Dave Marsden for Delegate

Welcome to Virginia’s 41st District and my website.

I was first elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in November of 2005. It has been my honor to represent the people of the 41st House of Delegates district. I am running for re-election because I want to continue to make Fairfax County a community that we are proud to call home

I was born in Alexandria and raised in Fairfax in the original Woodburn Elementary School, which was built in the 1890’s and converted to a home in 1932. Shortly after I graduated from Woodson High School in 1966 the property was sold for apartments adjacent to Fairfax Hospital.

During college at Randolph-Macon I married my wife Julia who had been in the first graduating class at West Springfield High School. We raised our three sons (Nathan, Stuart and Connor) in Burke and they graduated from Lake Braddock Secondary. Nathan and Stuart went on to Virginia Tech and Connor to the University of Richmond.

I spent 12 years as a probation officer and 17 years as Superintendent of the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center. During that time I represented, as a volunteer, the Virginia Juvenile Justice Association in the General Assembly as President and head of Government Relations. After leaving the Fairfax County Juvenile Court I was appointed Chief Deputy and Acting Director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice under Governors Gilmore and Warner. With these professional experiences, my years on community boards, coaching basketball, football, soccer, and baseball in the Burke area, as well as refereeing youth league and high school basketball, I felt I was ready to run for the House of Delegates as the only member of the body who had previously run a State agency.

Today I work with juvenile courts around the country and certify detention facilities to hold undocumented immigrants for the Federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as a consultant with the Development Services Group, Inc.

I work on a part time basis so that I can devote the necessary time to provide you with excellent constituent service and engage with State agencies and other delegates to plan for our future while we ensure our present prosperity and public safety.

As I write this, I am preparing to meet with the other delegates and senators who represent Fairfax County in the General Assembly to select a new judge for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. The vacancy was created by the elevation of the Honorable David Schell to the Circuit Court.

I once spoke with a staff member at the National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, who shared with me that many people believe that Virginia has the finest judiciary in the country. In Virginia, judges are appointed by the legislature, and in Fairfax County we have devised a very fair and impartial way of selecting judges for our courts. The current system was put in place over 40 years ago in an effort to keep partisan politics out of the selection process.

Every delegate or senator who represents part of Fairfax County is able to vote by secret ballot for the judge of his or her choosing. This vote occurs only after extensive interviews of the candidates by a judicial selection committee of the Fairfax County Bar Association and a vote of all bar members as to the suitability of all of the candidates for a judgeship. The Asian, Hispanic and Black Bar Associations also conduct interviews and make recommendations.

Candidates are then referred to the Fairfax General Assembly members as either not qualified, qualified, recommended, or highly recommended by the Bar. After reviewing this material, the judicial candidates are then interviewed by the members of the General Assembly, and their merits are discussed prior to the vote being taken. A judge must be elected by a majority, so multiple votes can occur until one candidate receives that majority.

Candidates selected through this process are then referred to the Judicial Selection Committee made up of senators and delegates who serve on the Courts of Justice committees in their respective chambers. This committee then votes to certify these individuals as qualified or rejects them as not qualified. The recommended candidates are then sent to the floor of the House and Senate for a vote that officially appoints them as judges to their respective courts. This system has worked well for us, regardless of which party is in control of the Virginia House Of Delegates or the Virginia Senate.

In many parts of the state, senators and delegates fight over who will make these appointments in very partisan ways. This past year, considerable wrangling, bitterness and delay occurred over judicial selections in the Tidewater region. Virginians were not well served by this process.

There may be times when each of us may disagree with a judge’s ruling, however our Juvenile and Domestic Relations, General District and Circuit Court benches are staffed with talented and hard-working public servants, who provide us with firm but fair decisions.

While there are many times when partisan politics make progress difficult, you can be proud of the system put in place many years ago, and adhered to today, that has made Fairfax County the envy of many jurisdictions around our commonwealth.

John Warren Cooke former speaker of the VA house of Delegates is alive and well at 98 years old and still actively involved as publisher of the Gloucester Matthews Gazette in Gloucester VA . He began serving in the House of Delegates in 1942 shortly after Pearl Harbor and was elevated to Speaker of the House in 1968. John Warren Cooke was a democrat and what is most notable about him is that he was the first speaker to allow republicans to have committee assignments. Prior to John Warren Cooke Republicans were seldom recognized on the floor of the House of Delegates and committee assignments were out of the question. Because of his actions Virginia entered the modern era of two party government, and bipartisanship.

“He was a true Virginia gentleman , modest to a fault and as fair as one can be in such a powerful position as Speaker” said Jim Dillard, a Republican and former member of the House of Delegates from the 41st District. John Warren Cooke held the Speaker’s position until 1980 at which time he returned to private life and his publishing business.

“The two of us, Jim Dillard and I, had an opportunity to visit with JWC at his office in Gloucester, VA. A small, rural town located at the southern end of the middle peninsula in the tidewater region” said Dave Marsden, the Democratic Delegate from the 41st District. He was extremely gracious, and the only evidence of the unique position he currently holds in American History was evident in one picture that was mounted on his office wall. The picture was of Robert E. Lee surrounded by the officers who served on his general staff Including Major Giles B. Cooke. You see John Warren Cooke is most likely the last living American with a father who served in the Civil War. Major Giles B. Cooke was a 26 year old Major on the staff of General Robert E. Lee at the close of the Civil War. There are very few remaining Americans with a Grandfather who fought in the War, but it is astounding that someone alive today has a father with such an incredible role in our past. In his usual unassuming way, when asked to recount his early days with his Confederate Officer Father, he replied “I probably met some people I should have remembered and threw away some things I should have kept” Maj. Giles B Cooke passed away in 1936 at the age of 98, which is the current age of his son John Warren.

“What is amazing to me” said Jim Dillard “is the incredible amount of American History that has occurred in the lives of these two men which began at the birth of Major Giles B Cooke in 1838 and continues to this day with his son. Look how far we have come from that terrible war and the progress we have made.”

We think of the Civil War as something very far in our past, but perhaps it is not as far as we think. Look what has occurred in just the life spans of these two remarkable Virginian’s. Share this with your children and let them know that the “olden days” are not as long ago as we might think.

While the “abuser fee” legislation for bad drivers enacted by the Virginia General Assembly was ill advised, its enactment reflects a far more serious problem.

But first, a disclaimer. I voted for the larger transportation package that included these fees, as it was the only bill offered and we desperately needed funding for transportation. While I would have preferred other options, we are choking on traffic. I voted against the “abuser fees” as stand alone legislation. I stated on the floor of the House of Delegates that, “I would vote for someone’s grandma with a shovel, a bag of cement and an attitude if she would work on the roads.” I still mean it. It’s that important.

There are many reasons to dislike abuser fees. They do not impact out-of-state abusive drivers, some offenses included do not warrant draconian fees, they will clog the courts with lawyers and appeals, and we have no idea how much that will cost in dollars, or lost justice. Traffic offense enforcement can be subjective at times and people are leery of unequal treatment. I have already knocked on several thousand doors this year and have learned that many parents of adult children are concerned about their kids making a life-altering mistake by invoking one of these “fees.”

SO WHY DID we legislators do this? The simple answer is “no tax pledges.” A large number of my colleagues have signed the “no tax pledge” to Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform organization to never increase tax revenues. A 1.5-cent tax on a gallon of gas could have replaced the $65 million the abuser fees would have raised, but because of the pledge they could not support it.

When you take the oath of office to do your duty in the General Assembly you take a pledge to your constituents and the Commonwealth at large. Part of your job is to raise or lower taxes as the circumstances indicate. When you turn around and vow to a special interest group that you will never raise taxes, you have substituted your allegiance to the Commonwealth with a promise to a special interest group and its ideology. That pledge may compromise your oath of office and as a result preclude you from acting on what you may be convinced is the right thing to do.

I have worked in government for over 35 years and I have yet to meet someone who is pro-tax. Nobody likes taxes, but they are necessary to provide the services we all rely on in our daily lives – schools, emergency services and healthcare to mention a few. Look, I don’t care if someone never votes to raise taxes. That is a matter best decided by a legislator’s intellect, conscience and his or her responsibilities to constituents. But to take a pledge that you will avoid one of the difficult responsibilities of public office merely to appease a core group of supporters is a breach of faith and should never be undertaken.