Tom Perriello

Tom Perriello
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 5th district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 2009
Preceded by	Virgil Goode
Born	October 9, 1974 (1974-10-09) (age 35) Ivy, Virginia
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	single
Residence	Ivy, Virginia
Alma mater	Yale Law School (J.D.) Yale University (B.A.)
Profession	Attorney
Religion	Roman Catholic
Website	http://www.perrielloforcongress.com/ (campaign website) http://perriello.house.gov/ official website

Thomas Stuart Price "Tom" Perriello (born October 9, 1974 in Ivy, Virginia) is an American politician and attorney. He is the Democratic congressman from the fifth district of Virginia. The district includes much of Southside Virginia, and stretches north to Charlottesville. He pulled one of the biggest upsets in the 2008 election,^[1] unseating six-term incumbent Virgil Goode.

Early life and education

Perriello is a lifelong resident of Ivy, a small unincorporated community west of Charlottesville. However, he is listed in the House roll as "D-Charlottesville." He attended Murray Elementary School, Meriwether Lewis Elementary School, Henley Middle School and Western Albemarle High School in the county school system, and then graduated from St. Anne's-Belfield School, a private school. He earned B.A. (1996) and J.D. (2001) degrees at Yale University. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout in Boy Scout Troop 114 in Ivy, and was a legislative page in the Virginia House of Delegates.^[2]

Career and activism

From 2002-03, Perriello was Special Advisor to the international prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where he worked with child soldiers, amputees, and local pro-democracy groups, and helped to prosecute warlords.^[3] He later became the Court's Spokesman and helped to indict Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, peacefully forcing him from power. He has worked as a consultant to the International Center for Transitional Justice in Kosovo (2003), Darfur (2005), and Afghanistan (2007) where he worked on justice-based security strategies. Perriello has also been a fellow at The Century Foundation and consultant to the National Council of Churches of Christ. He helped to launch FaithfulAmerica.org, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and is a co-founder of DarfurGenocide.org and Avaaz.org, an international on-line community of 3.3 million members, operating in 12 languages, dedicated to building a global response to "problems without borders" such as climate change. He has also worked with the Rev. James Forbes on prophetic justice principles.^[4]

Perriello, a resident of Albemarle County, has spent much of his career working in West Africa and the Middle East to create strategies for sustainable peace, and he was involved in the peace processes that helped end the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.^[5] As a public entrepreneur, he has helped to launch organizations and movements focused on social justice and human rights. He is a founding partner of Res Publica, which develops innovative solutions to global justice and security threats, and of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which has worked since the 2004 election to help balance and expand the faith and values discourse in America.

2008 election

In the 2008 election, Perriello launched a campaign based on conviction politics, achieving a surprise win over Republican incumbent Virgil Goode, a longtime figure in Virginia politics, after having trailed Goode in the polls by 32% only three months earlier. Goode had represented a large portion of the district for 38 years (he'd represented much of the southern portion of the district in the Senate of Virginia prior to serving in Congress) and was very popular in the district.

Perriello declared victory on November 7, although Goode filed for a recount.^[6] The 2008 congressional race was Perriello's first run for elected office. Goode conceded via a press release after the recount was finished which placed the final difference at 727 votes.^[7]

The traditionally Democratic urban areas of the district gave Perriello significant margins over Goode. While Goode won 13 of the 20 county-level jurisdictions in the district, Perriello won all but one independent city, Bedford which went for Goode by only 16 votes. Ultimately, Perriello prevailed largely on the strength of a more than 25,000 vote margin in Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County. Perriello's performance showed the most dramatic improvements over past Democratic voting in the more conservative areas of the district hardest hit by decades of job loss and economic slowdown. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama also improved on past Democratic performance, but he ultimately lost this district by around 7,500 votes (2.5 percentage points). For example, Perriello significantly outperformed Obama in the strongly conservative southwestern portion of the district (ironically, where Goode is from). Perriello may also have been helped by coattails from atop the ticket, as Mark Warner won the district in a landslide with 65 percent of the vote. ^[8].

Committee assignments

• Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management
  • Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity
  • Subcommittee on Health

Votes in the 111th Congress

Perriello has voted with his party on some high-profile issues, but has split from his party on other significant votes. For instance, during the 2009 legislative session, Perriello's first term in Congress, Periello voted for the stimulus bill. ^[9] He voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act ("Cap and Trade"^[10]),^[11] He also voted for the Health Care Reform bill e;^[12] however, Perriello also voted for the anti-abortion Stupak Amendment to the health care bill^[13] and against President Obama's budget. ^[14] In addition, he voted against the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009,^[15] which was supported by his party because it "did not help Virginians."^[16]

Election 2010

On December 3, 2009, political commentator Stuart Rothenberg listed Perriello as one of the twelve most vulnerable incumbents in the House of Representatives up for reelection in 2010.^[17]

See also

• Virginia's 5th congressional district

References

External links

• Congressman Tom Perriello official U.S. House website
• Tom Perriello for U.S. Congress official campaign website

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Congressional profile at GovTrack.us
• Barnes, Lindsay Out of nowhere: How Tom Perriello's 450-mile Election Day journey made the difference in the race for Congress from The Hook (newspaper)
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Tom Perriello at the Open Directory Project
• Perriello, Tom Applying Conviction Politics to Iraq, TPM Cafe, October 30, 2007.
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