Jennifer Wexton

Jennifer Lynn Wexton (née Tosini, May 27, 1968) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States representative for Virginia's 10th congressional district from 2019 to 2025.

A Democrat, Wexton was a member of the Virginia Senate from 2014 to 2019; she represented the 33rd district, which includes parts of Fairfax and Loudoun Counties.

In 2018, Wexton was elected to Congress, defeating Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock with 56% of the vote. She was re-elected in 2020 and 2022. Some commentators have described Wexton as a moderate Democrat. In September 2023, after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, Wexton announced that she would not seek re-election in 2024.

Early life and education

Wexton is from Leesburg, Virginia. Her father and mother were senior economists at the United States Department of the Treasury and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, respectively.

In 1992, Wexton graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. She then enrolled at the College of William & Mary's Law School and received a Juris Doctor in 1995. At William & Mary, she was a member of Phi Delta Phi, a legal honor society.

Early career

Wexton was a partner in the Laurel Brigade Law Group. She served as a substitute judge in Loudoun County, Virginia, and from 2001 to 2005 as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney.

Wexton successfully prosecuted Clara Jane Schwartz for the murder of her father, Robert Schwartz. She ran for Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney in 2011, narrowly losing to Republican incumbent Jim Plowman. She was elected to the Virginia Senate in 2014.

Virginia Senate

After Mark Herring, who represented the 33rd district in the Virginia Senate, won the 2013 election for attorney general of Virginia, Wexton declared her candidacy in the special election to fill the seat. The district includes northeastern Loudoun County and northwestern Fairfax County. In the Democratic primary, Wexton defeated Herndon Town Councilor Sheila Olem. In a campaign ad Wexton spoke of her experience defending victims of rape and assault and said she would "fight just as hard against tea party Republicans who would take away a woman's health care and her right to choose, even in cases of rape and incest." The Republican Party of Virginia criticized the ad, saying it compared Tea Party activists to rapists; Wexton's campaign denied the comparison. She faced Republican John Whitbeck and Republican-turned-Independent Joe T. May in the January 2014 special election, and won 53%–38%–10%. She took office on January 24, 2014, and was reelected in the November 2015 general election. After being elected to the United States House of Representatives, Wexton resigned her Virginia Senate seat on January 3, 2019.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2018

In April 2017, Wexton announced that she would run in the Democratic primary for the 10th district. Her state senate district included much of the eastern portion of the congressional district, wrapping around Leesburg and Sterling. In June 2018 she won a six-way primary to become the Democratic nominee. She defeated Alison Friedman, Lindsey Davis Stover, Deep Sran, Dan Helmer, Paul Pelletier, and Julia Biggins in the Democratic primary. In the November general election she defeated Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock with 56% of the vote to Comstock's 44%.

Wexton's victory meant that a Democrat would represent the 10th district for the first time since 1981. The district had been represented by a Republican in Congress for 60 of the previous 66 years. Wexton's victory also meant that until the next voting cycle, no Republicans would represent a congressional district in the immediate Washington, D.C. region.

2020

Wexton was reelected to a second term in 2020, defeating the Republican nominee, former U.S. marine Aliscia Andrews.

2022

Wexton was reelected to a third term in 2022, defeating Republican nominee and U.S. Navy veteran Hung Cao, 53.2% to 46.7%.

Tenure

Shortly after defeating Comstock, Wexton declared her support for D.C. statehood.

Wexton opposed Nancy Pelosi for speaker when running for Congress in 2018, but voted for Pelosi for speaker in 2019.

In May 2019, Wexton called for HUD Secretary Ben Carson's resignation after his House testimony that month.

In July 2019, Wexton visited two mosques in Northern Virginia to hear from Muslim residents after President Donald Trump vilified Somali-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar at a campaign rally. Later that month, she announced her support for voting to impeach Trump over his request that Ukraine announce an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden. On August 23, 2019, Wexton formed a new congressional caucus to examine and promote agritourism, which she believes could bring economic and social benefits to areas like the Loudoun Valley.

In September 2020, Wexton authored the Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020, a bill to require all publicly traded US companies to disclose whether any of their goods or part of their supply chain can be traced to the use of forced labor by ethnic minorities in Chinese internment camps or factories. The act was a companion bill to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which seeks to keep goods made with forced labor of detained ethnic minorities in China out of the US.

During Donald Trump's presidency, Wexton voted in line with the president's stated position 6.5% of the time. During the 117th Congress, she voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time according to a ''FiveThirtyEight'' analysis.

After being diagnosed with progressive supra-nuclear palsy in September 2023, Wexton announced that she would not seek reelection in 2024.

On July 25, 2024, Wexton became the first member of the House of Representatives to have a model of her voice generated by artificial intelligence speak for her on the House floor. This also made her the first member of the House of Representatives to use any augmentative and alternative communication device on the House floor. The model said in part, "My battle with progressive Supranuclear palsy, or PSP, has robbed me of my ability to use my full voice and move around in the ways that I used to."

Committee assignments

* Committee on Appropriations
** Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
** Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch
* Committee on the Budget

Caucus memberships

* Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus
* New Democrat Coalition
* Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
* Rare Disease Caucus

Political positions

Some commentators have called Wexton a moderate Democrat. She has emphasized her willingness to compromise and work with both Republicans and Democrats.

Crime

On February 9, 2023, Wexton voted to allow the District of Columbia's Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 to take effect. This act was a rewrite and modernization of the criminal code and included reductions in the maximum penalties for burglary, carjacking, and robbery.

Economy

In a 2019 town hall event, Wexton described herself as a capitalist. In 2020, she supported increasing federal spending on infrastructure improvements and subsidies for the US airline industry, which was hit by decreased travel demand during the coronavirus pandemic. She also supports expanding broadband access, particularly in rural areas.

Guns

Wexton supports a bill to study the utility of credit card transactions as a warning tool for mass shootings. She suggested that "the Second Amendment and gun-violence prevention laws can coexist."

Health care

Wexton supports a public option for health care, suggesting that it would provide increased competition in areas with fewer private insurance options. She does not support "Medicare for All", a proposal to create a single-payer healthcare system and eliminate private insurance. She supports granting the federal government the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Wexton supports strengthening the Affordable Care Act and opposes the Trump administration's efforts to convince the US Supreme Court to invalidate the law. In a 2020 debate, she argued that striking down the ACA would once again allow insurance companies to impose lifetime health care spending limits.

Immigration

Wexton supports expanding the federal seasonal agricultural worker visa program and the H-1B visa program.

Labor rights

Wexton supports making it easier for workers to unionize. She criticized the Trump administration for not enforcing federally mandated workplace protections during the coronavirus pandemic.

LGBT rights

In January 2019, Wexton hung a transgender pride flag outside her office to show her support for the transgender community. In February 2021, Wexton tweeted in support of Marie Newman, who has a transgender daughter, after Newman received criticism from Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for hanging a transgender flag outside her office as the House passed the Equality Act.

Electoral history

Personal life

Wexton married Andrew Wexton in 2001. They have two sons. Wexton is an aunt of a transgender child.

In April 2023, Wexton announced that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In September of that year, she announced that her diagnosis had been changed to progressive supranuclear palsy, which is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease at early stages. The condition has affected Wexton's mobility, her hearing, and her ability to speak. As of 2023, there is no treatment and no cure for progressive supranuclear palsy. In May 2024, Wexton started using a text to speech app for delivering her speeches on the floor of the House.

See also

*Women in the United States House of Representatives

References

External links

Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton
official U.S. House website

Campaign website

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wexton, Jennifer
1968 births
20th-century American lawyers
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American women judges
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century members of the United States House of Representatives
21st-century members of the Virginia General Assembly
21st-century Virginia politicians
American prosecutors
County judges in the United States
Democratic Party Virginia state senators
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia
Female members of the United States House of Representatives
Living people
People from Leesburg, Virginia
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Virginia lawyers
William & Mary Law School alumni