Ben Hixon

Civil Rights

Religious freedom. Genuine protection of religious freedom means protecting all Virginians from faith-based discrimination by the government. The right to practice our faith without fear of persecution is a freedom guaranteed to all Americans. Recently, our own community has witnessed unfortunate religious discrimination when the Islamic Center of Culpeper was denied a permit that had been granted to every Christian church which had applied for it. The evidence that the permit was denied due to their faith is overwhelming. Ben will fight for the freedom of every Virginian to practice their faith in peace. Learn more

Freedom of speech. Ben opposes censorship. The right way to fight bad speech is with better speech, not by banning the bad speech. The press is not the enemy of the people. Ben supports Delegate Roem’s bill to protect journalists from revealing their source, and Delegate Hurst’s efforts to protect free speech for student journalists. Learn more

Civil asset forfeiture. The government shouldn’t be able to take our property unless we’ve been convicted of a crime. Senate Bill 457 was a step in the right direction by requiring clear and convincing evidence of a crime before our property can be seized by authorities, but Ben would go further and vote to require criminal conviction before the state can get a forfeiture judgement. Ben’s opponent, Bryce Reeves, supports law enforcement being able to seize your car or other assets even if you haven’t been convicted of a crime. Learn more

Eminent domain.Ben opposes eminent domain for any project not essential to public safety. Dominion Energy wants to use eminent domain laws to steal people’s property and build the Atlantic Coast gas pipeline. President Trump has a long history of eminent domain abuse. Ben believes corporations and crony capitalists should not be able to take our land for their own gain. Learn more

Equal Rights Amendment. Let’s pass the ERA now. Laws ought to be sex-blind. Ben’s opponent, Senator Bryce Reeves, just voted against the Equal Rights Amendment. Please watch Ben’s video below to see why sex is not as strongly protected under the 14th amendment as it should be. Learn more

Obergefell is one of the most important supreme court decisions in the last decade, securing the right to marriage for same-sex couples. It was a 5-4 decision. Too many members of our community are scared of the Trump court calling Obergefell ‘liberal activism,’ reversing it, and annulling our marriages. The ERA will ban all sex-based discrimination, including marriage discrimination, providing an additional constitutional foundation for the right to marriage regardless of sex. As someone who is married to his same-sex partner, Ben has a personal stake in passing the ERA and making it more difficult for the conservative Trump court to revoke this hard-won right. Learn more

Criminal Justice / Public Safety

Prison reform. Ben believes that jail sentences should be reserved for serious, violent and repeat offenders only. Virginia spends over a billion dollars annually on its state prisons through the Department of Correction. The average cost for a state prisoner is $25000 a year. Medical services for the incarcerated is almost $200 million a year. That’s money that can go towards education and infrastructure. Learn more

Against Mandatory Minimums. President Trump’s attorney general ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe possible punishments even for nonviolent drug offenders. Ben opposes mandatory minimums for any crime. Learn more

Bring back parole. Too many of our fellow Virginians are in prison without hope. Let’s bring back and parole and couple it with career-training re-entry. End incarceration for minors for all nonviolent crimes. No more school to prison pipeline. Stop teaching our kids to be criminals. Raise the public defender limit. Raise the larceny limit. In Virginia, stealing a $500 cell phone is felony grand larceny punishable by up to 20 years in prison, loss of voting rights, and near-unemployability. It should be a simple misdemeanor. Pretrial release reform. Inmates can be held for months simply for being unable to afford a $100 bail. 46% of people in Virginia jails have not been convicted of a crime. It costs $85/day to jail someone before trial, versus only $3/day to keep them on pretrial services. We need transparent data on pretrial detention in Virginia. We need to end cash bail and implement risk-based pretrial release for violent offenders or those with a history of failing to show up to court, and eliminate pretrial detention altogether for offenders with no history of violence or fleeing prosecution. Learn more

Get rid of our private prison. Virginia has one private prison, the Lawrenceville Correctional Center. Let’s get rid of it. Ben does not support incarceration for profit. Treatment not punishment for addicts. Correction officers are not mental health professionals. Addiction treatment for drug abusers is more humane and more cost-effective. No revocation of driver’s licenses for non-driving-related crimes. Police pay. Our law enforcement officers are the front-line soldiers of justice. But not only is their job high-stress and dangerous, they also end up shouldering the blame when the system fails. Ben proposes sweeping criminal justice reforms. But if we want to raise the standards of our system, then we need to recruit and train the best. And if we’re asking for the best, then we need to pay them like the best Learn more

Drug Policy

Legalize marijuana. Ben supports full legalization of marijuana and retroactive forgiveness for nonviolent marijuana offenses. Learn more

Legalize Bars, allow family-owned liquor stores, and abolish the ABC. Craft beer has been booming ever since President Carter legalized home brewing. We have outgrown Prohibition. Legalizing onsite tasting rooms for breweries back in 2012 was a good first step, but bars are still illegal here. We can go further. Let’s abolish the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and clear the way for a boom in small family-owned businesses. Learn more

Economy

One of Ben’s priorities as State Senator will be tools such as community commercial kitchens, canning facilities, and pasteurization salons in order to open up new markets to small farmers and encourage local food entrepreneurs. Community commercial kitchens that provide up-to-code facilities are an important way to lower the barrier of entry into the market. Learn more

. Small meat producers are stifled by the limited number of USDA slaughterhouses. We need to even the playing field for small farmers. In order to sell USDA-inspected meat and poultry, producers must travel to one of the limited number of stationary slaughterhouses. For example, Virginia has only 13 USDA-approved beef processing facilities. With relatively few stationary facilities, transportation costs for small farmers to transport their poultry and livestock to the facility cuts into their already slim profit margins. Health-related regulations are important but shouldn’t give unfair advantage to large-scale operations. Mobile Slaughter Units (MSUs) are relatively inexpensive, USDA-approved traveling slaughterhouses with an inspector aboard. Learn more

Farmers should also be able to sell raw milk on site with the appropriate warning labels. Herd shares should remain legal. Food regulations are out of control: let’s keep Virginia from becoming the next Wisconsin, where the dairy regulations are so excessive that just selling Kerrygold Butter can get you a six-month jail sentence. Ben supports House Bill 619, the Virginia Food Freedom Act which includes reasonable regulations without excessive intrusion. Learn more

Rural communities face unique problems. Reliable internet tends to end right outside concentrated population centers. A few big businesses like Walmart hold a disproportionate number of local jobs. Food regulations give unfair advantage to large-scale producers. Learn more

Grants for local communities to invest in tools like these will help farmers with small numbers of cows or goats enter the dairy market without the added stress of maintaining inspection-ready facilities. For example, a $63,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development was able to jumpstart the Carver Agricultural Research Center here in our district. Ben believes that Carver could become a model community project of its kind. Learn more

Fully funding the Agricultural cost-share program. Seemingly simple solutions such as helping farmers build fences along their streams to keep cows out of the water and establish best management practices like rotational grazing will go a long way towards promoting soil health and supporting local farmers. Learn more

In Virginia it’s now legal to grow and sell hemp-related products for research purposes, which is a step in the right direction. But it’s still illegal to sell many of the most lucrative parts of the plant. Let’s get out of the way of innovative small farmers looking for an extra source of income. Learn more

Resist crony capitalism. Between 1995 and 2015, Virginia has given the coal industry $500 MILLION in subsidies, propping up a dying industry with crony capitalism and taxpayer money. Coal is a dying industry and should be allowed to die a natural death, not kept alive on life support with our tax dollars. Learn more

Education

Computer programming vocational schools. Ben is a coder and knows both how valuable a skill it is as well as how difficult it is to learn. Virginia has some of the best community colleges in the country, but learning to code requires an immersive learning experience. Virginia should offer a two-year, full-time vocational degree dedicated exclusively to teaching students how to write computer code. This will dramatically stimulate the tech sector in our commonwealth, attracting new businesses and generating local high-paying jobs. Learning to code should start in high school, and Ben will work to secure funds for a programming class in every high school. Learn more

More public education funding and against funneling money out of public schools. Ben is opposed to charter schools and vouchers. These programs take money away from our public schools. Ben thinks we should treat and pay teachers like the professionals they are. Learn more

Vocational training. Not everyone needs a 4-year degree. We need plumbers, carpenters, electricians. Ben supports more opportunities and more dedicated funding for post-secondary vocational training and apprenticeship programs, where no new high school graduate is turned away for inability to pay. Ben supports a P-14 public education track that culminates in apprenticeships, vocational certification, job training+placement, and/or an associate’s degree. Learn more

Freedom to homeschool. Public schools are the backbone of our communities, but Ben supports the rights of parents to home school their children. Ben knows that a classroom environment isn’t for everyone, and when parents decide to homeschool, they should be trusted to make the decision in the best interest of their child. Learn more

Trusting our teachers. Ben trusts our teachers, and believes educational decisions should be made by state and local school boards. Ben comes from a family of educators and knows we can trust our teachers and involved parents to do what’s best for each child. When lesson plans are mandated from the top and the classroom teacher forced to teach to the test, then our students will suffer. We have to give our schools and teachers the flexibility to innovate. Ben is opposed to common core and would work to reduce or eliminate the SOLs. Learn more

IDEA and freedom of education for disabled students. A good education is a fundamental freedom, we don’t lose our freedoms just because we have a disability, therefore to protect freedom for everyone the government must guarantee a real education to every disabled student. Individualized Education Programs, with coordination between involved parents and terrific teachers, ensure that each child gets access to a real education. Ben agrees with Chief Justice Roberts’ recent decision protecting IDEA: Learn more

Environment / Energy

Expand Medicaid Dental to include preventive care, not just emergency care. Let Nurse Practitioners practice with less physician oversight. To help address limited healthcare in rural areas. Drug patent reform. More funding for free clinics. Learn more

Expanding mental healthcare. We need creative new solutions to expand mental healthcare access and address workforce shortages in low-coverage areas. This is an unsolved problem. Ben continue to speak to voters and brainstorm new ideas, but we need awareness campaigns, more funding, and more interconnectedness for our regional community service boards. To make maintenance care more available so that the ER is reserved for unpreventable emergencies. We can allocate grants for free clinics to hire dedicated therapists. Significantly increase the number of school psychologists and work towards a School-Based Health Center model. We must also continue to fight the stigma against mental health. Direct Primary Care. More options. Learn more

Clean energy and Solar freedom. Thanks to Dominion lobbyists, localities are limited in their ability to expand solar power in communities. Ben supports lifting these regulations and supports Senator McClellan’s SB1456. Virginia has one of the best coastlines in the United States for generating wind energy. Fossil fuels are the past; clean energy like solar and wind are the future. Learn more

Proud to be at the vanguard for Medicaid expansion. Ben was proud to be at the forefront of the fight for Medicaid expansion when he ran for Delegate in 2017 as the nominee from Orange, Culpeper, and Madison county. Because so many of us campaigned on Medicaid expansion, we were able to secure healthcare for 400 thousand Virginians who didn’t previously have it. Learn more

Fight climate change by supporting local farmers. Ben’s plan to fight climate change includes supporting local community agriculture. When farmers sell local, the distance traveled for crops is shorter and less fuel is burned. That’s why Ben’s solution to climate change includes community commercial kitchens, pasteurization salons, and mobile slaughterhouses. Ben also supports fully funding the Agriculture cost-sharing program. Ben supports the overall goal of the Virginia Green New Deal promoted by Delegate Rasoul and Delegate Guzman, which is a set of general principles that couple environmental awareness and the fight against climate change with jobs, economic development, and social security. We can protect the environment while simultaneously creating jobs and reducing income inequality. Learn more

No coal subsidies. No more $7.3 million subsidies for the coal industry. Between 1995 and 2015, Virginia has given the coal industry $500 MILLION in subsidies, propping up a dying industry with crony capitalism and taxpayer money. Coal is a dying industry and should be allowed to die a natural death, not kept alive on life support with our tax dollars. Learn more

No unsafe uranium mining. Our district contains large uranium deposits, but the National Academy of Sciences spent $1.4 million to investigate the viability of uranium mining in Virginia. They concluded that because we’re a wet climate, and uranium has never been mined in a wet climate before, then it’s impossible to know if the uranium will infiltrate our water. Mining projects can improve our economy, but they need to be safe. Ben opposes uranium mining in Central VA. Learn more

End Dominion’s stranglehold on our politics. Safe energy infrastructure projects can boost our economy and provide great jobs for working families. But Dominion Energy wants to use eminent domain to steal people’s property and build the Atlantic Coast gas pipeline in their place. That’s not okay. Dirty fossil fuels belong to the past, yet fossil fuel companies hold onto power through crony capitalism. Ben opposes the pipelines and signed a pledge both in 2017 and again in 2019 refusing to take any money from Dominion. Learn more

Climate change is real, but how do we fight it? Cap-and-trade vs. Carbon tax vs. cap-and-dividend. When the smartest people in the world have spent the majority of their lives telling us that climate change is real, then it’s real. Virginia is already flooding. And the flooding that we’re seeing now and that will get worse in coming years isn’t just from sea-level rise in coastal areas. It’s also due to more extreme storms with more-intense rainfall, which is adversely affecting agriculture and other aspects of life in the 17th district. We need bold new ideas and to be open to creative solutions. Ben worries that cap-and-trade is too regulatory and inefficient, that a carbon tax is too ineffective, and that both are too regressive. The ones struggling hardest in society should not be left to carry most of the climate change burden. The best of both worlds might be the cap-and-dividend approach proposed by Peter Barnes, where each American gets a cut of the pollution rent. But we must listen to our expert scientists and be open to aggressive ideas. Learn more

Government Reform

Gerrymandering Reform. Our political parties (both Republican and Democratic) slice and dice districts in order to make individual votes matter as little as possible. When a voter’s district changes, they become disconnected and discouraged. Ben supports the efforts of OneVirginia2021 to secure our right to a fair vote. Learn more

Relax Voter ID laws. Automatic voter registration. Same-day voter registration. Automatic restoration of rights. Learn more

Limit personal campaign contributions. Virginia has no limit on the amount an individual can donate to a campaign, which is why we see contributions in enormous amounts of $10 thousand or more. This lets the rich unfairly manipulate our elections. Learn more

Guns

2nd amendment rights. Ben supports the second amendment and believes we have a constitutional right to self-defense. He also knows that gun violence is a big problem, especially suicide. About two-thirds of gun deaths each year are suicides. Suicide prevention should be as common as cavity prevention. Let’s finally end the stigma against mental healthcare, dramatically expand access to affordable mental healthcare, and increase the number of school psychologists so they can teach anger management and self-harm prevention. Ben also supports gun buyback programs for anyone being treated for depression or at risk of self-harm, fully protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. Let’s pay people not to shoot themselves. Learn more

Dangerous people such as violent felons and domestic abusers should not have guns. Ben supports sensible, constitutional measures such as background checks and gun violence restraining orders (GVRO’s) that honor due process and respect our constitutional rights while also protecting public safety. Ben also supports raising public awareness about responsible gun ownership in order to reduce accidental deaths of children who live in homes with unsecured guns. Let’s continue to educate the public about commonsense gun safety and encourage parents to store their guns unloaded in a locked safe, out of reach of curious children and teenagers experiencing a mental health crisis. Learn more

After suicide, the largest category of gun deaths are related to organized crime, gangs, and drugs. We can reduce gun homicides by ending the school-to-prison pipeline, stepping back from the failed drug war, creating more vocational and career training opportunities, and tackling the racism in our criminal justice system. Learn more

Healthcare

Reform Certificate of Public Need (COPN) laws. Why does a private hospital need to go through so many regulatory hurdles to purchase an MRI machine or expand their maternity ward? That means delays, extra bureaucracy, greater expense, and less room for innovation. Louisa County doesn’t have a hospital or even a 24-hour emergency care center. Let’s get out of the way of healthcare providers who’d like to expand their market into low-coverage areas. Learn more

Opioid epidemic. 52,404 Americans died from drug overdose in 2015, 50% more than from traffic accidents and 400% as many as from gun homicide. Heroin alone killed more than gun homicide. Orange County Sheriff Mark Amos says that “the recent spike in heroin usage is unlike anything he has seen.” In November of 2016, Culpeper police began to carry Naloxone because of weekly heroin overdoses here. I will work to secure continued funds for nasal-spray naloxone in our district, and stay in constant contact with officers and social workers to find out in real time what other supplies our community needs. But addiction is an ongoing disease and requires more than emergency life-saving treatment and stopgap measures. Instead of condemning drug use, we need to minimize its harmful effects. We must fight this fight together as a community: educate each other on drug safety, harm reduction, alternate coping mechanisms and Good Samaritan laws; curb the out-of-control crony capitalism of the pharmaceutical industry; and most importantly guarantee universal healthcare for everyone, including mental healthcare and addiction treatment. Learn more

Housing

Affordable housing. Ben supports the Affordable Housing Alliance’s initiative to add $20 million to the Virginia Housing Trust Fund. Learn more

Affordable housing. Ben supports the Affordable Housing Alliance’s initiative to add $20 million to the Virginia Housing Trust Fund. Learn more

Immigration

Immigration. There’s no such thing as an illegal person. We need more immigration, not less. Virginia is growing at its slowest rate since the 1920’s. Increased immigration means bigger markets, which means more demand and more jobs. Our Hispanic and Latino friends and neighbors should not be afraid to participate in society. Ben supports returning immigration services to the Department of Justice instead of the Department of Homeland Security because immigrants and refugees are not terrorists. Ben thinks Federal laws should be enforced at the Federal level, that politics should be kept out of the county sheriff’s office, and that local law enforcement should focus on enforcing local laws and protecting and supporting families and communities. Ben will work to provide constituent services for all his constituents, regardless of whether or not they have documentation. Learn more

Infrastructure / Transportation

Undergrounding power lines. Rural Virginians in Culpeper County recently went without power for 32 hours after a storm downed power lines. Power lines in rural areas are carried above ground, and utility-unfriendly trees with shallow roots are easily toppled during a storm and down power lines. Burying power lines underground (“undergrounding“) protects power lines from storm damage. But undergrounding is expensive, and commercial power suppliers can’t afford to invest in undergrounding in rural areas. So-called intelligent undergrounding prioritizes burying high-reliability power lines in areas more likely to face storm damage. But we need grants and subsidies to encourage rural undergrounding that has less financial incentive for power companies. Underground power lines can be coupled with expanding our fiber network. Learn more

Traffic solutions. The DC-to-Stafford stretch of I-95 is the worst traffic hotspot in the United States, negatively affecting many residents of Ben’s district. Better infrastructure means getting to work faster, which means increased economic productivity. We need to get innovative. Road improvements are important but aren’t the only answer. We can use technology to improve traffic congestion. Digital traffic signals can synchronize and adjust based on traffic conditions connecting vehicles together. Virginia can be a leader in automated and connected vehicle technology, letting cars talk to each other. Ben will fight to defend funding for VDOT’s Innovation and Technology Transportation Program Learn more

Rural broadband. Like electricity, reliable affordable internet is a necessity not a luxury in modern life. There is no one-size-fits-all solution: in areas with clear lines of site, cell towers work well. In other areas, for example hilly Louisa County, we also need to expand our fiber network. Local communities tend to know their own needs best and be the most invested in the outcome. Ben’s rural broadband solution will consist of grants disbursed to local governments to implement their own best solution, ranging from community-run broadband to public-private partnerships. Learn more

Legislation

Right-to-work regulations are market interference. Ben believes that strong unions are engines of freedom and essential to a robust middle class, and that collective bargaining is a free market force which the government shouldn’t interfere with. Workers and businesses should have the freedom to bargain and make contracts, but right-to-work regulations deny businesses and workers the freedom to negotiate mutually beneficial contracts. Without the ability to freely and fairly negotiate for a better contract, workers are hamstrung at the bargaining table. Learn more

Taxes / Budget

Fair taxation. According to the Commonwealth Institute, families in Virginia that make more than $587,000 pay less in state and local taxes than do families making under $22,000 a year (7% vs. 9.8%). That’s not fair. Ben support’s Governor Northam’s plan to make the EITC fully refundable and would work to cut regressive taxes on working families. Learn more

Wages / Job Benefits

Minimum wage. Ben supports raising the minimum wage, and also granting localities the power to raise the minimum wage above the state minimum. Ben thinks of the minimum wage as a very efficient kind of business taxation with minimal bureaucratic overhead, because it is exchanged directly from the employer to the employee, bypassing all red tape or government planning. Furthermore, minimum wage earners spend their income on basic necessities: food, clothing, rent, school supplies. That means their wages go directly back into the local economy. An incredibly efficient tax without red-tape waste that directly stimulates the local economy? Great! Unfortunately, small low-margin family businesses such as restaurants are disproportionately affected by minimum wage increases. That’s why Ben will also fight for tax cuts for small businesses, so that mom-and-pop stores and small family businesses will be able to afford a wage increase. Learn more