ON Tuesday, voters in Williamsburg, James City County, and Newport News will have the opportunity to send a couple of great leaders to Richmond.

In the Newport News centered 94th District, Shelly Simonds is challenging incumbent delegate David Yancey. Simonds draws upon her great experience from her two terms on the Newport News City School Board and as a former teacher when planning how to improve education in her district. While on the School Board she was instrumental in the founding of a STEM academy which opened up new opportunities for Newport News students. She was also a member of the Challenged Schools Taskforce, which secured $2,000,000 to help lower-income students attend Summer programs as a means to reduce to achievement gap between wealthy and low-income students. As a delegate, she would continue to push to expand educational opportunities by increasing state funding for higher education in order to make College more affordable, and expanding pre-K to help Virginia’s children as early on as possible. She supports increasing teacher pay, which would go a long way towards helping Virginia schools attract, and retain, top level teaching talent (Virginia’s teacher salaries are currently among the lowest in the nation). In addition, she knows the importance of improving school infrastructure, which in many areas is outdated and in need of renovation. She realizes the tragedy of the school-to-prison pipeline, and supports measures to improve schools and the criminal justice system in order to help ensure that people’s lives are not destroyed for mistakes that they make as kids. She also opposes any voucher programs that would take funding from public schools. Finally, for her pro-education stances, she has been endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers and the American Education Association.

When it comes to environmental issues and protecting the Bay, Simonds’ record is superb. She has experience working with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, staunchly opposes a recent Trump administration decision that allows coal ash pollution in the James River, and wants to continue the moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia. In her home community she has worked to protect City Farm Park from developers who have been trying to turn it into a commercial district. Although protecting the park has bipartisan local support, Shelly has shown leadership by being one of the only politicians to take a public stand in favor of preserving the park. She understands the importance of expanding air quality monitoring in Newport News to make sure that people are not forced to breath toxic chemicals. She has a vision of a future where Virginia gets its power from clean sources, especially solar and wind, and where land is more carefully conserved in order to combat climate change and ensure that future generations have the opportunity to appreciate Virginia’s natural beauty.

Her campaign also focuses on raising the minimum wage to $15, increasing opportunities for career and technical training, equal pay for equal work, supporting abortion rights, accepting the Medicaid expansion that would grant coverage to 400,000 Virginians, criminal justice reform emphasizing rehabilitation, community policing, and expanding non-discrimination measures to protect the LGBT community.

For more information on Shelly, check out her site: https://www.simondsfordelegate.com/about-shelly/

IN the neighboring 93rd District, Mike Mullin is running for reelection. This district contains Williamsburg, including my Alma Mater the College of William & Mary, some of Newport news, and a large section of James City County. Mike was first elected last November in a special election. Despite his short tenure, more of his bills have been passed into law than those of any other first-term delegate. If he can get more accomplished in one year than the other first-term delegates could get done in full two-year terms, then the future is bright if he is reelected. Given the Republican balance of the chamber (66 out of 100 seats are Republican), it is obvious that Mullin has the ability to work across the aisle. Part of that ability comes from the insights he has gained as a criminal prosecutor, and the common-sense solutions he has found to often overlooked problems.

For example, when it comes to criminal justice reform, Mike wants to take steps to make sure that our education system is focused on keeping kids in school and educating them, rather than sending them to prison. Shutting off this school-to-prison pipeline — Virginia experiences one of the highest rates of this phenomena in the nation — would improve opportunities for students, and help make sure that a mistake they made as a teenager does not haunt them for the rest of their lives. Mullin has also passed legislation to close a loophole where domestic abusers who had committed previous violent felonies were able to claim “first offender” status and more mild punishments for their crimes. Another one of his accomplishments is making sure that police who break the law can not just move to another county and get hired by a different department. This helps get bad cops out of Virginia’s law enforcement system.

He also focuses on electoral reforms like getting money out of politics and instituting independent redistricting so that politicians do not get to choose their voters with gerrymandering. Although many decisions about campaign finance are made at the federal level, states have the ability to set some of their own limits, and Mullin believes that the only way to ensure that our democracy works for the people, rather than just a select few big donors, is to get money out of politics.

He also believes in raising the minimum wage, accepting the Medicaid expansion, tax credits for worker retraining, supporting Planned Parenthood, expanding pre-K education, increasing teacher salaries, equal pay for equal work, ensuring that people living in poverty and people with mental illnesses have access to housing, and protecting the environment by expanding the use of green energy while combating climate change.

For more information on Mike, check out his site: http://www.mullinforvirginia.com/issues.html

Shelly Simonds and Mike Mullin have both provided strong leadership for the Peninsula in recent years, and both have bold plans for reforms in the future that will help protect workers’ rights, expand educational opportunities, ensure civil rights for minority groups, protect Virginia’s environment, and generally make the Commonwealth a better place to live. Both have valuable experience working in their communities, and both would make excellent representatives in Richmond.