One of the Most Anti-LGBT Lawmakers in the Country Might Lose His Seat to a Transgender Journalist

[babylonsister]

One of the Most Anti-LGBT Lawmakers in the Country Might Lose His Seat to a Transgender Journalist
Danica Roem’s bid for the Virginia House of Delegates could make history.

Ashley Dejean
Nov. 6, 2017 3:59 PM

Courtesy of Danica Roem


Sitting on a couch in her campaign headquarters in Manassas, Virginia, Danica Roem is quick to mention the “miserable” traffic on nearby Route 28 and how her mother’s commute has only gotten worse over the last thirty years.

A Democratic candidate for a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates, Roem would be the country’s most powerful openly transgender politician if elected, and the first one to be elected and serve in a statehouse. That fact has made the closely-fought race something of an international media spectacle. With a chuckle, she calls the gridlocked highway, a mainstay of her campaign, “the road I’ve now made world famous.”

Voters in this increasingly suburban Northern Virginia district, she says, don’t care about her gender—they want to know whether she’ll fix the road. Roem says many stories about her run have focused on her being transgender rather than her qualifications for office. As a local watchdog journalist who covered the area for nearly a decade, she boasts she’ll bring “a reporter’s eye to Richmond” along with an intimate understanding of local government.

“Transgender people have really good public policy ideas that span the gamut of transportation policy to health care policy to education policy, and yes, to civil rights as well,” Roem tells me. “We shouldn’t just be pigeonholed into the idea that we’re just going to be fighting about bathrooms.”

While Roem has focused her campaign on brass tacks issues like raising teacher pay and job creation, her Republican opponent has spent 26 years in the statehouse compiling one of the country’s most anti-LGBT records. Delegate Bob Marshall authored Virginia’s 2006 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This year Marshall—who’s been labeled “Bigot Bob” by LGBT advocates—introduced legislation that would have barred transgender public school students from using the bathroom that best aligns with their gender and required administrators to inform students’ parents within 24 hours if they ask “to be recognized or treated as the opposite sex.” (Other Republicans killed the bill in committee.)

Marshall has so far fended off Democratic challengers, but political experts in the state expect the race will be close. Northern Virginia has grown to be more diverse and liberal in recent years, and Hillary Clinton won the district by 14 percentage points in 2016.

more...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/one-of-the-most-anti-lgbt-lawmakers-in-the-country-might-lose-his-seat-to-a-transgender-journalist/

[Initech]

1. Please let this happen!

It will be fun watching fundie heads explode when she wins!

[Demsrule86]

2. That would be so awesome...please and please!!!

[Amimnoch]

3. Let's put our $$ where our mouth is.

Just threw in $50 myself.

Her campaign site:
http://danicaroem.ngpvanhost.com/

Act blue donation link:
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/danica-for-delegate

Wish I'd have known about her race earlier.

[AllaN01Bear]

4. :)

[IronLionZion]

5. Make Virginia a blue state!

It would be so sweet if Roem wins and Northam, and Dems across the board. I'm hoping for a very blue Tuesday

The real reason Republicans can't handle diversity:

Northern Virginia has grown to be more diverse and liberal in recent years, and Hillary Clinton won the district by 14 percentage points in 2016.