Joseph Morrissey was elected as an independent candidate to the Virginia House on January 13, 2015. Now he is running for a seat in the State Senate, in the regular legislative elections of November 3, 2015. The Washington Post has a very long and interesting article on him here, which contains information on his campaigning techniques.
From the article cited, written by Ken Otterbourg:
Rather than face a possible expulsion, Morrissey resigned and timed his resignation to coincide with the setting of a quickly held special election, which he won handily despite the army of heavy-hitters who campaigned for one of his opponents. He was not welcomed back — i.e., shunted into worse office space and stripped of committee assignments — so he left the House in March to run for the Senate. Unable to qualify for the June Democratic primary because too many of his ballot petitions were deemed invalid, he is now running as an independent in the general election. His opponent is incumbent Sen. Rosalyn Dance, a well-financed if not particularly well-loved Democratic legislator, and a political enemy of his. “I’m not going to let people push me up against the wall and dictate my fate,” Morrissey said. “That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing right now.”
And yet, there is something more taking place than simply Joe Morrissey’s impression of Lazarus and the finger he is jabbing in the eye of Virginia’s political establishment. Yes, he is clever in finding ways to win, even if the prize is a part-time job that pays less than $20,000 a year. And, yes, he has used his near-constant scrapes with authority to create a reasonable facsimile of street cred, a commodity that is invaluable in life and in elections. But his resilience also points out that the message voters deliver on Election Day is not always what the people in power want to hear.
The voters in the 74th House District who have been so loyal to Morrissey live in a scruffy patch of suburban and rural sprawl that also includes a few precincts on the north and east sides of Richmond. Like the district he is running in now, the 74th is what is known as a majority-minority district. These districts aren’t designed to expressly elect minority candidates, although that’s what typically happens. Rather, they’re designed to allow minority voters to elect candidates of their own choice. And if through five elections in eight years, the voters of the 74th chose a white guy in a suit who, among other things, has been disbarred, convicted of assault and fathered four children out of wedlock including with Pride, who was 17 when they met, then maybe it’s the rest of us, and not Joe Morrissey, who need to move on.