Announcing Lincoln-Douglas II: the Sanders-Scott Debates

I’m happy to announce the start of a regular series, in collaboration with my good friend Ellwood “Sandy” Sanders, a blogger at Virginia Right. Each week Sandy and I will post articles on a specific topic, and then hold a virtual “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate on the issue. This Friday, April 17th, we’ll open the series with a back-and-forth on abortion.

Sandy is a Hanover County attorney who earned his J.D. at the University of Alabama in 1983 and now works as an Appellate Procedure Consultant for a downtown legal firm. He has written or co-authored ten scholarly legal articles, including one on the “Effect of the USA Patriot Act on Money Laundering and Currency Transaction Laws.” His resume includes work as an Appellate Defender, adjunct professor of law at the T. C. Williams School of Law (University of Richmond), and service on the Appellate Practice Subcommittee of the Litigation Section of the Virginia State Bar.  Sandy is very active in his church and supports its missionary work. He also helped bring curling to Virginia!

I got to know Sandy back in September 2018 after I commented on this guest post by Bob Shannon at Virginia Right. Mr. Shannon is the Chairman of the King William Tea Party, and wrote to call out Rob Wittman, who represents the First District in Congress, for dodging his group and other Tea Party organizations even as he held events with what Shannon calls “softer audiences” in King William County.

In the comment I mentioned my possible candidacy for State Senate in the Fourth Senate District. Sandy Sanders strongly believes that democracy depends on contested elections with candidates from all viewpoints, and he was pleased to hear that someone planned to challenge Ryan McDougle, the incumbent. He reached out to me and we’ve since that time met every couple of months to have lunch and talk politics and religion and other subjects of interest. I’ve learned a lot from these discussions and I hope he can say the same.

During our chats we’ve talked often about having a debate of sorts on issues of the day, and this week we’re pulling the trigger. I hope you’ll drop in here and at Virginia Right, leave comments, and join the conversation.

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