My Opponent
I won't make personal attacks against Delegate Karen Hamilton (R). I’m sure she is a good mother, wife, and business owner, but she is an unfit and distracted delegate who is unable to work in a bipartisan fashion to get anything done for this district.
I have compiled and evaluated all 13 legislative bills Delegate Hamilton has put forward—of which every single one has been killed on the floor. There’s no need for political slander when you can simply evaluate the record.
First, let’s evaluate Karen Hamilton’s three main issues.
Abortion
Hamilton spends most of her time on this issue. She often purports that abortions are happening at a rapid rate when that’s simply not true.
Consider the following:
The abortion rate in the U.S. has declined significantly since 1985.
The global average for abortions per capita is 39 out of 1,000. The U.S. rate is 12 per 1,000. Ranked among 152 countries, the U.S. sits around 107th—far below the global average.
Compared with the U.S., Virginia sits roughly in the middle of the pack (18/50).
The number of third-trimester abortions in Virginia is less than 1%, and according to available reports, these were all due to medical complications, life of the mother, or of the child.
The notion that there are “moments before birth” and “after birth” abortions is false.
Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
Gender-Affirming Care
Another issue Hamilton focuses on is gender-affirming care and parental protection around it. It is another cultural issue with little empirical evidence.
Consider the following:
The rate of sex-change operations in the U.S. is 4.6 per 100,000 adults 18+ or roughly 0.0045% of the population.
The rate of sex-change surgeries for minors is 2.1 per 100,000, or roughly 0.0021% of the population.
I agree with Hamilton that sex-change operations should not be allowed for minors, but the truth is VA is already headed that direction. For example, the Children’s Hospital in Richmond at VCU has already banned these surguries for minors.
However, they are so incredibly rare to begin with that it because a moot point. Hamilton is merely glomming onto this political hot point without evaltuing the evidence.
Illegal Immigration
Hamilton spends much time fear-mongering about illegal immigrants. She pushes a tired narrative that we have heard for years, without looking at the facts.
Consider the following:
It is true that illegal immigration rose under the Biden administration and has decreased under Trump. Trump’s ability to close the southern border was a success. However, his outsized spending on ICE has failed to improve on initially positive actions.
Instead, we have spent billions on ICE to deport non-violent offenders. Nearly 97% of recent deportees fall under this category. 70.6% of ICE detainees had no criminal record at all.
Hamilton often pushes the idea that illegal aliens are more violent when this isn’t the case. Across the U.S., felony arrest rates were nearly 60% lower for undocumented migrants compared to American citizens.
Immigration needs to slow, violent offenders should be deported, and immigration courts need to accelerate their ability to process documentation so those who are here can get on the books and into the legal system.
Hamilton’s 13 Proposed Bills
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Failed. This bill adds larger bail restrictions for felons. Not a bad idea, but it does little to alter existing laws. Currently, the presiding judicial officer can already deny bail for a wide range of reasons; this would merely slow the process and add uneeded paperwork.
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Failed. This bill would instruct that providers must have discussions about the use and locations of “baby boxes” with a patient looking to have an abortion. Currently, Abortion clincs already have discussions with patients about available alternative options and require written consent.
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Failed. This bill denies all second-chance opportunities for previously convicted felons from school employment. Current law allows evaluation of those 20 years post-parole, whose civil rights the Governor restored, whose crime was not violent, sexual, or child-related, and who are now considered in good standing with the community. This law would have removed any opportunity for a second chance and does not seek to remedy the felony and prison reform needed.
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Failed. This bill would have granted female victims of domestic abuse exempt status from current concealed weapons requirements. It would allow them to carry in places where carrying is currently prohibited, such as public parks, recreation centers, polling stations, government buildings, and airports. This law could easily be exploited and would have put residents in harm’s way.
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Failed. This bill would allow localities to apply for state-matched funding for road infrastructure annually instead of biannually. Although this bill doesn't also push for increased funding, it seeks to make the application process easier and allow greater local autonomy. I agree with this one.
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Failed. This bill would eliminate the current 20-year statute of limitations on filing civil lawsuits against persons in authority involved in the sexual abuse of a minor. I agree with this one.
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Failed. This bill would have outlawed adding fluoride to the water. Small amounts of fluoride occur naturally in water, but the chemical additive was introduced in 1945 to improve dental health. Now, fluoride is common in dental products, so it no longer needs to be added. Additionally, studies have shown that added flouried can negatively effect skeletal health and brain development. I agree with this one.
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Failed. This would impose fees on local housing developers to cover the cost of the public infrastructure those developments require. This bill has both potential positives and negatives. By imposing fees on developers, it could give localities greater autonomy, more ability to build, and a new revenue source. However, by levying the fees, it could also deter developments or raise the price of housing as developers try to recoup the money that was spent in fees initially. I think this bill has good intentions but is limited, and there is a more effective way to grow both the housing stock and localities’ access to funds, all while maintaining free market aspects of new developments.
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Failed. This bill would allow local governments in towns with under 20,000 residents (instead of the current 5,000 or fewer) to use their own planning commission to review and enact plats, site plans, and developments, rather than requiring a third-party designated agent. This would allow greater local government control and input from a board instead of a single individual. The potential downside is that it could stall development by requiring the entire commission to approve it, rather than a designated individual chosen by the local government. However, this law wouldn’t impose a requirement; instead, it would open up options. I agree with this one.
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Failed. This bill would reduce the qualifications needed to evaluate a homeschool child’s progress from the current Masters Degree and Teaching Licenses to only a Bachelor’s Degree. This would not affect the parent’s ability or qualifications to teach their children, only the evaluator’s required qualifications. This is a niche bill considering less than 5% of VA students are homeschooled. Furthermore, a Bachelor’s Degree is too little a requirement to fully evaluate a student's academic progress. This seems like a personal bill, as Hamilton’s children are in fact homeschooled.
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Failed. This bill conflicts with federal policy, according to the Department of Military Affairs. It was withdrawn at Hamilton’s request and struck from the docket.
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Failed. This bill would require schools to alert parents if their child requests to be identified by a different gender, include parents in school decisions in this regard, including counseling, and safeguard against the abuse and neglect label for parents’ decision to identify the child with pronouns associated with the child’s given sex.
This is a clickbait proposal and a non-issue. Current law already exists in VA that requires schools to inform parents on a wide range of issues regarding their child, including those gender-related. Once again, this affects a small minority of students. A 2025 report showed that only 3.1% of all VA students identify as transgender or nonbinary—or roughly 18,000 out of 1,200,000.
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Failed. This bill would designate a felony offense for medical professionals if a child is born alive following an attempted abortion. Additionally, it would require medical professionals to treat that child born alive, whether preborn or post-botched abortion, as a living being.
Unsurprisingly, laws already exist for this. Protections for children born in these conditions currently exist and require healthcare workers to act in their full capacity to maintain the life of the child. This is, once again, a non-issue driven by clickbait and fear-mongering. This issue, of termination post-pregnancy, rarely happens. The CDC estimates that between 2003 and 2014, 143 cases were confirmed nationwide, or 12 deaths a year, of which 68% of the 143 were due to immediate medical complications.