[L]ast week, VTDigger reported that newly elected Vermont Democratic Party Chair Faisal Gill opposed marriage equality a decade ago as a Virginia Republican — something he now supports.
Further research shows Gill has also changed his position on abortion, illegal immigration, the role of government and taxation. Gill said he’s never concealed his Republican past, but the details of his previous policy positions have garnered little scrutiny during his rise through Vermont’s Democratic ranks.
As a Republican running for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2007, Gill carved out a hardline position against illegal immigration. At the time, Gill recommended making it a felony to employ illegal immigrants, according to The Washington Post.
“The punishment should not be a fine,” Gill said. “What they care about is going to jail. Most employers, if they have that threat,” won’t hire illegal workers, he said, according to The Post.
A conservative blogger who covered Gill’s 2007 campaign launch wrote that Gill came out in favor of inking an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that would allow Virginia state agencies “to enforce immigration laws.”
Gill acknowledged taking a strong stance against illegal immigration as a Republican candidate, but said he didn’t recall specifically pushing for such an agreement with ICE.
“I’d have to look back. I don’t know if I took that position. I might have. It was 10 years ago,” the Democratic Party Chair said.
Whether state agencies should enforce federal immigration law was at the heart of debate over a recently passed Vermont law that would leave such decisions to the governor’s discretion.
Vermont’s liberal congressional delegation said recently that Trump’s expansion of which unauthorized immigrants should be targeted for deportation “threatens the stability of our state’s agricultural economy.” Making it a felony to hire unauthorized immigrants would likely have a similar effect.
Gill, who was recently appointed as co-chair of Democratic Attorney General TJ Donovan’s immigration task force, said his views on immigration have changed as part of a larger evolution in his political thinking.
The Muslim American, who was born in Pakistan, said his conversion from Republican to Democrat resulted from personal experiences — attacks and discrimination he experienced during his Virginia campaign — and changing circumstances in the country.
“The way ICE is enforcing (immigration law) now and the way they were enforcing it in 2006 are two different things,” Gill said.
Gill said the arrest of immigrant activists was “abhorrent,” and clearly politically motivated.
“I don’t think anyone can be for breaking the law. You’ve got to follow the law. At the same time, the way the law is being enforced now is horrible,” Gill said.
Donovan said he is glad to have Gill on his immigration task force and also praised his work on behalf of the Democratic Party.
“People have the right to change,” Donovan said, “The world changes, and people’s views change. I think his personal story of evolution is not unique.”
Donovan pointed to Hillary Clinton’s conversion from a young Republican to Democratic presidential nominee, and President Ronald Reagan’s switch from Democrat to Republican.
Gill, an attorney, donated $2,000 to Donovan’s attorney general campaign, and has donated nearly $10,000 to Democratic candidates and political action committees in the latest election cycle. Gill also spent $16,500 on his own unsuccessful bid for state Senate.
The Democratic Party Chair said he’s always favored comprehensive immigration reform to fix what he called “a broken system.” That hasn’t changed, he said. Even as a Virginia Republican carving out strong opposition to illegal immigration, he always supported legal rights for all immigrants.
When he ran for office in Virginia, Gill was working as an immigration attorney. He said his legal work on behalf of unauthorized immigrant clients led to attacks from his Democratic opponent. An ad, which is still on YouTube, closes on the line: “Making a living is one thing. Cashing in on illegal immigration? That’s just wrong.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Z4x52UcXg
A Washington Post commentary from the 2007 said that Republicans in Northern Virginia made a strategic decision to “focus relentlessly on illegal immigration.”
Gill acknowledged that he took some Republican positions that, though he agreed with them, weren’t the issues he was hoping prioritize. That was the case with abortion, he said.
At the time, he was an anti-abortion candidate, but he didn’t want to make the issue central to his campaign in Virginia. Now Gill says he’s “100 percent” pro-choice. “I just don’t believe I have the right to tell anybody what to do. People have the right to pick and choose for themselves,” Gill said.
Republican positions on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion “all boil down to telling people what they can and can’t do,” he said. After experiencing discrimination in his Virginia campaign — The Post describes “vicious attacks” from conservatives — Gill said he decided that politicians shouldn’t seek to impose their morality on others.
“That isn’t why I got into politics,” he said.
Responding to ‘new information’
What initially attracted Gill to the Republican Party was the economic message. As a young person serving in the military from a working-class background — his father drove a cab — Gill said limited government and low taxes were appealing.
“Republicans were the party of small business, that would let you keep your money and preached personal responsibility,” he said.
Gill said the Republican economic message lost its luster after the 2008 housing crisis. Republicans who favored limited government wanted to bail out Wall Street banks. Yet those same politicians balked at bailing out homeowners with bad mortgages, he said.
“They were attacking people like my father who maybe wanted to live in a better nieghborhood,” Gill said, “They said, ‘That guy is living beyond his means. That guy we won’t help. But the Wall Street guy we’ll save.’”
Now, when it comes to the role of government Gill said he believes its job is to “give everybody an equal footing.” That’s why he supports government funded free college, so that affluent children — including his own — don’t enter the workforce with an advantage, he said.
“Do I think we should have a lot of taxes? No, but we need to have enough” to create equal opportunities, he said. When the economy grows and government revenues increase, then taxes should be reduced, Gill said.
Gill said he also left the Republican Party because it wasn’t responding to new information. “My problem with the Republicans then and now is, you can’t have positions that don’t change with the facts.”
In the 1980s and 1990s it was possible to be a skeptic of climate science, Gill said. Now, the evidence is overwhelming that global warming is a huge problem, he said, yet most Republicans are unwilling to address it.
A person’s ability to change their views in response to new information is something that should be embraced, Gill said. He said he hopes his own narrative of personal growth will be a boon to Vermont Democrats.
“I think it’s a good thing for people to change their minds. It is my sincere hope that during my time as party chair we attract more former Republicans,” he said.
