Summary

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About

Source: Campaign page

For over 20 years, Suzanne and her husband, Bill, have been proud to call Northern Virginia home. They both attended Brigham Young University, where Suzanne earned a Bachelor of Science in Social Work, graduating magna cum laude in 1995. Shortly before graduating, she and Bill got married.

Since then, they’ve both been blessed to raise their three daughters, Stephanie, Sydney and Savannah in Leesburg, and last year were overjoyed to welcome their first granddaughter, Adaline, into the world.

Suzanne is a seasoned entrepreneur, who’s started and led several small businesses, including Legacy Weddings, a wedding and event planning company she currently owns and operates in Loudoun County. Her experience planning the most important days in the lives of hundreds of Northern Virginia couples has honed Suzanne’s skills listening to and understanding the needs of others, serving them with keen attention to detail as well as cost – ask anyone, and they’ll tell you, Suzanne’s no stranger to solving unexpected problems with perseverance, leadership, and accountability.

Serving the community has always been a part of Suzanne’s lifelong passion. In 2014, she won election to the Leesburg Town Council, and over the past five years, she and her colleagues have worked in bipartisan fashion to lower taxes, reduce unnecessary and burdensome regulations, and secure funding for key transportation projects that have since allowed our local business community and hundreds of Northern Virginia families to thrive.

Suzanne has always tried to live her life according to the “Virginia Way.” No matter whether it’s in her role as a businesswoman, a public servant, or as a mother and a grandmother, the values of honesty, decency, and civility live close to her heart. If elected this November, Suzanne will be eager to bring her experience and approach of principled problem-solving to the Virginia State Senate, and help bring the Virginia Way back to Richmond.

Experience

Work Experience

• Member
  Leesburg Town Council
  2014 to 2019
• Founder
  Legacy Weddings

Education

• B.S., Social Work
  Brigham Young University
  1991 to 1995

  Graduated magna cum laude

Contact

Email:

• Campaign

Web

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter

Politics

Source: none

Issues

Source: Campaign page

Governance

Transparency

While Virginia has made considerable progress on reforms that make our government more transparent, continued progress is required in areas such as public access to information. For example, Virginia has a very weak Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law with too many exemptions that allow government officials to conduct business behind closed doors. It is imperative that we maximize transparency at both the state and local level to increase the public’s trust and ensure that government is more open, accountable, and efficient.

Economy

Fiscal Responsibility

Virginians have high expectations when it comes to the quality and quantity of services that the Commonwealth provides. However, many Virginians are also struggling to keep up with the taxes and fees assessed by the Commonwealth to fund our government. It is vital that those we entrust with stewardship over our tax dollars are both constrained by an understanding of the proper role of government and remain vigilant in ensuring that services are delivered with the utmost efficiency. I will work to reduce taxes, just as I have on the Leesburg Town Council, and allow working Virginians to keep more of their hard-earned money.

Education

While education spending continues to climb year after year, educational outcomes have remained static, and in some ways have even deteriorated. Although Virginia has the best teachers in the country and our schools score above average in many metrics, we continue to struggle with a significant achievement gap, systemic shortcomings in college and career preparedness, and a lack of educational choices. I would take nothing off the table, including efforts to expand Education Savings Accounts and tax credits, better support for home schooling, and encouraging the development of more charter schools. Rather than continuing to enforce rigid accountability models that overemphasize standardized tests and dictate one-size-fits-all solutions, we need to find ways to increase flexibility and incentivize school districts to create more specialized programming that reflects the diversity of the student body.

Health Care

Despite recent efforts at the federal and state level to improve access to healthcare, Virginians are now faced with fewer coverage options and healthcare that is less affordable than ever. We need to reduce burdensome regulations on the healthcare sector and continue to encourage alternative healthcare provider models such as direct primary care and cash-only hospitals. Our primary focus should always be to make healthcare more affordable, so that we can reduce the number of people who must rely on government assistance in order to have access to quality care.

Infrastructure

The quality and duration of our commutes and other routine travel impact the lives of Northern Virginians on a daily basis, perhaps more than any other issue. Yet many of our elected representatives seem unwilling or unable to address this fundamental problem. It’s essential, as Northern Virginia continues to grow, that we facilitate and fund a range of transportation options. The Silver Line will never be the silver bullet fixing all our transportation issues. We need to advocate continuously for a fair allocation of transportation dollars from the state, and use our available funds in ways that maximize our ability to accommodate the transportation demands of our robust economy. Northern Virginia cannot be expected to fund the rest of the state’s needs while our own transportation infrastructure remains inadequate and underfunded.