Now that the primary is over, the fall campaign season is underway.
Back in 2016, a woman was killed by a beach umbrella in Virginia Beach. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, reacted by urging the Consumer Product Safety Commission to step in and possibly help save lives. That was the wrong course of action according to college professor and war vet Daniel Gade. He’s now the Republican candidate opposing Warner this November.
“That’s maybe a local government responsibility, state government maybe," Gade says. "But the idea that this overarching, over powerful federal government would reach into our lives in a way that telsl us how deeply we should drill our beach umbrellas into the sand; that's absurd.”
Warner says it’s probably a bad idea to let local or state government regulate beach umbrellas.
“Generally speaking, businesses like to have state rules preempted so they can have a single standard," Warner explains. "If Mr. Gade is suggesting that we ought to have 50 different sets of rules or maybe 50,000 different sets of rules because every locality ought to be able to make those rules; that would be an area where I just respectfully disagree.”
Gade says he plans to make the role of the federal government a central issue in his campaign. Warner says he’s ready for that argument.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
