Political intrigue swirls around Republican nominating method in Southside district

Editor’s note, 5:50 p.m. Dec. 13: An earlier version of this story reported that Will Pace voted to hold the mass meeting in Chatham on Thursday. In a later conversation, Pace said that he resigned his position as committee chairman before the vote was held, and that he did not participate in the vote but stands by the decision.

Republicans in the 48th House of Delegates District will pick their nominee to succeed departing Del. Les Adams, R-Pittsylvania County, at a mass meeting in Chatham on Thursday. 

But Eric Phillips, one of the two candidates seeking the nomination, on Wednesday decried the process for selecting the date, location and nomination method, which he said were all decided by his opponent, Will Pace, the longtime chairman of the Pittsylvania County Republican Committee, who until Wednesday also chaired the district’s nominating committee.

“This is exactly why this guy should not be in a position to wield power. Instead of making the election fair and accessible, the establishment is working overtime to make sure their preferred candidate gets his way,” Phillips said in a text message. “This will disenfranchise voters solely in an effort to appease my opponent’s political ambitions. The 48th District deserves to have their voices heard without the influences of the political establishment.”

Pace said in an email Wednesday that he took a leave of absence as the chairman of the Pittsylvania County Republican Committee “the moment I announced” on Tuesday. He also said that he resigned as the chair of the 48th District Legislative Committee during its meeting, moments before the vote for the nomination. 

“With the fast turnaround needed the district committee selected a well-known location,” Pace said. 

Adams, who has served in the House of Delegates since 2014, announced on Tuesday that he would resign his seat just weeks after winning a sixth term to represent the heavily Republican district, which includes parts of Pittsylvania and Henry counties, and the city of Martinsville. 

Within hours after Adams’ announcement, Pace, a longtime member of the Chatham Town Council and the town’s former mayor, and Phillips, a small-business owner from Henry County, both declared their intention to run for the soon-to-be-vacant seat. 

Later on Tuesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin set a special election for the 48th House of Delegates District for Jan. 9. Because nomination contests are party-run, the local 48th District Legislative Committee gets to vote on the method and location. 

The committee is made up of just two members, who each represent one geographical unit, and who in an ironic twist until Wednesday were the two candidates seeking the nomination. Pace, the now former committee chair, represented Pittsylvania, and Phillips, the chairman of the Henry County and Martinsville Republican committee, represents the latter two localities. 

But Pittsylvania’s vote is weighted more with 54%, while Henry County and Martinsville get 46%. The small committee met at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Mount Hermon Library in Danville to vote on the nomination method, location and date. 

To avoid a conflict of interest, Phillips sent W.C. Fowlkes, a Republican from Martinsville, on his behalf. Also present were Chuck Angier and David Law, two fellow Republicans from Pittsylvania, and as the chairman, Pace gaveled in the meeting

“[Pace] started the meeting and indicated that he would be making a presentation and then we would be voting on the location,” Fowlkes said in a phone interview. “Then Eric spoke up and said, ‘You can’t be on the committee,’ and then Will said, ‘Oh, that’s right, I need to step down.’ So he stepped down and turned it over to the gentleman with him,” he said, referring to Angier.

It was Law who then cast Pittsylvania’s vote in favor of a mass meeting on Thursday at the Old Dominion Agricultural Center in Chatham — more than 30 miles from Martinsville and about 40 miles from Henry County. Registration begins at 4:30 p.m., and the meeting is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. 

Pace said in a brief phone interview Wednesday afternoon that mass meetings aren’t an unusual method for selecting nominees, and he reiterated that he resigned before the vote. 

“I had to resign as chair, I had no choice. I did not have a vote.” 

But Fowlkes said he believes that Pace and Angier had already settled on the date, time and location of the mass meeting before Wednesday’s committee meeting. “We had a proposal that we thought would be heard as well, that was our reason for being there,” he said. 

To hold a single mass meeting as far away as possible from Henry County and Martinsville doesn’t make sense, Fowlkes added. “We suggested two locations — one at the Henry County Courthouse, and one for them up there. But they had already made up their minds.”

Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, criticized Wednesday’s committee vote as “rigging the nomination process.”

“We have an individual who wishes to be a delegate, who probably always wanted to be a delegate, and who takes the opportunity to choose the location, the type of notice and the type of nomination that would favor him instead of allowing the rest of the district to actually weigh in. He basically wants to get all his friends together as fast as possible in Chatham to secure that nomination,” Williams, who has endorsed Phillips, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Instead of allowing Pace to have his way, the candidates should have had a discussion about how to find “neutral turf for any of the methods of nomination,” Williams said. “The candidates should talk and decide on either multiple locations or one single, neutral site. We could have had a site in Henry County, one in Chatham and maybe one more in the middle.”

Williams called on the Republican Party of Virginia to step in.

“Frankly, I’m sick of it and I wish the Republican Party of Virginia would step up and say that this is unacceptable, and actually do something instead of just hide and cower to these consultants who try to rig and win party nomination methods in order to continue to hold power or influence other people,” Williams said. 

“There is a root cause issue here, and there are those who are perverting the party plan, to utilize it and work it in their favor. For the party to not step up and address this rigging, which has happened for multiple years, is abhorrent.”