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Virginia Beach — He publicly attacked a longtime state senator for her role in a protest involving Portsmouth’s Confederate Monument.
He came to the defense of a Norfolk police lieutenant, fired after it came to light he donated to the legal defense of a man charged with killing two Black Lives Matters protesters and injuring another.
And he represented a state senator in challenging a censure for incendiary comments about a woman killed by police during the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Tim Anderson, a criminal defense attorney who lives in Virginia Beach, doesn’t run from controversy. He sprints toward it, not only relishing the fight, but the media attention that comes with it.
It’s impossible to ignore that many of Anderson’s political melees involve race, undoubtedly the reason that Anderson, who is white, has been branded as an outspoken Trump Republican.
But his willingness to scrap likely helped Anderson beat the establishment candidate from a prominent political family to win the Republican primary last week in the 83rd House District.
“Tim positioned himself as a fighter and I think the voters are looking for that this year,” said Brian Kirwin, a political consultant for Anderson.
Very few would have thought Anderson, 46, had a chance to beat Chris Stolle, a former state delegate whose siblings are Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle, Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle and State Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant.
Yet, unbeknownst to many, Anderson had a fighter’s chance. And he seized it, winning the primary by 24 votes. Once the state certifies the election this week, Anderson will challenge Del. Nancy Guy, a Democrat, in November. The 83rd district represents parts of Norfolk and northwestern Virginia Beach.
Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University, said Anderson energizes voters similar to the way former President Donald Trump did.
Kirwin said while Stolle has experience and connections in Richmond, he thinks Stolle didn’t communicate with voters as well as Anderson. who has more than 112,000 followers on one of his Facebook pages.
Anderson found ways to be memorable. In a May Facebook video, he used a long-range fire torch to shoot flames at a sign listing what he considered the Democrats’ agenda. He now sells the fire torches on his gun shop website.
[ Tim Anderson's Facebook post ]
Bill Curtis, the Virginia Beach Republican Party chair, said Anderson’s in-your-face communication style is what voters want. He said his party is sick of the Democrats’ single-party rule and “the outright assault on our Second Amendment rights.”
“People are looking for some change and people are dissatisfied with what is going on in Richmond,” Curtis said.
Anderson has been known for using his social media accounts as weapons, criticizing Democratic leaders such as State Sen. Louise Lucas, whom Anderson targeted last summer when preaching law and order during Confederate Monument protests in Portsmouth.
Activists were advocating for Portsmouth’s city government to remove the monument at the intersection of Court and High streets near the site where slaves were once punished on a whipping post.
In June, demonstrators heavily damaged the monument and one person was seriously injured by a falling statue. Anderson accused Lucas of inciting a riot and telling police to stand down while the monument was defaced. Soon after, Anderson launched an effort to recall Lucas. The senator filed a defamation lawsuit against Anderson. The court case is still pending.
Anderson said he inserted himself into the debate to back police and to defend Police Chief Angela Greene, who was fired in November after Lucas faced felony charges in August along with NAACP leaders and other public officials. The charges were dropped in November.
“Just because something is wrong doesn’t mean you go tear it down, break a window or spray paint it,” Anderson said. “If we took down every monument, it is not going to make racism something else.”
Anderson has ties to State Sen. Amanda Chase, a lawmaker known for making inflammatory remarks. He offered her legal representation challenging the Virginia General Assembly’s censure after she defended people who stormed the U.S. Capitol. They lost in court. Chase lost access to her Facebook account after she blamed leftist activists for the insurrection. She has branded herself as “Trump in heels” and urged the former president to declare martial law to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Anderson also recently defended a protester who entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 during the insurrection but did not damage property.
Last Monday, Anderson negotiated a deal for Joshua Bustle, who pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building, a misdemeanor.
“I think everybody has a First Amendment right to assemble and peacefully protest,” Anderson said. “When you start destroying things, damaging things — like we saw in Richmond, Virginia Beach and D.C. — you should get arrested and go to jail.”
In April, The Guardian revealed that Norfolk police Lt. William K. Kelly III anonymously donated $25 to the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is charged with shooting and killing two Black Lives Matters protesters and severely injuring one more in Wisconsin last summer. The donations and a comment that said, “God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done nothing wrong” were traced to Kelly’s city government email address. The city fired Kelly in April.
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Anderson said the officer should get his job back because Kelly used his money and made the comment anonymously without mentioning that he was a police officer.
“You don’t lose your right to free speech because you’re a police officer,” he said. “Even if Rittenhouse is guilty, you still have a right to donate to somebody’s legal defense without fear of losing your job over it.”
While Anderson is conservative, he may side with Democrats on a few surprising issues. For one, he said he supports an affordable option for Medicaid for all, but still thinks private insurance should be offered. Anderson has insurance through the Affordable Care Act and finds it far too expensive. Anderson, who is married with two children and a stepchild, struggled with medical debt years ago while trying to help his father pay for cancer treatment.
He also said he supports restoring gun ownership rights to people who have been convicted of nonviolent felonies.
Anderson, however, has a financial interest in firearms. He opened a gun shop in 2015 called Defense Tactics of Virginia near the Virginia Beach Municipal Center in the same retail strip at his criminal defense law office. He said it started as a self-defense studio and evolved into a full-service brick and mortar retail gun shop. The store mostly markets pistols to women for self-defense, Anderson said. He said he teaches concealed carry and firearm safety courses nearly every weekend.
“One of the big areas of my practice has always been the restoration of Second Amendment rights,” he said. “Once you have done everything you were ordered to do as a part of your criminal sentence, you should be fully restored back to society.”
Alissa Skelton, 757-995-9043, alissa.skelton@pilotonline.com