Jennifer Denise Carroll Foy (born September 25, 1981) is an American politician and

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Belgium, Hungary and Si ...

serving in the

Virginia Senate The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

from the 33rd district since 2024. A

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

, Carroll Foy previously served in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

representing the 2nd district from 2017 until 2020. She resigned from the position in order to focus on her campaign for

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

in the 2021 primary election, which she ultimately lost to

Terry McAuliffe Terence Richard McAuliffe (born February 9, 1957) is an American businessman and politician who served as the List of governors of Virginia, 72nd governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat ...

Early life and education

Jennifer Carroll Foy was born and grew up in

Petersburg, Virginia Petersburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 33,458 with a majority bla ...

. Raised by her grandmother, she graduated from Petersburg High School, where she participated in

Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps The Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) is a federal program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces in high schools and also in some middle schools across the United States and at US military bases across the world. The progr ...

. She received her bachelor's degree from the

Virginia Military Institute The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a public senior military college in Lexington, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1839 as America's first state military college and is the oldest public senior military college in the U.S. In k ...

(VMI) in 2003. Part of the third class of female cadets to attend the university, she received a full scholarship. Carroll Foy received her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from

Virginia State University Virginia State University (VSU or Virginia State) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically Black land-grant university, land-grant university in Ettrick, Virginia, United States. Founded on , Vi ...

and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree from the

Thomas Jefferson School of Law The Thomas Jefferson School of Law (TJSL) is a private law school in San Diego, California. It offers a Juris Doctor and two Master of Laws programs. The school is not accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), following the ABA's withd ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

Career

After graduating from law school, Carroll Foy spent time teaching and worked in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

as a litigation associate. She moved back to

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

and opened a private practice that focused on

criminal defense In the field of criminal law, there are a variety of conditions that will tend to negate elements of a crime (particularly the ''intent'' element), known as defenses. The label may be apt in jurisdictions where the ''accused'' may be assigned some ...

Virginia House of Delegates

In February 2017, Carroll Foy entered the race for the Second District seat in the

. In her 2017 campaign, Carroll Foy ran on expanding

Medicaid Medicaid is a government program in the United States that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources. The program is partially funded and primarily managed by U.S. state, state governments, which also h ...

, raising the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

, increasing teacher pay, and

criminal justice reform Criminal justice reform is the reform of criminal justice systems. Stated reasons for criminal justice reform include reducing crime statistics, racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, under-reporting, and ...

. In November 2017, Carroll Foy beat Republican Mike Makee, and became delegate of Virginia's Second district. In the House of Delegates, Carroll Foy sat on the Courts of Justice, Finance, and Public Safety Committees.

2021 gubernatorial campaign

In 2020, Carroll Foy filed paperwork to seek the Democratic nomination in the

2021 Virginia gubernatorial election The 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 2021, to elect the next governor of Virginia. The election was concurrent with 2021 Virginia elections, other elections for Virginia state offices. Incumbent Democratic Party (U ...

. On December 8, 2020, she announced plans to resign from the House of Delegates in order to focus full-time on her gubernatorial campaign. Her resignation came into effect on December 12, 2020. She, like fellow candidate

Jennifer McClellan Jennifer Leigh McClellan (born December 28, 1972) is an American politician and attorney serving as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for Virginia's 4th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic ...

, would've been the first female governor of Virginia, the second

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

governor after

Douglas Wilder Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He was the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since the Reconstruction ...

, and first African-American female governor of the United States if elected. However, former governor

won the Democratic primary.

Virginia State Senate

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

, she was elected to the

, defeating former delegate

Hala Ayala Hala Sophia Ayala (born April 23, 1973) is an American politician who served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 51st district from 2018 to 2022. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2021 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial ...

in the Democratic primary with 62.85% and Republican candidate Michael Van Meter with nearly 63% of the vote in the general election.

Political positions

Healthcare

Carroll Foy voted to pass

Medicaid expansion Under the public healthcare policy of the United States, some people have incomes too high to qualify in their state of residence for Medicaid, the public health insurance plan for those with limited resources, but too low to qualify for the pr ...

in the General Assembly in March 2018, expanding health insurance coverage for 400,000 Virginians.

Women's rights

Carroll Foy proposed and passed the

Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its Ratifi ...

, making Virginia the 38th state to ratify the constitutional amendment.

Criminal justice

A public defender, Carroll Foy has advocated for the reform of cash bail, criticizing what she called Virginia's "justice-for-profit system". Carroll Foy initially abstained from voting on a 2020 proposal to reduce prison sentences, bringing Virginia's "earned sentence credit" program in line with other states. She eventually voted in favor of a significantly more conservative version of the bills.

Redistricting

Carroll Foy supports third-party, commission-drawn legislative maps but opposed the amendment to the state constitution as proposed in 2020, saying she felt it was wrong to inscribe a “substandard” proposal in the constitution.

Labor

Carroll Foy has been an advocate for paid family and medical leave for all workers.

Infrastructure

Carroll Foy supports efforts to expand

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

access, particularly to southwest Virginia.

Environment and climate change

Carroll Foy was a chief co-patron of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which aims to shift Virginia's energy reliance to solely renewable sources over the next few decades

Personal life

She is married to Jeffrey Foy, whom she met at VMI. In July 2017, she gave birth to twin boys.Linda Feldmann
In Trump era, a sudden flood of women candidates
''Christian Science Monitor''. 10 Nov 2017.

Electoral history

References

External links

Campaign website
* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Carroll Foy, Jennifer 1981 births African-American state legislators in Virginia Candidates in the 2021 United States elections Living people Democratic Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates Democratic Party Virginia state senators People from Petersburg, Virginia Thomas Jefferson School of Law alumni Virginia Military Institute alumni Virginia State University alumni Women state legislators in Virginia 21st-century American women politicians 21st-century African-American women politicians 21st-century African-American politicians 20th-century African-American politicians 20th-century African-American women politicians 20th-century American women politicians Public defenders 21st-century members of the Virginia General Assembly