Amy Frederick calls GOP leadership "broken"

Amy N. Frederick, wife of embattled Del. Jeff Frederick, announced Tuesday that she will not seek her husband’s seat in the Virginia General Assembly.

Amy Frederick had filed to run for the Republican nomination for the House of Delegates’ 52nd District, which includes Southbridge, Quantico, Dumfries, Triangle, Montclair, most of Woodbridge and a small part of Manassas.

But she never officially announced her candidacy, and Tuesday she e-mailed a letter to supporters saying she would not run.

Frederick wrote that she didn’t want to serve under “broken leadership.”

“Unfortunately, some in the leadership of the Republican Party have demonstrated a greater interest in playing politics than in advancing our conservative principles and making life better for the families and the citizens of Virginia,” she wrote.

The move essentially gives the GOP nomination for the seat to former Dumfries town councilman Rafael Lopez, who was the only other candidate to file.
Del. Frederick said he would not run for re-election if elected chairman of Virginia’s Republican Party. And he did win that job last year, though he was ousted early this month by the GOP’s State Central Committee.

The hubbub surrounding those events would have been something Amy Frederick would have had to overcome to win election.

But she didn’t mention that issue in her letter.

Instead, she called out House Speaker William J. Howell, saying he compromised “principle for what he perceives as immediate political gain.”

“What so many entrusted with leadership in our party fail to recognize is that ignoring our core principles in pursuit of titles and power without purpose is exactly the behavior that severely reduced our ranks in the House, handed the Senate to the Democrats, and has resulted in one statewide loss after another,” Frederick wrote.

She didn’t identify Howell by name in the letter. But, in an interview Tuesday, she said she was particularly upset with the Republican’s compromise on a statewide smoking ban for restaurants.

Howell and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, announced bipartisan support for the measure earlier this year. The ban will go into effect July 1.
Frederick said that, as a customer, she “can’t stand” smoking.

However, as a conservative, she doesn’t like the government putting restrictions on private enterprise.

“Most Republicans are private business owners,” she said.

Frederick said Howell “caved” to popular opinion on the smoking ban because he was afraid of being linked to campaign contributions he received from Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc., parent of the Philip Morris USA tobacco company.

Howell has received $100,783 from Altria since 1996, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit that tracks campaign funding.
But he declined to respond to Frederick’s charges Tuesday.

“We certainly wish them well in whatever life holds in store for them,” G. Paul Nardo, Howell’s chief of staff, said about Frederick and her husband.

Similar well-wishes came from the two candidates for the Democratic nomination in the 52nd District.

“I wish her the best, both she and Jeff,” said former Secret Service agent Mike Hodge of Montclair, who said he had spoken to the Fredericks only once.

“Now that both Jeff and Amy Frederick have announced that they are not running for the House of Delegates, I would like to wish them both all the best in the future,” said Luke Torian, pastor of First Mount Zion Baptist Church in Dumfries. “We look forward to the discussion about the new leadership that this district needs, free of the pursuit of titles and power without purpose.”

Lopez, the sole GOP candidate in the district, could not be reached Tuesday.

Amy Frederick declined to express support for another candidate now that she’s out of the race.

She said that if Lopez stands for the conservative principles in which she believes, he’ll be her man.

However, she said the Democrats are strong candidates, as well.

Her husband has publicly spoken well of Torian, and even tried to get him to run as a Republican. And Hodge is a “great, great person,” Frederick said.
There has been speculation that Del. Frederick would try an 11th-hour bid to run for re-election. But he said Tuesday that that’s not going to happen.

“The bottom line is Amy’s not running, and I’m not running,” he said.

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.