top of page
homepage
Donate

MY PRIORITIES AS YOUR DELEGATE

Reducing The Cost Of Living

Ban Algorithmic Rent Price-Fixing

Algorithmic software allows competing landlords to share rental data and coordinate prices. This software is used for about half of apartments in the Northern Virginia Metro area, and cost the average renter in these buildings $112 a month more than they otherwise would have. The law currently turns a blind eye to this practice, but Virginia can end it. As your delegate, I will make it my priority to prohibit the use of algorithms that inflate rents across the market, classify algorithmic rent price coordination as an unfair trade practice, and empower the Virginia Attorney General to investigate landlords using collusive pricing software. ​

Image by Marlene Céline Nordvik

Ban Algorithmic Wage Discrimination

Employers increasingly use software to set wages to what individual workers will accept rather than the market value of their work. That's wage suppression by algorithm, and Virginia workers deserve protection from it. As your delegate, I will make it my priority to prohibit employers from using algorithmic tools to set wages based on predicted worker desperation, ban platforms that pool compensation data and coordinate pay suppression, and empower the Virginia Department of Labor to audit employers using third-party compensation algorithms. ​

Image by Bennie Bates

Make Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share

Data centers are the single biggest driver of Virginia's energy costs and right now, residential customers are subsidizing their power. That ends here. As your delegate, I will make it my priority to require data centers to cover 100% of the infrastructure costs they generate, protect residential taxpayers from subsidizing the cost of building and maintaining these data centers, and demand the increased grid connections are fully funded by industry, not ratepayers. ​

Image by Geoffrey Moffett

Accelerate Cheap Renewable Energy

Image by Zbynek Burival

Solar and wind have near-zero fuel costs once built. Sixty-four percent of Virginia's grid still runs on natural gas meaning every global price spike lands directly on Virginians' bills. The fastest path to stable, affordable energy is building more renewables, faster. As your delegate, it is my plan to expand Virginia's community solar programs so renters, apartment owners, and those without suitable rooftops can access solar bill credits as well as empowering energy distributors to prioritize long term reneweable power over gas plant construction.​

Reducing Your Energy Bills

Weatherization & Efficiency for Every Home

Image by Wenhao Ruan

The cheapest energy is the energy you never use. Virginia's weatherization programs are chronically underfunded and reach a tiny fraction of eligible households. A serious efficiency push cuts bills, reduces grid strain, and creates local jobs all at once. Through increasing funding for the Virginia Weatherization Assistance Program, we can reduce the energy costs of low- and middle-income households with high energy burdens. 

Making Campaign Finance Accessible for All

A Virginia Plan to Get Big Money Out of Politics

Three targeted reforms. Legally sound, proven in other states, and actionable in the General Assembly right now to make Virginia elections answer to voters, not donors.

 

The Citizens United constraint

The 2010 Supreme Court ruling prevents states from limiting independent spending by corporations on political ads. But it left direct contributions to candidates fully subject to state regulation, that's Virginia's opening.

​

What Virginia can do right now

States can ban or cap direct corporate contributions to candidates, set contribution limits for all donors, and prohibit contributions from regulated utilities and contractors.

​

Virginia's current law

No limits of any kind on contributions to state candidates — from corporations, individuals, PACs, or utilities. One of the most permissive systems in the country, and a national outlier.

 

 

Ban Direct Corporate Contributions to Candidates

When a corporation writes a check directly to a candidate, it's buying access plain and simple. Virginia can end it the same way 22 other states already have, and the law is firmly on our side.

​

  • Prohibit corporations, LLCs, and partnerships from making direct contributions to any Virginia candidate or candidate committee

  • Close the subsidiary loophole, ban multiple entities under common ownership from each contributing separately to circumvent the ban

  • Apply the ban to all Virginia offices: General Assembly, statewide constitutional offices, and local elections

  • Establish civil and criminal penalties for violations, with enforcement authority in the State Board of Elections and the Attorney General's office

  • Require any corporation that made contributions in a prior cycle to file a disclosure of all past Virginia political spending within 90 days of enactment

  • Direct ELECT to audit corporate contribution compliance in every election cycle and publish findings publicly

 

Set Contribution Limits for All Donors

A corporate ban matters but so does limiting the mega-checks that wealthy individuals and PACs write. Virginia has no cap of any kind on individual or PAC contributions. Forty-five other states do. It's time Virginia joined them.

​

  • Set a per-election-cycle contribution limit for individuals donating to Virginia state candidates

  • Apply the same limits to PACs and political committees making direct contributions to candidates

  • Index contribution limits to inflation every four years so they don't erode in real terms over time

  • Prohibit bundling arrangements that allow large donors to pool contributions in ways that effectively exceed the per-donor limit

  • Invest in modernizing Virginia's campaign finance reporting portal so contribution data is searchable, sortable, and exportable by the public

 

Ban Contributions from Regulated Utilities & State Contractors

Even with a corporate ban and contribution limits, the most corrosive pay-to-play relationships involve specific categories of donors: companies whose profits depend directly on decisions made by the officials they fund. Dominion Energy spent millions influencing Virginia legislators who then set its rates. State contractors wrote checks to the officials awarding their contracts. That's not free speech, it's a conflict of interest.

​

  • Prohibit all state-regulated utilities — including Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power — from making any direct or indirect contribution to Virginia candidates, officeholders, or political parties

  • Ban contributions from companies holding active state contracts over $100,000 for the duration of the contract and for two years after its completion

  • Extend the ban to the executives, board members, and registered lobbyists of regulated utilities and state contractors, not just the corporate entities themselves

  • Require candidates who receive contributions from utility-adjacent or contractor-adjacent sources to recuse themselves from votes directly affecting those donors

  • Apply the ban retroactively to existing officeholders: any official currently holding a contribution from a regulated utility must return it within 60 days

  • Direct the SCC to treat utility campaign spending as evidence of regulatory capture in any rate-setting proceeding where it is documented

bottom of page