Hanger to run for reelection amid challenge to law

Republican Emmett Hanger will seek the nomination to run for a sixth term in the state senate amid a regional GOP challenge to the state law that allows him to choose the method for parties to select their representative.

Hanger on Monday spoke with amusement over speculation and what he called a bit of pressure to retire from the state legislature rather than face right-wing ire over his support for Medicaid expansion.

"It didn't work. I'm running again," he said.

Leaders of grassroots Republican organizations are suing in federal court the state law that allows incumbent lawmakers to decide how the party will nominate its representative in the general election.

In December, the GOP committee for the 24th Senatorial District that Hanger represents decided on a convention, a gathering of party delegates that has tended to choose conservative nominees. Last week, Hanger chose a primary, which would allow all voters, not just Republicans, to participate.

The committee lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg states that the Republican rules give their organization discretion over how senate nominees are chosen.

Forcing the party to abide by the state nomination rules that gives that authority to the incumbent is a violation of the committee's constitutional right of free association under the First and Fourteenth amendments, the lawsuit states. It was filed on behalf of Ken Adams, district committee chairman and head of the Waynesboro Republican Committee, and lists as defendants members of the State Board of Elections.

Hanger said the 24th District has been drawn to be so heavily Republican, the nomination process decides the winner. A convention leaves that decision in the hands of a small number of delegates, whereas a nomination gives more people the chance to decide their representative for the senate.

"I think the primary is a better way to take your message to a much larger group of people," he said.

Businessman Dan Moxley and Augusta Supervisor Marshall Pattie have announced that they will vie for the nomination. Hanger, a five-term incumbent, angered many right-wing Republicans for his place among a few Senate GOP members who supported state expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.