House District 038

Trish White-Boyd is a Roanoke City Council member and Vice-Mayor. She has focused on bringing jobs to her district and is a successful business owner of a home health care company. She was the inaugural chair of Roanoke City’s Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board, which addressed systemic racism and other inequities. White-Boyd ran for the House of Delegates in 2013. She has lived in the district for over 40 years, raising her family there.

During her time on City Council, White-Boyd supported a plan to paint a mural reading “END RACISM NOW” along Campbell Avenue downtown. She has voted to remove Confederate monuments and remove the names of Confederates from city parks. White-Boyd has also supported green initiatives, such as funding e-bike programs and voting to expand the city’s trails.

White-Boyd is an education advocate. She supports safety in schools, expanding STEM and skilled trade education and smaller class sizes. She supports increasing teacher pay as a way to attract and retain quality educators. White-Boyd emphasizes teacher pay as one of the first pieces of legislation she would introduce. She looks at the work on the matter done in Roanoke City as a way to start.

White-Boyd is also committed to sustainability and combating climate change on the local level. To improve the city’s sustainability, she wishes to improve public transportation, search for viable options for solar and renewable energy sources for municipal buildings and local businesses, and implement neighborhood-specific sustainable development strategies. As Vice Mayor, she helped pass an ordinance towards banning single-use plastic bags.

White-Boyd believes everyone should make their own healthcare decisions without the involvement of legislators. She recognizes Virginia’s need to keep abortion accessible, especially considering the lack of access in neighboring states like Tennessee and North Carolina. With the current Republican administration, she understands that the people of the Commonwealth are in jeopardy of losing these rights. She will fight any legislation that might prohibit abortion.

White-Boyd believes in common-sense gun violence prevention laws, including restricting the purchase of assault rifles to those over 21 years old and implementing a 24-hour waiting period before purchasing a handgun. She argues that these laws can help protect residents and prevent gun violence, but more needs to be done to ensure that residents are safe. She believes that local governments need more tools to combat gun violence and that legislation should be put in place to protect residents from gun owners who should not be allowed to carry them, such as those with a mental condition or prior criminal history.

White-Boyd is facing incumbent Senator Dave Sutterlein, who has served in the State Senate since 2016. He opposes both commonsense gun violence prevention measures and access to reproductive health care. Suetterlein voted against repealing the death penalty. He also voted against restoring civil rights to returning citizens. He supports Governor Youngkin’s abortion ban.

Because of her stances on education, abortion access, and gun violence prevention, Trish White-Boyd is the progressive choice in this race.

Note: Portions of this recommendation were pulled from our previous recommendation from White-Boyd’s City Council reelection campaign.

Delegate Sam Rasoul is the sole candidate for HD 38, and he is a Democrat. Delegate Rasoul’s family came to Roanoke from Palestine in the 1960s. He felt a sense of community growing up in the Hurt Park and Blue Stone neighborhoods and working in his family’s store. Delegate Rasoul’s family store stepped up when community members needed help by providing groceries for those who weren’t able to afford food for their families. He credits this experience with teaching him the value of community and helping others. Delegate Rasoul studied at Roanoke college, and pursued his Master’s degree in Hawaii, where he learned of different cultures of which he hadn’t previously known. Since 2014, Delegate Rasoul’s passion for community led him to the House of Delegates, where he was elected to represent District 11. Some of his work has focused on tax incentives for renewable energy, housing for returning citizens, launching a Green New Deal Coalition and much more for citizens of Virginia.

Delegate Rasoul wants to focus on the Marshall Plan for Moms, which is an initiative that would focus on investing in mothers through tax credits, paid leave, and economic policies focused especially toward mothers. He wants to enact plans to support the elderly, teachers, and those in need of healthcare.

Delegate Rasoul also believes that voting is a right that should be accessible to everyone, even to those with a criminal history. He wants to make voting easy for all voters, including young voters who have become apathetic to the voting process. He also believes that the Republican-led effort to discredit the integrity of voting is an attack on free and fair elections.

Delegate Rasoul advocates for policies that will support and protect Virginia’s families including affordable child care, paid family and medical leave, and equal pay for women. He supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He is an advocate for common sense gun safety and helped pass Governor Northam's gun violence prevention package that includes background checks and extreme risk orders to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed a safety hazard for themselves or others.

Delegate Rasoul is the sole candidate and a progressive choice in this race.

Note: Portions of this write-up were compiled from a previous Progressive Voters Guide Recommendation for this candidate.