Heretick's website highlighted the following campaign themes (2017):

Recognizing that no meaningful effort to achieve regional toll relief can occur without a sound fiscal plan, I was proud to have introduced HJ73, which requested a study to be conducted by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to devise a financial plan to eliminate tolling on the Downtown and Midtown tunnels. This Bill received bipartisan support, and resulted in support from the powerful House Rules Committee to request that the study be conducted by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) instead of JLARC. I am pleased to report that VDOT will have until October to come up with a financial plan outlining options to eliminate the tolls on our tunnels. In the upcoming 2017 session, I intend to introduce legislation to implement these findings, and to work towards solving the crippling impact that these tolls have, and will continue to have, on our local economy and the commuters who are forced to use these tunnels for work, education, and healthcare every day.

As you know, collection of tolls on our tunnels is managed by a private for-profit corporation which is generally free of governmental oversight. All of us have heard of abusive collection practices against commuters, particularly where significant administrative and other fees are stacked on to the base tolls of drivers who do not have E-Z Pass transponders in their vehicles. With strong bipartisan support, particularly from Delegates in Northern Virginia whose communities are also facing new tolls, my legislation was ultimately incorporated into HB1079, an omnibus bill which I was proud to Co-Patron with Delegate Chris Jones of Suffolk, whose leadership on this issue has been critical for the entire region. This Bill provides for limits on the fees that can be added to base tolls, places limits on the total amount of tolls which can be assessed, and, very importantly, this Bill would ban any future tolling on existing roads without specific approval by the General Assembly. Unfortunately, the Senate stripped this last vital provision from the Bill, which I opposed when the Bill was returned to the House with Senate changes. While we were unsuccessful in restoring this significant protection to the Bill, we were ultimately able to save the remaining protections to commuters offered under this Bill. HB1079 was enacted by the Governor, and on July 1st there will be wide-ranging new laws in Virginia to provide commuters more time to pay tolls, to protect commuters where E-Z Pass payments were declined in error, and to provide new legal protections for commuters limiting how quickly and how much the tolling companies can collect in court. In the 2017 session, I will once again introduce legislation to prohibit the imposition of new tolls on our roadways without the permission of the General Assembly, thus eliminating the unchecked authority of unelected state bureaucrats to give away our roads to for-profit private companies to impose tolls with no accountability to us, the public.

Among the greatest frustrations I experienced while serving on the City Council was the Commonwealth’s failure to fund a long-standing budget line item which would provide relief to the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News to help pay for the extra costs associated with managing port-related traffic in our communities. While the Ports of Virginia, most of which are in my House district, serve as a key economic driver for the entire Commonwealth, we, the taxpayers of Norfolk and Portsmouth, have been unfairly required to pay for the vital roadway maintenance needed to support port-related traffic out of own pockets. For years, our repeated requests to the General Assembly for these critically-needed funds went unanswered.

In this year's session we were able to pass a responsible, two-year balanced budget. This does not raise taxes, and it fully funds public safety, and increases funding for our education system. During this process I fought for a budget amendment to restore full state funding to Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News for the long-ignored port host impact fees. With the support of the House Appropriations Committee, I am pleased I was able to fully restore payment of these fees to Norfolk and Portsmouth-- where every dollar counts.

The 2016 General Assembly session also saw progress on broad-ranging economic development and revitalization efforts. I was proud to co-sponsor HB834 and HB846, the Growth Opportunity “GO” Virginia bills, which will create new economic incentives to stimulate more development and to bring more jobs to our communities. As you know, our ports continue to be an economic engine for our region, and for the Commonwealth. I am particularly proud that the budget included $350,000,000.00 in new investments to expand the Port of Virginia’s operations in Norfolk. This long-overdue investment will insure that our region benefits from significant new trade opportunities, economic development, and new career opportunities, all of which are tied to our ports.

Among the most significant challenges limiting our ability to develop reliable communications throughout the Commonwealth are the widely inconsistent land use rules and regulations found among our localities governing wireless communications. Wireless communications have become the primary means of communication, public safety, and economic development throughout the Commonwealth, particularly in rural areas where advances in communications infrastructure are not economically feasible. To address this, I introduced HB1347, which is designed to put Virginia at the cutting edge of the nation in preparing us for the 5G wireless infrastructure statewide.

With the support of the House Commerce and Labor Committee, my HB1347 has been carried over to the 2017 session, so that a work group comprising senior members of the House, stakeholders in the wireless industry and in local government, and the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Technology can fine-tune this vital legislation. This work group has already begun its work to evaluate and improve my Bill, so that Virginia can continue to have the wireless infrastructure that supports public safety, increases economic development, and serves our citizens and visitors with cutting-edge high quality technology. I am truly optimistic that with the support of many members of the legislature, the executive branch, local government, and private industry, my Bill will become successful legislation next year.

Among the most challenging issues in our urban areas is meaningful criminal justice reform, which balances our safety with the need for fairness in the process. To address several of these issues, and at the express request of the cities I represent, I introduced several bills this session to address needed reform. Among these efforts, I introduced bills that would make it easier for innocent people to have their arrest records expunged and to make it possible for juvenile offenders who are now on the right track in life to get prior non-violent misdemeanor convictions off their record. We cannot afford to create roadblocks for truly reformed young people who get their lives back on track after learning from their mistakes the hard way. While I was able to gain bipartisan co-sponsorship for these bills, they were summarily killed without a recorded vote by the Courts of Justice Committee. With the encouragement and support of so many in our communities, I will continue toward these common sense reforms in the 2017 session.

I also introduced a bill, HB1074, to decriminalize the simple possession of marijuana for personal use by adults, and to eliminate jail time for those who possess small amounts of marijuana in their homes for personal use. Currently, millions of dollars of your money is wasted every year to incarcerate otherwise law abiding and productive adults who use marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. Many more resources are wasted when these same adults lose their jobs, their livelihoods, and face other problems because of minor, non-violent drug records, for offenses which are otherwise fully legal in the District of Columbia and a growing number of other states. Under my legislation, as an alternative to conviction and jail and a lifelong criminal record, adults committing no other drug offense than simple possession would receive a civil fine if apprehended. This bill was killed without a recorded vote by the criminal law subcommittee.