Danica Roem is the Democratic candidate for Delegate for Virginia’s 13th District, in Prince William County and Manassas, Virginia.

Danica’s Story: When I was a kid, my grandfather told me, “The basis of my knowledge comes from reading the newspaper every day.”

After a while, mine did too. In fact, I ended up majoring in journalism and spent the last 10.5 years reporting and editing the news, including nine years in Prince William County, my lifelong home area as a resident of Manassas.

My job was to know enough about the issues to hold elected officials accountable. As a reporter, I had to listen to what people were saying and understand their reasoning, regardless of my own opinions. I want to bring to bring a reporter’s sensibility to Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol.

I’m running to help improve our quality of life by working on issues I spent nine years reporting. My number one job isn’t to speak: it’s to listen and work what residents tell me into my policy platform. That’s how I took wrote news stories and that’s how I’ll craft public policy: Research. Question. Listen. Report.

Bio: born in Manassas; attended college in Western New York; reporter with the Prince William Times; news editor of the Montgomery County Sentinal in Rockville, MD. Danica is transgender and is a stepmother.

Issues: Danica wants to fix Route 28 traffic and find a cost-effective way to extend VRE to Innovation Technology Park. She believes clearing up traffic will help bring high-paying jobs. She opposes road tolls because they are double taxation and require the public to give up accessible roads to pay private companies’ profits. She also opposes the Bi-County Parkway and Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed above-ground power towers, which were conceived without public consensus. She wants to raise area teachers’ salaries so they are no longer the lowest in Northern Virginia, and provide more money for capital improvement projects that reduce class sizes. Danica supports the DREAM Act, civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, raising the minimum wage, and making health insurance more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Opponent: Bob Marshall, a long time incumbent, is also a research consultant at the American Life League, which “opposes abortion under any circumstance[,] all forms of contraception[, and] stem cell research.” He has introduced bills such as:
– a version of North Carolina’s notorious anti-transgender “bathroom bill,”
– a bill that would have supported creating a separate currency for Virginia, and
– a bill that that proposed forbidding lawful release of non-US citizens from any Virginia jail or prison.

Marshall also patroned a bill that sought to make pornography an official public health hazard.

Bob Marshall called children with disabilities “God’s vengeance” against women who have had abortions, suggested that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is homosexual because of his ruling on same-sex marriage, and stated that sometimes, “incest is voluntary,” so abortions in the case of incest should be prohibited.

Recent elections: This District voted for Hillary Clinton by a margin of 14.85% over Trump, and for Obama by 11.09% over Romney. On the other hand, Bob Marshall has the incumbent’s name recognition advantage.

Website: http://danicaroem.ngpvanhost.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/danicafordelegate
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pwcdanica