Greetings from your new chair! My name is Rachel Levy and I’ve lived in Hanover County for almost 15 years. I am a longtime HDC member including serving some time on the Executive Committee, as well as several other roles in the community: member of the Hanover NAACP, former leader of Together Hanover, Henry Clay and John Gandy PTAs and various Patrick Henry High School Booster Clubs, Jury, and Parks and Rec Commissioner for the Ashland District.
I ran twice for the Virginia House of Delegates, for the 55th and 59th Districts respectively in 2021 and 2023. I am called to public service and answering the call to serve as the Hanover County Democratic Committee Chair is my absolute honor. I owe gratitude is Daniel McGraw, who stepped up when we needed him and breathed new life and a positive spirit into our Committee. As my term begins Jan. 1, it’s a good moment to discuss successes and challenges from 2023 and what’s ahead for 2024.
In 2023, we won back a Democratic majority in the Virginia House of Delegates, we kept the State Senate, and we now have more women and people of color, mostly Democrats, in the General Assembly than before. We denied Gov. Youngkin what he needed to turn Virginia into Florida. Specifically, the Hanover Democratic Committee helped to flip SD-16 from Republican Siobhan Dunnavant to Democratic Schuyler VanValkenburg. Thanks to help from this Committee, my campaign for the HD-59 seat, while not ultimately successful, was one of the highest performing Democratic House of Delegates campaigns in the Commonwealth. Locally, we kept the Ashland District seat on the Hanover Board of Supervisors and we helped get a fabulous Black woman elected to the Ashland Town Council.
As for challenges, while we did well to win back a full Democratic majority in the General Assembly, Democrats could have done MUCH better; we underperformed. The State Party and House and Senate caucuses need to get more serious about investing, in a calibrated way, in campaigns, and voters, in more conservative and rural areas like ours. Democratic committees like Hanover’s are the BEST — we’re the hardest working, the most optimistic, the most plucky. Locally, I’m not going to sugar coat it: Things are going to be bleak. The people, the citizenry of Hanover County, are becoming more moderate and Democratic, but the Republican leadership has gotten more extreme and the candidates they support have gotten more extreme. We now have a very extreme majority on our Board of Supervisors and the most extreme School Board I’ve ever seen, which now will be emboldened to be even more extreme and unaccountable. There are many problems with extremism, of course, and one HUGE one is extremists aren’t interested in governing.
So, with what’s ahead in 2024, in the General Assembly session that begins this January, we must support legislation in that the Dems especially are proposing, which will protect our rights and freedoms and make our lives better and our communities stronger:
- Constitutional amendments protecting abortion rights and supporting automatic rights restoration.
- Gun safety legislation.
- Continuing work to protect our environment and address climate change.
- Filling the two vacancies on the three-member agency that regulates business: the State Corporation Commission.
- We need to support other legislation such as strengthening public schools, better access to healthcare, affordable housing, and a more fair tax code.
Here’s what we need from you: Get on the email list of special interest groups working on those issues. Email and call our state delegates and senators and key legislators we know we can rely on. Go to the General Assembly and lobby, testify, or submit comments in writing or give them virtually. Keep an eye on what’s happening locally and engage with our Board of Supervisors and School Board and work to protect our public democratic institutions they might try to destroy. Join and be active in other civic organizations.
Otherwise, the next election is Nov. 5 with early voting starting probably on Sept. 20. It is a VITAL election upon which the future of our democracy depends. We must work to win back the U.S. House of Representatives, and support our Democratic candidates in the 1st and 5th Congressional Districts (after the primary — those both will feature competitive primaries!) We must help Democrats to keep the U.S. Senate, and support Tim Kaine as he runs for reelection in Virginia. We must keep the Presidency and the Federal Executive Branch in Democratic hands, and support the Biden-Harris reelection campaign. Trump, who is likely to win the Republican primary, is an anti-democratic demagogue who has told us he is going to rule as a dictator, and too many Republicans have decided to give up on democracy and will still support him.
Finally, starting this coming year, we need a plan to win some seats on the Board of Supervisors and some of the Constitutional offices. We need to recruit, develop, reengage former candidates, and build a bench. As the HDC Chair, I plan to come up with a proposed strategic plan for the next year, and to meet with each vice chair and caucus leader and talk with them about their role, their goals, how those tie into the Committee’s work, and how I can help.
I plan for us to recruit more members so that we have a membership and leadership that is more representative of Democratic voters in Hanover County, encourage more of us to volunteer to get our candidates elected, and mobilize more Democratic voters. Finally, I hope to help to build more community, and joy, among ourselves and with our greater community.
I’m looking forward to getting to work with an amazing Executive Committee team, and building our party, our community, our presence, our diversity, our connections, and our power in Hanover County.
Until then, Happy and Restful Holidays to my fellow Committee members. I’ll see you at our next general meeting (note our new meeting time and day, the second Sunday of each month at 4 p.m. at The Gathering Place/RVA Around the Table). And, of course, please join or renew if you haven’t already.
