Virginia Justice Democrats are pleased to announce our endorsement for Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy’s campaign for Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2021. It is our mission to elect true progressives who put people before corporate interests. We want to stress that this election should not come down to identity politics during the Democratic primary. This primary season is based in the constant struggle of the progressive movement against the status quo and the Virginia Way. We must not move backward and relive previous administrations, just as we should not continue to give power to those with deep ties to the corporations that look to buy influence in the Governor’s Mansion and the State House.
We believe Delegate Carroll Foy’s candidacy embodies the Virginia Justice Democrats’ principles of Social, Racial, Economic, and Environmental Justice. She is championing the issues of the working class here in Virginia and has committed to not take contributions from corporate PACs and lobbyists working to undermine our progressive movement. Jennifer was one of the first candidates who signed the Activate Virginia pledge refusing contributions from Dominion Energy and to this day she has remained committed to that pledge. She has demonstrated her dedication to good governance with the release of a new progressive ethics and campaign finance reform package. This is the kind of bold leadership VAJD is seeking.
As a career public defender, and with legislation she has promoted in the VA General Assembly as a Delegate, Jennifer has proven that she is a champion for restorative justice that stresses the intersectionality of racial and economic justice. She has championed legislation such as increasing the felony larceny threshold, stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, legalization of marijuana, ending cash bail, instituting paid family leave, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and repealing the so-called ‘Right to Work’ laws in the commonwealth that undermine our local unions’ bargaining power.
We can depend on Jennifer Carroll Foy to show up for environmental justice. She has consistently spoken out against VA’s two fracked gas pipelines, the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines. She has personal experience with environmental injustice when communities in her own district were at risk from contaminated drinking water as the result of leaks from Dominion Energy’s coal ash ponds. She fought for the cleanup and won. She is a champion of Green New Deal VA that seeks to address the dual crises of the climate emergency and socioeconomic inequity while creating good green jobs and economic prosperity for all. This is the kind of capacity for creative vision and moral courage we so desperately need in our leadership.
Business as usual will not cut it in our current post-Covid19 global pandemic world. We are in the middle of a climate crisis, a moment of reckoning for historic and systemic racism, mass unemployment and evictions, deepening economic recession, environmental injustices, and attacks on civil and human rights. Pro-corporate policies, like those of past VA Gubernatorial administrations, have left our communities at the mercy of such crises. We cannot go back to that.
Jennifer possesses the leadership qualities needed to, not only further the progressive policies we believe in, but to also help grow and strengthen the VA progressive movement that is needed to ensure the broadest public support for a more compassionate and just VA society for all. It is not enough to have ‘good ideas’. We need to effectively communicate our vision and bring as many people along with us as we can. We look forward to electing Jennifer as the next Governor of Virginia and we urge our fellow VA progressives and those dedicated to our cause to also support Jennifer Carroll Foy’s candidacy. Our movement is stronger when we stand united together.
Virginia Justice Democrats are grassroots organizers, activists, elected officials, and candidates from across Virginia and from different backgrounds. We believe there is more to bringing change to our government than “just voting blue”. We’re ready to bring the power back to the people because that is how movements start.