the candidacies of individuals such as Ms. Taeb who demonstrate the Democratic Party in Virginia understands such behavior is repulsive and unacceptable.

  4. Susie, If you were trying to make a point bringing in AOC, honestly you did just the opposite with me. Sure, she is a great advocate for liberal causes, but so far she has been a lousy legislator… How many bills has she passed? Which way did she vote when it was time to reopen the government? I disagree that she has an exceedingly large amount of influence in decision making by house leadership, or else her green new deal wouldn’t have gotten so panned by the establishment.

    Northam’s and Herring’s racist actions were reprehensible, absolutely. And Saslaw’s reaction should have been much swifter in condemning them. But if your argument is that the Democratic Party didn’t vet them well enough, then that goes directly to the case against these two challengers… ms Taeb literally just moved into the district within the past year or two if I’m not mistaken? She’s an unknown seeking a powerful seat. At least with Saslaw I know what I’m getting, and the upside is that our district may have the ear of the majority leader in the end.

    In the end I want an effective legislator. If ms Taeb does win and proves to be effective, then I will happily eat my words. It’s just been my experience that having legislative or political experience is extremely helpful in being effective.

  5. Effective legislator… Saslaw? Seriously? And AOC has been there less than 3 months I wouldn't be so judgmental on her "record" yet. Sawlaw on the other hand has a long history here and I'm not impressed, thanks for all the payday lenders and a complete lack of leadership on environmental issues. No thanks, let someone new with fresh ideas try to do better… I'm tired of entrenched legislators.

  6. I never tried to say that there is no difference between documented and undocumented immigrants. What I am pointing out is that this notion of being “infested” (nasty term, not mine) with undocumented immigrants is just fear mongering, because what harm are they really doing most of us? You say that they are harming lower tier wages, yet research has shown time and time again that the real threat to those jobs and wages is in automation and a minum wage law that hasn’t moved for decades.

    You say whats the difference between an invasion of the home and someone coming into the country in an impropper manner? thats easy – the former is crime, the latter is a civil infraction. The distinction is well grounded in US Law and in the constitution.

    I personally would rather our law enforcement focus on crime than civil issues, lest we become a police state.

    1. Who said anything about being "infested"? Only you. Why use it if nobody else in this conversation did? That comes across as if you think anyone who thinks immigrants should play fair and by the rules thinks less of them as people. That sir, is offensive.

      "…until we have a better legal system, I say live and let live" That sure sounds like a "I don't care about your immigration status" position to me.

      So as you state we are near full employment. If there is one job and there are 3 people applying for it instead of 1 and those additional two are illegal, what do you think might happen to the salary? It's basic supply and demand. Especially if they are getting paid under the table as you said might happen.

      While the act of being in the United States unlawfully is not by itself a crime, entering the United States after having been deported or entering in an illegal manner is a crime. So not that easy. But that was not the point – the question was if it was fair. And the answer, even though you did not say it, is no.

    2. The term "infested" has been used plenty of times on this blog. Other than that, I'll let you have the last word on this, because I'm done making a case against someone who knows their viewpoints are so abhorrent that they won't stand behind them and instead post anonymously.

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