My year of following fringe political movements led me to Amanda Chase
Goad Gatsby spent the last year documenting fringe political movements.
(This is guest commentary from Goad Gatsby, a citizen journalist that has been documenting fringe political movements in recent years.)
2020 has been the longest year of my life as I have been dedicated to following the activities of fringe political movements. This caused me to cross paths with the most controversial elected official in the Commonwealth of Virginia, State Senator Amanda Chase (R), from Chesterfield County.
This is in no way an exhaustive look into her life or politics, but rather the times I have lived the ‘Amanda Chase experience.’
My first encounter with Senator Chase was on January 10th outside of a meeting for the House Rules Committee in Richmond. I was waiting in the hallway because the committee room was at capacity by the time I arrived. The committee was meeting to vote on the prohibition of firearms in the Capitol Building. I witnessed the moment that Senator Chase stormed out of the committee room fuming about how she was now prohibited from open carrying a pistol in the halls of the legislative building. Looking back, she was not just irate about her right to carry a gun, but also about no longer having any power. The Republican Party was no longer the majority party for the first time since she was first elected in 2015. The Democratic leadership could not care any less about her concerns.
The next week was the start of the new rule banning guns at the state Capitol. It was also the Lobby Day for the National Rifle Association (NRA), not to be confused with the much larger lobby day put on by Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL). My friend Molly Conger was in town and we decided to walk around and sit in on the Virginia Senate session. While we were seated, an aide for Amanda Chase sat in front of us and recorded the session. I recognized him from the week before because he stayed close to Senator Chase. We thought it was unusual that he was recording the monitor from the galley when he could have just screen-grabbed it from a computer.