2017       General Election       Elected 61 – 39

November, 2017 is not far away

I usually read the bios in candidates websites, read Wikipedia, Ballotpedia, local newspaper stories to prepare these Notes.  Kathy Tran’s website bio is so compelling, it should be allowed to speak for itself. 

Remember — the entire Virginia House of Delegates in up for election in November 2017.  Democrats need to flip seventeen seats to gain control of the House — an extremely difficult task, but not impossible since Hillary Clinton carried seventeen House seats with Republican Delegates.  The Democrats have put up many strong candidates intending to replace those Republican Delegates.  Kathy Tran https://www.kathyfordelegate.com/ is one.

From her website:Kathy Tran and her parents fled Vietnam as boat refugees when she was just seven months old.* Although many other countries offered them asylum, they waited 13 months for the United States to accept their application. For Kathy’s family, this country has always represented hope, opportunity and freedom. Now, she’s running for the House of Delegates because she couldn’t just stand by while Donald Trump and Virginia Republicans dismantle the ideals that brought her family here.

Kathy Tran has devoted her career to ensuring that all Americans have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. She began her civil service career at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2003. During her 12 years of service, she served in numerous leadership positions, including as the Acting Administrator for the Office of Workforce Investment and the Director of the Division of Policy, Legislation, and Regulation. In these roles, she provided strategic national leadership and technical assistance to the public workforce system, implemented the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and coordinated other high-priority policy initiatives.

Kathy Tran went on to work at the National Immigration Forum, one of the nation’s leading immigration advocacy organizations. There, she advocated for policies that prepare immigrants in the workforce to reach their full career potential.

Kathy Tran graduated from Duke University and earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan. The president of her local PTA, she and her husband Matt live in West Springfield with their four children, Daven (8), Charlotte (6), Quinn (4), and baby Elise. They are avid Washington Nationals fans.

*If this first sentence sounds a little familiar, it also describes Stephanie Dang Murphy, Congresswoman in Florida 07 about whom I wrote in Note #24 on May 8.

Although welcoming and helping immigrants and refugees is Tran’s first issue, she has positions on more issues than that.  Here are a few:  

  • Education:  Support for public education, especially STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and the Arts) in K-12 education as well as affordable higher education.
  •  Civil Rights and Democracy:  It may be a sound bite, but she says on behalf of welcoming immigrants:  Hate is not a policy, it is a problem.
  • Health Care:  She urges expansion of Medicaid, which Virginia has not yet done under the Affordable Care Act.
  • Jobs and Economic Development:  No sound bites here. This area was her career.  Her specialty was creating government flexibility to help people obtain jobs including creating links between training and licensure.
  • Women’s Rights: She is an advocate for equality for women and women’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies.

District 42 is south of Alexandria with Interstate 95 running through the middle. It is closer to the District Columbia than it is to Fredericksburg, but necessarily politically closer to DC.  In the last House of Delegates election, the Republican carried every precinct.  However, Senator Warner received 50% of the vote in 2014 and Hillary Clinton carried the district in 2016.  The District is 15% African American and a slightly higher percentage Asian.  The Republican incumbent is not running.  Kathy Tran https://www.kathyfordelegate.com/ has a reasonable chance of winning this open seat.  Help her win.  Provide her with some resources. Now.  November is sooner than you think.