The Washington Post - 21.10.2019

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

thorities to separate a dangerous

person from firearms.

However, when Northam

called a special legislative session

in July to take up gun control

measures, Jones voted with the

Republican majority to adjourn

after 90 minutes without debat-

ing any bills. All measures were

referred to a state crime commis-

sion for further study.

Jones has been campaigning

in the new parts of his district,

attending black churches and

community meetings. Most of the

faces in his TV ads and campaign

mailers are African American.

“People want me to say I’m

endorsing Clinton over Chris be-

cause of race or because he needs

our votes on that side of town,

but I’m voting for what helps our

community the most,” said

Chavez Mabry, 53, a local teacher

and organizer of the Suffolk Busi-

ness Men Group for African

American leaders. “This is not a

national stage, this is a local

stage. If he was Donald Trump, I

wouldn’t be voting for him, but

he’s Chris Jones, and I support

Chris Jones because I know what

he continues to do for our com-

munity.”

Still, Jones knows that change

is in the air.

Democrats have begun step-

ping up their support for Jenkins,

with former governor Terry

McAuliffe hosting a fundraiser

for him in Northern Virginia this

month. The Virginia House Dem-

ocratic Caucus pumped more

than $155,000 into Jenkins’s

campaign in September.

Last month, Jones sold Ben-

nett’s Creek Pharmacy, a casualty

of Medicare reimbursement pol-

icies and private insurance prac-

tices that have made the climate

tough for independent pharma-

cists.

For weeks, people around

town have been hugging him

when they see him. “It’s like

losing a member of your family,”

he said.

The pharmacy is mostly empty,

with “going out of business” signs

on the windows. Jones still works

out of his office in the back. The

experience has given him an air

of fatalism.

Speaking recently to the local

Rotary Club, Jones grew emo-

tional about both the pharmacy

and his political career.

“It’s been a privilege and an

honor for me to represent you in

Richmond,” he said. “Win, lose or

draw, I’m in the Lord’s hands.”

[email protected]

lunch.

“It’s all about forgiveness,” she

said.

Jones says he favors several

gun-control measures proposed

by Democrats, including closing

the gun-show loophole for back-

ground checks, requiring gun

owners to report lost or stolen

weapons, and some type of “red

flag” law that would allow au-

years in prison, got two college

degrees and had a successful

career working for the state cor-

rections system.

“I don’t think anybody could

ask for any more help to get over

the hump of feeling like you don’t

belong in society,” Kennon said of

Jones in an interview. Now 69

and retired, Kennon said she and

Jones still meet occasionally for

outcome of this thing will be,” he

said.

And Jones? “A fine young

man,” he said.

Jenkins said there’s one argu-

ment that will drive people to

vote for him: Jones is a member

of the same party as President

Trump.

“This is about not allowing the

current president’s policies to

filter into this area,” Jenkins said.

Reaching across the aisle

Jones himself is careful to

soften the partisan line. He

points out that he spent time in

the GOP wilderness, losing top

committee spots because he

broke with his party to support

tax increases under former gov-

ernors Mark R. Warner (D) and

Robert F. McDonnell (R).

“There are not many of me left,

those who reach across the aisle

to get things done,” he said.

Mary Hill, 59, went to high

school with Jones. She remem-

bers his father’s drugstore,

which opened in the village of

Chuckatuck in 1961, at the height

of the civil rights movement.

That drugstore served farmers

and watermen, black and white.

It had no separate bathrooms, no

separate lunch counter, recalled

Hill, who harvests oysters in the

black community of Hobson.

“We never thought about race,”

she said.

Although she is a lifelong

Democrat, Hill said she will vote

for Jones. “I vote for who is going

to represent the people, and he

has always represented the peo-

ple,” she said.

Jones has drawn howls from

Democrats because he’s been

highlighting his 2018 vote to

expand Medicaid to about

400,000 low-income residents,

something he had voted against

for years.

Jones is among the first Re-

publicans to actually run on the

issue, and said his role as a

pharmacist has made him under-

stand the need to expand health-

care coverage.

“I never was a hard ‘no.’ I

always said you have to fix it

before you expand it,” he said.

That entailed creating work in-

centives for recipients.

Jones also has a unique per-

spective on the gun-control issue

that flared up this year following

the May 31 mass shooting in

Virginia Beach, in which a man

killed 12 people at a municipal

building.

Jones bought a gun long ago,

after the first time his pharmacy

was robbed. In 1987, it was held

up again, this time by a white,

middle-class mother named Sue

Kennon who was addicted to

prescription drugs. As she

pointed a gun at him, Jones

drew a pistol from under the

counter and shot her in the

shoulder.

Kennon begged him to kill her,

saying she wanted to die. Instead,

he called the police. In the years

since, the two have stayed in

regular contact through letters,

calls and visits. She served 15

about my way and do my thing.”

He is pressing Jones on some

issues — crying foul about a TV

ad in which Jones takes credit for

leading the effort to pass Medic-

aid expansion in 2018. Republi-

cans fought expansion for years,

and Jones voted against it several

times — though he did help

broker the deal with Gov. Ralph

Northam (D) that finally passed

it.

Jenkins said his opponent fo-

cuses on big business and doesn’t

understand why working people

need better transit to get to jobs

in far-flung parts of Hampton

Roads, or why East Suffolk neigh-

borhoods need help with huge

drainage ditches that attract

mosquitoes and snakes. He said

Jones has joined other Republi-

cans in opposing gun restrictions

that would stem the tide of vio-

lence.

And Jones has been “selective

about who he wants to serve,”

Jenkins said, noting that Jones

led the Republican effort to draw

legislative districts in 2011 — the

plan that federal judges struck

down this year as racially gerry-

mandered.

Even though the downtown

neighborhoods were carved out

of the Suffolk district before

Jones took office, Jenkins

charged that he had the power to

put them back. Jones responded

that the Justice Department un-

der President Barack Obama ap-

proved his map, and that it would

not have allowed him to pull the

black precincts out of the neigh-

boring majority-black district.

Jenkins appears strong in

those African American neigh-

borhoods, where many people

know him and his mother.

“I’m being called to give people

a voice, an opportunity to sit at

the table,” he said.

In the Lake Kennedy subdivi-

sion one weekday morning, an

elderly man driving a pickup

stopped when he saw Jenkins.

“I’m voting for you!” he shouted

from the window.

Jenkins approached one house

and called to resident Gloria

Whitfield through her screen

door. “Can I count on you?” he

said.

“Go ahead, boy. You know I got

you,” she replied.

Deacon Eddie Hicks, 84, has

worked on several civic groups

with Jenkins. He has also known

Jones for decades and calls him

“a good man.”

“But it’s time for this man

now,” he said, nodding to Jen-

kins.

Jenkins hasn’t lined up all the

leaders in the black community,

though. Several pastors have en-

dorsed Jones. And though Jen-

kins urged a reporter to call City

Council member Curtis Milteer

for a reference, Milteer said in an

interview that he’s not commit-

ted.

“I’m not involved in that race,”

said Milteer, 88, who is African

American and has served on the

council for 39 years. Jenkins “has

run for several offices and never

won, so I don’t know what the

against Jones. Only one candi-
date raised his hand — real estate
broker Clinton Jenkins — and his
state paperwork was late, so ini-
tially he didn’t qualify for the
ballot. Over the summer, Jenkins
raised about $60,000, mostly
from big party donors — one-
tenth the amount Jones had on
hand.
“It’s almost as if Democrats are
making a halfhearted effort to
challenge Chris Jones,” said
Christopher Newport University
political analyst Quentin Kidd.
“My gut tells me it’s because of his
position in the community.”
Democrats across Virginia are
nationalizing races, reminding
voters of what they call dysfunc-
tion in Washington and bringing
in outside money and organizers
to rally support.
Jones is doing the opposite.
As a pharmacist, and son of a
pharmacist, Jones has personal
connections to his constituents.
His career in municipal govern-
ment — which is nonpartisan —
made him familiar throughout
the sprawling city, a patchwork of
rural villages, strip-mall suburbs
and an ailing industrial down-
town. Now, as chairman of the
Virginia House Appropriations
Committee, Jones controls the
state’s purse strings as much as
any one person can.
If Jones loses, it will be at least
partly because he never truly
represented his entire hometown
in the statehouse. The poorest
sections — low-income black
neighborhoods that didn’t even
have indoor toilets when Jones
was a young City Council mem-
ber — had been carved out and
added to a district in the neigh-
boring city of Chesapeake.
The new map restores those
neighborhoods to the Suffolk dis-
trict. Jenkins, 57, who is African
American, grew up in that part of
town — literally across the rail-
road tracks from the white side.
He said he remembers having to
use the outdoor privy in cold
weather as a child.
“He may have the money,”
Jenkins said of Jones, “but I’ve
got the people.”
In that case, the trick is figur-
ing out how to get them all to
show up and vote.

‘I know he can be beat’

Suffolk is, geographically, the
largest city in Virginia, sprawling
across 400 square miles. But it’s
really a collection of very differ-
ent communities. Old downtown
Suffolk, where Jenkins grew up,
runs alongside the Great Dismal
Swamp and is about 14 miles
from the North Carolina line. It’s
surrounded by farms and criss-
crossed by railroads that wind
past peanut-processing factories.
Jenkins was born in Philadel-
phia. His father left when he was
about 4 years old, and his mother
moved the family to Suffolk. They
had little money.
“I remember the days I
couldn’t wait to get to school
because that was my meal,” he
said. “That breakfast, that lunch.

... And then on Fridays the
cafeteria workers would slip you
a bag with food.”
Jenkins played football in high
school, then joined the Army. He
spent years pursuing a college
degree and moving among jobs
for military contractors, he said.
He got married, had four kids
and wound up back in Suffolk,
investing in real estate and sell-
ing it.
He has been active with neigh-
borhood civic groups, and
through them joined a local Dem-
ocratic committee. His wife, Kar-
en, won a seat last fall on the city
school board, but Jenkins himself
has never won elective office. He
ran for the City Council and came
in third out of three candidates.
Challenging Jones is not some-
thing Jenkins envisioned. “I had
no desire to run for this position
— had no desire,” he said. Others
in the community approached
him, he said.
After his stumble in getting on
the ballot — he blamed it on a
mix-up with an email to the state
— Jenkins got off to a significant
head start with campaign signs,
which he and volunteers have
plastered all over downtown and
along some of the major roads.
His headquarters on the first
floor of a ramshackle Victorian
house is festooned with signs and
flags.
Told that the numbers in the
new district appear to give him
good odds of winning, Jenkins
seemed taken aback.
“You think so?” he said, then
gathered himself. “I know he can
be beat. I’m just hoping he takes
it for granted and lets me go

VIRGINIA FROM A

Control

of Virginia

legislature

is at stake

PHOTOS BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER/THE WASHINGTON POST

Del. Chris Jones (R-Suffolk), bottom left, is facing a challenge from real estate broker Clinton Jenkins (D), bottom right, in a Virginia

district that has new boundaries after a federal court said the old map was racially gerrymandered. Although the district went from a

12-point edge for Republicans to a 15-point edge for Democrats, it’s not shaping up to be an easy one to flip.

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