"Emily Couric

Incumbent for the 25th District Virginia Senate seat, Sen. Emily Couric, D-Charlottesville, describes herself as a moderate Democrat, who, before the election in 1996, was active in community service and had been a journalist and an author specializing in legal affairs.

Couric, 52, married Dr. George A. Beller in 1981 - when she moved to Charlottesville - and she has two sons with her first husband: Ray, 25, and Jeff, 23. She is the oldest of four children, including her sister Katie Couric of the Today Show.

She graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., receiving a B.A. with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors.

Couric's legislative record states that she voted for smaller class sizes, returned Virginia Lottery profits to schools and provided more classroom technology; fought to eliminate the food tax and to repeal the car tax; promoted tourism and welfare reform; voted against out-of-state garbage and improved programs for clean water; stiffened penalties for drunk driving, expanded access to sex offender registry; fought to curb managed care abuses; supported state employee salary increases, just to name a few.

The senator's public service record, spanning two decades, includes service on the Charlottesville School Board, Jefferson Area Board for Aging, Boys & Girls Club, Downtown Charlottesville, Inc. among several others, and she recently joined the University of Virginia Patent Foundation Board of Directors.

What do you believe are the most important issues in the CharlottesvilleAlbemarle area?
Education, education, education.

What is the most important change you would like to make if you are reelected?
I think we need to focus on education and provide support for our children in terms of the more rigorous Standards of Learning and testing program that is now in place. We did not put that program in place to make sure [children] failed but to prepare them for their adult lives. To help them succeed, we need to pay more attention to: early childhood education; smaller class sizes, particularly in lower grades; remediation programs; teacher training; technology and curriculum materials. We've made some progress in those areas. But we need to do a lot more.

How would you describe your campaign in one sentence? Why is your campaign unique?
I don't distinguish between my campaign and my public service and that I believe in the importance of reaching out to the entire community, listening to the people who live here and responding to their concerns and needs.

How do you differentiate yourself from your opponent?
I don't know enough about my opponent.

What is your biggest criticism about the campaign of your opponent?
I'm not going to criticize my opponent. I'm going to build my campaign on my long-standing record of service and my last term. I consider this job an honor and I would like to continue, in large part, so I can emphasize making sure that public education is a priority for our state.

Do you feel that the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests are fair for all students?
We've had the SOLs for a long time. The SOLs are work in progress. I'm hoping that the state government can recognize their strengths but also be willing to adjust where they can be improved.

Should SOLs determine whether students graduate? Should the tests determine students' futures?
We need to have standards for graduation requirements. I believe it's appropriate to have a minimum to guarantee quality.

What is your take on charter schools?
We passed a charter schools bill that allows each school division to set up two charter schools. These schools must be within the public school system.
I voted for this bill.

How should Virginia Lottery funds be destributed in the school system?

We should guarantee that the money goes into the classrooms to help our students achieve and no watsted on administration and bureaucracy.

What kinds of tax cuts to you support?

I think we should abolish, immediately, the sales tax on food.

What are you biggest environmental concerns, and how do you plan to address them?
Sprawl, sprawl and sprawl. Sprawl is a huge challenge in our area because we have to have a strong economy and job opportunities, but we must control our growth so that we protect our quality of life. The quality of life helps bring businesses here in the first place.

Do you support the possible construction of a big-box store, such as a Wal-Mart, on Fifth Street Extended?
That's a local decision.

Is there a need for transportation reform?
I think we need to do as much as we can to continue to promote alternative forms of transportation, but we need to be practical and recognize our dependence on automobiles. This requires maintaining our roads and having an adequate infrastructure.

What is your stand on the Meadowcreek Parkway?
I try not to be presumptuous and tell the local officials what to do and the federal [officials]. I have my hands full with state issues. I will tell you I'm an ardent supporter of Downtown Charlottesville.

What is the most important health care issue?
Curtailing managed care abuses so patients know they will be receiving not only affordable health care but quality health care.

Did you support the governor's intervention in the Hugh Finn case?
[This was the case in which Mr. Finn was in a persistent vegetative state for three years, and his wife wanted to remove his feeding tube].
I don't support what the government did in the Hugh Finn case. I think the government should stay out of these very private family matters.

What is your stand on abortion?
I'm pro-choice. I support Roe v. Wade.

Affirmative Action?
I think we have an obligation to reach out to groups that are underrepresented, the educational institutions and in the work place. That does not mean lowering standards. That simply means trying harder to promote diversity.

Jane Maddux

Albemarle County Republican Jane Maddux, who is running for the 25th District seat in the Virginia Senate, describes herself as a small business owner, who grew up in a small town in Virginia and has worked hard in the Charlottesville-area community.

The 49-year-old Maddux was born in Richmond and grew up in Blackstone, Va. She has been married to John Maddux - owner of Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. - for 27 years and has two children: daughter Millicent, 26, and son John, Jr., 22.

Maddux graduated from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton with a B.S. in political science. She worked in real estate briefly and now owns Reflections Salon, Inc., on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall.

Maddux has served as a member of several civic organizations, and currently serves as a board member for The Women's Committee of the Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, and the Parent's Council at Hampden-Sydney College. She is also an active member of the Children's Healing Garden and Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center at the University of Virginia Health System.

What are the most important issues in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area?
I still believe the most important issues right now are children's education, health issues; in light of what's happening right now [referring to the Meadowcreek Parkway], obviously transportation issues. I believe we want to continue to keep our taxes low. We want to be ever-mindful of our tremendous growth in this area and make sure that we grow wisely.

What is the most important change you would like to make if you are elected?
I'd like to go [to Richmond] and make certain all the monies from our lottery profits are returned to the schools with no strings attached. I trust the school boards, the teachers and the parents of the localities to make the decisions for their own school systems as to how these monies should be spent.

How would you sum up your campaign in one sentence?
It's an exciting, fabulous challenge for me to continue to do good things for this community.

Why is your campaign unique?
Do you think my campaign is unique'? I hope you think our campaign is unique because I've got so many great people working with me. The reason any campaign is unique is the people involved in it. And I want to do everything I can to represent the people of the 25th district with conservative values of less government, lower taxes and more individual responsibility.

How do you differentiate yourself from your opponent?
It's a classic example of little government versus big government. As a Republican it's a matter of different philosophies; we're coming from different philosophies of government. I see government limiting its sphere of influence, I want to see lower taxes. I want to see government as a smaller intrusion in our lives. I want to let people have more individual responsibility. We haven't seen a lot of that in the 30 years of Democratic rule in Richmond. We're finally seeing taxes cut, they haven't been cut before when Democrats were in control.

What is your biggest criticism about the campaign of your opponent?
I have no criticisms of my opponent, and I will not.

What is the most important education issue locally?
I really don't think there is one issue you can apply to all schools in both Albemarle and Charlottesville. We need to continue working on our lower grades in catching these kids who have special needs and making sure that they're not falling behind, particularly in their reading skills. Our [Standards of Learning tests] SOL's are showing that reading is a problem in they're being able to reach competency on these tests.

Do you feel that the SOL's are fair for all students?
The SOL's are standards that we need to have in our schools. The SOL's broke up the status quo, and, in doing so, we're focusing on having these children reach higher standards that we all want them to achieve. It's not a perfect system yet, and we need to contnue to work together with our teachers and our administrators to provide the resources to help them acoomplish the goals.

Sould SOLs determine whether students gratudate? Should the tests determine students' futures?
There always has to be a standard by which anyone is judged as to whether they have achieved the ability to pass or to move on. But we want every child, when they graduate from high school, to be able to read and write, communicate well so that they can be successful when they have to go out into the world and find jobs.

What's your take on charter schools?
I am a supporter of charter schools. I think competition is good. I think it allows parents a choice if the need is there.

How should Virginia Lottery funds be distributed in the school system?
I want 100 percent of these funds to come back to those localities with no strings attached.

What kinds of tax cuts do you support?
I support the car tax cuts; I want to continue to see that to its fruition, until it's gone. I definitely want to see the food tax cut. It's being cut; I want to see the 2.5 percent cut from the food tax. And if our economy continues to be strong, and we continue to have surpluses, then we need to look at returning these monies back to the people of Virginia, because it's their money.

What are your biggest environmental concerns, and how do you plan to address them?
Whenever we do anything with the environment we need to be logical and responsible in our relationship with our environment. And I believe one of the most important things that we do is to protect our natural resources providing clean water is extraordinarily important in this area particularly. Our water sources are very important in providing for the people in our communities to live. So we have to be better stewards of what we have. We ought to make recycling a part of our everyday lives.

Do you support the possible construction of a big-box store, such as a Wal-Mart, on Fifth Street Extended?
The needs of the community, I think, have to drive that decision. There are needs of the people that live on that side of town. I've spoken to quite a few of them about their desire to have that facility, but the local ordinances and the local governing bodies need to be the ones to make this decision with our residents' input.

Is there a need for transportation reform?
If driving down [U.S. Route] 29 and [Route] 250 Bypass, since the closing of Rio Road, is any indication of how our local transportation needs are, then we need to quickly address those problems.

What is your stand on the Meadowcreek Parkway?
The Meadowcreek Parkway has been talked about for over 20 years now, and, as a business person in the community on the Downtown Mall, I would certainly like to see this parkway come to fruition with as little impact on our park space as possible. However, I will go one step further and say if this parkway is approved, I think we need to look long and hard at how best to construct it economically; and by that I'm referring to whether it should be two or four lanes.

What is the most important health care issue in your mind?
Keeping our health care affordable and accessible for all Virginians, and, particularly, making sure all of our children have good health care. I also have been working hard for the past five years in trying to provide more health care for uninsured and underinsured women in our community.

Did you support the governor's intervention in the Hugh Finn case? [This was the case in which Mr. Finn was in a persistent vegetative state for three years, and his wife wanted to remove his feeding tube.]
My feeling on that is that I would like to see more people have living wills where they make it well-known to their family or closest relative what their desire is if faced with that type of existence. But I hate seeing `political hay' made out of an issue that is as difficult as the Hugh Finn case.

What is your stand on abortion?
I truly believe that abortion is one of the most polarizing issues that we have, and, truly, I do not believe it should be legislated. I think it's a family issue, and the decision needs to be made by a young woman and her family and support and her God. I believe in parental notification and I believe in a ban on partial-birth abortion.

Affirmative Action?

I think the original intent of affirmative action was for equal opportunity for everyone, and it has brought the country a long way in providing equal opporutinty for everyone, but I don't think we should discriminate against any qualified person just to fiill quotas." (Reed Williams, The Observer, August 25 - 31, 1999)