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Friends-

It has been an honor to serve you this past year as your Virginia Young Democrats Campaigns Director. I was incredibly inspired by the amount of passion and success that we all contributed to last year during the 2020 cycle. Together, we contacted over 600,000 voters across Virginia and the US to return the majority to the House, flip the Senate, and elect a new Democratic administration to the White House. But like many of you, I know that our work does not stop there and I am ready to take on that next challenge with you.

That is why I am running to be the Virginia Young Democrats Political Director for 2021 - 2022.

Electing Democrats to the office is half the battle. We must hold both our elected officials and our party accountable to enact the policies that we have campaigned on in order to win. It is not enough for those candidates to make speeches and promises on progressive policies during a campaign. It is imperative that we as young Democrats are the watchdogs of our own party and that we let everyone know that we may be young, but we are paying attention.

As the current Arlington Young Democrats President, I have made it my mission to get young people involved in the local, state, and federal legislative process because this is where we can make the biggest impact. As your political director, I will make sure that same level of engagement is done at the statewide level too. I call back to the quote, “Decisions are made by those who show up.” We work hard, day in and day out to elect people to represent our community, to represent our values. We cannot be surprised when issues are not decided the way we want them to be if we don’t go and confront those electeds head on. We have seen great things legislatively this year from our Virginia Young Democrats caucuses starting from the Teen Caucus, to the College Democrats, to the City/County Caucus. But we cannot stop now.

As a member of the working leadership of the Green New Deal Virginia coalition and a member of the Coalition to Repeal Right to Work, I have worked hard to both become engaged in the bill writing and advocacy process, while formulating great relationships with our state and federal elected officials that represent our commonwealth. I will leverage the organization’s reputation we have at the state level and those working relationships in order to make sure that our members continue to have a strong presence and a say.

As an appointed member to the DPVA Resolutions Committee and the chair of the 8th CD Convention Resolutions Committee, I have worked hard to co-operate on legislative agendas and issues with multi-generational, diverse groups in order to make sure that the progressive values that young people hold most dear are heard and incorporated into the Democratic Party Plan. I will use those same tactics to make sure that every Young Democrat feels like their concerns are being heard at the highest level in our commonwealth.

In order to do all of this, I am proposing a number of plans:
1. Exploring having multiple different lobby days during the 2022 session so we can make those more accessible and make sure that our caucuses have real meaningful face to face time with our elected officials outside of sessions.
2. Planning a VAYD Issue Summit prior to the Virginia Legislative Session so that VAYD members can bring the issues they want to advocate for up front and early, brainstorm the methods to best lobby for those policies, and find ways to collaborate with other members to make the biggest impact.
3. Building partnerships with grassroots organizations and policy thought leaders so we can always be in the know. I have found the best way in order to understand the issue is to go to those people who know it best or are experiencing it. If you meet these people where they are, you will truly know the reason and the argument for what you are fighting for. We have made great strides over the past few years to better integrate ourselves with these groups and I want to build on that using my experience with labor organizing, progressive coalition building, and grassroots advocating.

And more to come…

We have so many policies that we are passionate about, from Housing to Healthcare, from Labor to LGBTQ+ rights, from Racial Equity to Reproductive Health, from Immigration to Infrastructure, from Environment to Education. All of the things that we hold dear should be on our list of priorities and I want to hear from you on them and bring those to our legislators.

Together, we will pass a Green New Deal for Virginia. We will repeal the “Right to Work for Less” laws in Virginia. We will codify Roe v. Wade. We will help fully fund our education system. We will help give all Virginians the access to affordable, quality healthcare they need. We will continue to make Virginia a more just place to live. We will make sure that Virginia is a Commonwealth for all people who they are, what they look like, what generation they are from, who they love, what faith they serve, what they can do, what income bracket they are in, where they’re from or how they got here.
We had the Governor’s Mansion, the State Senate, and the House of Delegates. Now thanks to all of our hard work, we have the White House, the US Senate, and the House of Representatives. We should be using all 6 of these bodies to our full advantage to get the policies we want to see enacted. We are the ones who will inherit the future so we should be getting started on the ground floor and I want to bring every single one of you up with me.

So I am humbly asking for your vote at the Virginia Young Democrats Convention on April 16 - April 18 to be your next VAYD Political Director and I will work to earn that vote as well. If you are interested in supporting me, please fill out this quick form. ([link removed])

I am going to be continually to be diligently working alongside all of you through the end of this year’s legislative session and cannot wait to hit the ground running with you all to plan for next year.

Thank you for your consideration and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out: [email protected]

Democratically yours,
Matt Royer

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