Summary

VA House District 10

District Map (PDF)

Wendy Gooditis

Current Position: State Delegate for VA House District 10 since 2018
Affiliation: Democrat

Candidate: 2019 State Delegate VA House District 10

For more information, see Wendy Gooditis’s post.

Wendy was raised to work hard and serve others. She grew up in Cranbury, New Jersey with two older brothers. Her father spent his childhood in rural Alabama during the Great Depression, where his family had scraped and saved to buy milk for him as an infant. As an adult, he rode in a commuter van over two hours each day to work, but still found time to teach Wendy how to play the piano and work hard for what she believed in.

Her mother and grandmother were public school teachers. In the 1930s, Wendy’s grandmother pushed social limits to earn her graduate degree, and Wendy’s mother followed suit. From them, Wendy learned early the importance of education, perseverance, and working women.

In college, Wendy applied her equestrian background to service. She worked as a student mounted marshal for the Rutgers Police, logging 30 hours a week with a full course load. After graduation, following in her family’s tradition of strong, working women, Wendy went on to lead a team of mid-career men at Bell Laboratories when she was 26 years old.

After she met Chris, her husband of 25 years, Wendy made the move to Virginia. Following the birth of her children in the mid-1990s, Wendy became enamored with education. She received her Masters in Education from Shenandoah University. During her career in education she taught in the Clarke County public school system, at an area private school, and partially homeschooled her children. As her kids entered college, Wendy knew that she would need to help pay the tuition bills. She joined RE/MAX as a realtor in 2013, and has been there since.

Like millions of other Americans in 2017, Wendy decided that she had to get off the sidelines. She co-founded an Indivisible chapter in the predominantly red Clarke County. However, she knew that was not enough. After deciding to run for the 10th district seat in the spring, she stormed to victory on November 7th 2017 beating 3 term incumbent Randy Minchew.

Randy Minchew

Current Position: Attorney
Former: State Delegate for VA House District 10 from 2011 – 2017
Affiliation: Republican

Candidate: 2019 State Delegate VA House District 10

For more information, see Randy Minchew’s post.

A native Northern Virginian, Randy has lived and worked in Virginia’s 10th House of Delegates District for more than 20 years.

Following graduation from Langley High School in Fairfax County, Randy studied public policy and economics at Duke University.

Randy followed his interest in law enforcement and criminal prosecution after his graduation from Duke and took a position with District Attorney’s office in Durham County, North Carolina, where he worked closely with police and prosecutors. This formative experience is where he witnessed firsthand the corrosive effect of crime and learned the importance of vigorous prosecution of criminals, led him to return to Virginia to study law at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, where he served as an editor on the W&L Law Review. Upon graduating from W&L, Randy received an appointment as a personal law clerk to the Honorable A. Christian Compton, Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia in Richmond.

Randy’s leadership in and service to the community has taken many forms over the past 20 years. A founding member and two-term Chairman of the Loudoun County Economic Development Commission as well as a founding member and chair of the Rural Economic Development Task Force.

Randy has consistently advocated for public policies that create jobs, preserve a favorable business climate, and lead to meaningful transportation improvements during his many years of service to the community, including years spent on the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Loudoun County Finance Board, the Citizens’ Tax Equity Committee, and the Loudoun Judicial Center Task Force.

Randy, an Eagle Scout, has been an avid outdoorsman and conservationist from his early days as a Boy Scout. He has remained active with the Boy Scouts of America, twice serving as Chairman of the Goose Creek District – 4,300 scouts strong – as well as serving as Scoutmaster of both Leesburg Troop 998 and 2010 National Scout Jamboree Troop 521. In 2010, in appreciation of his years of work for what he proudly calls “the most successful youth leadership movement in the history of the world,” Randy was awarded Scouting’s highest adult leader recognition, the Silver Beaver.

Randy also holds a Diploma in Theology from Virginia Theological Seminary and is an active Lay Eucharistic Minister and Visitor at St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg. After serving as General Counsel for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, Randy was awarded a Life Membership by the Club for his work in conservation land acquisition and trail preservation, and can still be found on occasion hiking and maintaining his section of the Appalachian Trail along the Loudoun-Clarke County line south of Route 7.

Randy is a PADI Certified Rescue Diver and a trained Wilderness First Aid Responder and enjoys skiing, mountain climbing, and Rugby. He is a Life Member of the NRA and gun owner. Randy has been married since 1991 to his wife, Teresa, who is equally committed to giving back to the community, having served on either the Town of Leesburg’s Planning Commission or Board of Architectural Review for many years, along with other non-profit and philanthropic pursuits. Together with their son Jack, Randy and Terri live in and are the stewards of their historic home in Leesburg, built in 1899 and a designated Virginia Historic Landmark.

Issues

Education

Wendy Gooditis

As a career educator and mom of two, Wendy understands that our communities are only as strong as our schools. In Richmond, she fights for competitive public schools so that each child in Virginia can learn and succeed.

The wage for Virginia public school teachers is about $7,000 under the national average. Because Wendy’s mom and grandmother were public school teachers, she understands firsthand the impact of underpaid educators. This life experience makes her a staunch supporter of a living wage and benefits for public educators, so that Virginia can recruit and retain the nation’s top talent. She knows that investing in Virginia’s families means investing in Virginia’s teachers.

Randy Minchew

Randy knows that a strong education system is key to the future of our commonwealth. A strong education system will attract the best employers to our area and building a strong diversified economy. Randy will fight to reduce class sizes and for more in-state spots at our universities. He will always stand up for Northern Virginia to ensure we get our fair share of funding for education.

Economy

Wendy Gooditis

Wendy believes that the economy should work for everyone, giving each Virginian a fair shot. That means competitive public and technical education systems, a living minimum wage and jobs for our veterans. It also means the protection of worker rights and labor unions as well as equal economic opportunity for all Virginians. It means government investment in public infrastructure so that we can can build better roads, bike lanes and transit systems. Virginia’s economy is developing quickly, and we must take steps to ensure that our workforce is well trained and paid so that it can grow, compete and prosper.

Randy Minchew

Jobs

Randy understands that businesses can best create jobs when taxes are low, limited government principles are observed, and the government remains focused on its core responsibilities, such as providing high-quality public education and adequate transportation infrastructure.

Taxes and Spending

Randy will continue to identify and work to eliminate wasteful spending and will demand strict accountability for how our tax dollars are spent. As our Delegate, Randy will strive to keep taxes low to foster the creation of jobs, allow for thriving businesses and farms, and fight unnecessary expansion of government.

Health Care

Wendy Gooditis

Suicide rates are on the rise in Virginia, especially among women.Lawmakers are trying to figure out ways to reverse the trend. Since 2010, the suicide rate among women in Virginia has increased 24 percent.

Freddy Mejia at the Commonwealth Institute says a number of factors may have contributed. “Making sure that mental health is accessible to this population is crucial. We also know that increased access to lethal means, such as illicit and prescription drugs as well as firearms, may have contributed to this rise.”

Earlier this year, Delegate Wendy Gooditis, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, introduced a bill that requires the state to issue an annual report to lawmakers about suicide prevention. “My family was horrifically affected by the loss of my brother this year following a couple of years of suicide attempts, so in my personal and professional opinion anything we can do to spread the word and help these people is really important.”

Randy Minchew

Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. Randy knows we must reduce the cost of Healthcare and ensure access to healthcare for those with pre-existing conditions.

Environment

Wendy Gooditis

Wendy believes that everyone should receive the health care they need and deserve. She knows how critical state support can be – until recently, Wendy and her family purchased their healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

Wendy voted to expand Medicaid. As a result an estimated 400,000 Virginians don’t have to keep making the impossible choices between paying healthcare bills or paying the mortgage. She also understands that Medicaid expansion is good for Virginia’s economy – through a healthy workforce and the creation of about 30,000 new jobs.

About a week into her candidacy, Wendy lost her brother, Brian, to mental illness. He had been denied Medicaid in Virginia for years. She’s fighting so that Virginia families don’t have to experience what hers did. In the United States we don’t abandon the most vulnerable among us, we help and care for them.

Randy Minchew
N/A

Redistricting & Voting Rights

Wendy Gooditis

Gerrymandering is the issue that first got Wendy out of her chair at a town hall back in February 2017. As a 19-year resident of the district, she has watched its lines be contorted and redrawn.

Wendy believes that free and fair elections are tenets of our democracy. Voters should be choosing their politicians instead of politicians choosing their voters. She has supported a constitutional amendment in Virginia to ensure that district lines are not drawn to favor any individual or political party. Furthermore, she firmly opposes any effort to make voting harder — and is appalled by Virginia House Republicans efforts to require photo identification for absentee ballots and multiple forms of state ID at the voting booth.

Randy Minchew
N/A

Infrastructure

Wendy Gooditis
N/A

Randy Minchew

Transportation