GOP Picks Staton As Senate Candidate

Loudoun Supervisor, Herring in 15-Day Race

Republican voters from Loudoun and Fairfax, including Kim Miller, center, with son Charlie, 4, cast their ballots at the Loudoun school administration building. (By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

The race is on for the Jan. 31 special election in Virginia's 33rd Senate District. And from the looks of it so far, this race will be defined, like so much of Northern Virginia politics, by development and traffic.

Loudoun County Supervisor Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run) and Democrat Mark R. Herring, a Leesburg lawyer and former supervisor, began their 15-day face-off just hours after Staton easily won a four-way primary for the Republican nomination Monday. The two men are vying to replace William C. Mims (R), Virginia's new deputy attorney general.

First thing Tuesday, both Staton and Herring were claiming to be the better candidate to control growth, and each accused the other of allowing unbridled development to overtake Loudoun County. The 33rd Senate District comprises eastern Loudoun and a small piece of Fairfax County.

Staton charged that Herring, while in office from 2000 to 2004, "approved more houses for development in two votes than I did in two years." He was referring to Moorefield Station and Loudoun Station, which could have as many as 4,000 homes.

Staton also criticized Herring for supporting a restrictive new ordinance in the rural two-thirds of the county that was thrown out on a technicality by the Virginia Supreme Court in March.

Going too far with growth restrictions sets the county up for legal challenges and "won't control growth," Staton said.

Herring countered that Staton is no friend of growth controls and that he opposes the latest effort to restrict growth in rural Loudoun. Herring said his support of Moorefield Station and Loudoun Station was appropriate because they are high-density, urban projects planned around a future Metrorail stop.

He said that Staton, in contrast, would allow developers to build more than 20,000 homes in the Dulles South corridor, which has an already-congested road network and too little public transit. Herring said he supported proposals by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to control growth, including giving local governments more tools to block development when the road system is not big enough to absorb the resulting growth in traffic.

"The last thing we need is to send someone down to Richmond who is going to be worrying about conservative social issues and putting up roadblocks to Governor Kaine's growth proposals," Herring said.

Controlling growth proved to be a critical issue for Northern Virginia voters in the November elections -- particularly in traffic-choked Loudoun, where the anti-development wave is thought to have carried Kaine in and Staton's father-in-law, former Del. Richard H. "Dick" Black (R), out.

Still, Black's political machine -- and his money -- may be available to Staton. Staton has raised money for his 2007 reelection effort that he will now use for his state Senate campaign, while Herring didn't begin fundraising until the start of the year.

Still, Herring said Tuesday that he had raised more than $100,000, with $57,000 on hand. Staton said he had raised about $75,000. Both candidates will file finance reports Monday for activity through tomorrow.

Both candidates plan a modest media blitz over the next week and a half with mail pieces and print ads, and possibly radio and TV spots.

In Monday's vote, Staton drew 1,539 votes. J. Randall Minchew, a land-use lawyer and chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Party, received 837; Lynn C. Chapman, a high-tech contractor from Ashburn, 345; and South Riding entrepreneur Scott W. Smith, 34.