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Roanoke’s Sam Rasoul Puts Community Ahead of Big Money

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As the first Muslim-American in the Virginia General Assembly — and the first to sign a pledge against taking public interest donations — Roanoke Delegate Sam Rasoul wants to eliminate money’s role in politics. 

According to the Center for Public Integrity, Virginia is one of nine states that do not have an ethics commission to oversee the number of donations given to politicians by special interest PACs (political action committees) and lobbyists. Because of this lack, Virginia has become one of the worst states for the influence of money in politics.

Rasoul set himself apart from his fellow legislators by being the first elected official in Virginia to pledge not to take donations from special interests. “The possible influence of accepting money from those entities is not a thought or consideration,” said Delegate Lashrecse Aird, Rasoul’s seatmate during General Assembly sessions. “He has taken the extra step so that his constituents know he is there because of them.” 

Six other members of the General Assembly have followed his lead since his initial pledge. Along with Rasoul, some of them have formed a group known as the People’s Caucus: a group of legislators determined to preserve the people’s interest.

Following the 2016 election, the public trust in the government reached an all-time low at 18 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

Rasoul is working to earn back that public trust: through local grassroots movements, he’s pushing to change the political landscape and leads community impact training in Roanoke (which open seminars to potential public officials on how to run free-to-the-public campaigns).

The goal: Show members of the community how they can be leaders. Whether it be in politics or through outreach efforts, the idea is to show citizens how to positively impact their own neighborhoods. The campaign is run by The Impact Center, an organization in Roanoke designed to enrich the local community.

A child of immigrants, Rasoul moved to Virginia at a young age. Growing up in Roanoke allowed him to set up a strong community following for his political career later in life.

PHOTO: Delegate Sam Rasoul, Facebook

The delegate never dreamed of being a politician, until 11 years ago when he found himself running for Congress. With the decision that would permanently change his career path, Rasoul saw great adversity.

“I have always been in an extreme minority,” Rasoul said in an interview this year. “I don’t get frustrated; I just keep my head down, and try and get as much work done as I can.”

Being a Democrat in a Republican-dominated House, Rasoul has seen many setbacks, with only a small percentage of his bills being passed. His positive attitude in the face of adversity has helped him implement his idea of “good government” — a practice, he insists, that serves the public interest.

Tapping his feet against the carpet, Rasoul reflected on the passion of his work. “We need to aggressively find ways of making sure the people are empowered,” Rasoul explained, “and that special interests aren’t undermining the will and the voice of the people.”

Rasoul has taken on a multitude of roles in his lifetime including being a father — a role that has given him a different perspective on his years of work towards bettering the education system.

“Education as a whole is lacking in the innovation we need to become more successful,” Rasoul said, elaborating that childhood success weighs heavily on the early development stages.

“We have our priorities flipped on their head,” Rasoul said. “I think putting a lot more energy and emphasis into early years is critical for increasing IQ, increasing their income over the course of their life, and decreasing their criminal interactions.”

Rasoul has drafted several bills regarding education. Earlier this year, he introduced a bill that would amend the Virginia Constitution to allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections.

Rasoul and his supporters argue that letting 16-year-olds to vote will allow them to have equal representation, as local government and the school board affect high school aged students. The measure hoped to increase overall voter turnout and help inform young voters about government practices.

Although this bill died in committee, Rasoul explained that this was only an introduction.  He will reintroduce it and, if passed, the public will vote on it in a constitutional referendum in 2020: the same year as the next presidential election.

Rasoul also argued against privatization of public schooling, noting his belief that most models for privatization do not work, and they specifically would not work for Virginia. A recent report issued by the Schott Foundation for Public Education and the Network For Public Education found that 47 states have either a voucher or charter school program, 33 of which allow those programs to be run by for-profit companies. Only one of those states requires schools taking vouchers to provide services for English-learning students — students that, as of Fall 2015, made up 8.5 percent of Virginia’s public school enrollments.

“We need to strengthen our public school system, and put mechanisms in place to encourage aggressive innovation,” Rasoul said. “We have to find ways to take care of our teachers, because when we do, they will take care of the students.”

A firm believer in taking care of any work staff, Rasoul states that it is essential to have well-versed employees to support an institution.

Amalea Deegan, Rasoul’s community outreach liaison, attested to this from her work with the delegate.

“He starts off every day asking, ‘What is the office’s mission?” Deegan said, “and it is to help as many people as possible. If we are doing anything that isn’t achieving that goal, then we’re not going to do it.”

In Deegan’s time working with the politician, she believes he has made her a better leader.

“He takes on a mentor role,” Deegan said. “He actively tries to improve the people who are working for him.” Rasoul’s office is nestled in the heart of Richmond, and he worked on the Northam transition team leading up to the governor’s inauguration. His desk is neat and orderly, his walls decorated with pictures of friends, family, and people he has met along the way.

Among the relics, a homemade painting of the Roanoke star hangs, a memento of home. The star overlooks Rasoul’s home city of Roanoke from its perch, high on Mill Mountain, and is visible from anywhere in the city. The painting in his office acts as a reminder of the people Sam Rasoul strives to represent, and the reason he is working to dismantle corruption in government.

Opinion: Will West Virginia Teacher Strike Inspire Virginia Educators to Join the Fight?

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On March 5, 11 days after the first day of the historic statewide strike, the West Virginia Capitol was packed wall-to-wall with educators, students, workers, and their families. Despite threatening Right-to-Work laws, government bullying, and intimidation, and around betrayal by union leadership, all of which could have prevented or debilitated a weaker movement, WV teachers are more agitated, organized, and determined to win than ever before.  

They are striking for a natural gas severance tax that creates a self-sustaining source of revenue for public employee insurance and pay, a stop to regressive taxes, a pay raise of 5 percent per year over the next five years for all public employees, a permanent tabling to all legislation pertaining to co-tenancy and joint development, and a permanent tabling to all legislation to charter schools, voucher systems, and any attempts to privatize public schools.

The connections between their demands and the needs of public sector employees and educators in Virginia are crystal clear. And they have revolutionized the playing field for teachers, workers, and right-to-work states across the country, including the imminent statewide strike Oklahoma teachers are poised to unleash as soon next week.

The question is, will Virginia educators and workers join the fight that our “wild and wonderful” neighbors have started? Will we let them stand alone?

Some educators may respond with cautious deflections, protesting that organizing or unionizing is illegal in Virginia because of Right-to-Work provisions, but this is simply not true. Right-to-Work does not mean you can be fired for organizing in your workplace; it simply prohibits any contract that requires a worker to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment (VA Code Sec. 40.1-58et seq).

Others may demur, ‘well, we don’t have it as bad as West Virginia, our average incomes are not so low.’ To the, I would respond, as the Washington Post recently reported, that though the average Virginia teacher salary may exceed West Virginia’s, our income-to-rent ratio is roughly the same or worse, depending on the level of education. So while we may make more on average, the vast majority of us still struggle to afford rent and basic living expenses, let alone dig ourselves out of the hole of debt required to become an educator in Virginia (which, as the Virginian-Pilot has reported, has led to a statewide teacher shortage crisis).

Furthermore, these comparative numbers only encompass public school teachers, and do not speak to the increasingly desperate circumstances that the booming numbers of adjunct professors face, let alone substitute teachers, teacher assistants, graduate assistants, on-staff tutors, and supplementary instructors, most of whom make below the poverty line for doing utterly essential work, sometimes identical to that of the work done by full-time faculty.

I am among these workers, making near minimum wage to do the same work of lesson planning, curriculum development, lectures, and educational support that professors do. This exciting phenomenon of equal work for half the pay has not gone unnoticed by Virginia school administrators, who are increasingly laying off full-time faculty in favor of the much cheaper option of adjunct professors.

The most obvious example of this, of course, is the now very public battle at Tidewater Community College, where, as the Virginian-Pilot recently reported, full-time faculty have already organized to fight back against a wave of full-time faculty layoffs, to be replaced by lower-paid adjunct professors. This is only the most recent chapter in a long history of rampant administration abuse at TCC, perhaps most elegantly illustrated in the fact that, as student enrollment has dropped by 31 percent, TCC administration hiring has gone up by an even greater 47 percent. I guess you need a lot of salaried administrators to figure out which teachers to fire next!

But TCC is not anomalous in taking this approach to budget shortages, nor is a simple replacement of the president and vice president, as demanded by the TCC faculty, enough to ensure job security for full-time faculty, let alone improve the working conditions for adjuncts or educational support staff. If TCC full-time faculty truly wish to make lasting change and build the broader base of support and solidarity that would necessitate, they ought to organize with adjuncts and wage workers to demand lasting systemic change in the form of better working conditions for all TCC workers and educators in Virginia, not simply a transition of power.

Though Right-to-Work does not prohibit workers from organizing or unionizing, laws do exist in Virginia that render unionizing illegal for public sector employees, including teachers employed by the city/county (public primary/secondary schools) or the Commonwealth (community and public colleges). However, this law makes the specific provision that “Nothing in this article shall be construed to prevent employees of the Commonwealth […] from forming associations for the purpose of promoting their interests before the employing agency” (§ 40.1-57.3). This essentially means that public sector employees legally can (and should) organize and unionize, we just can’t legally call it a union. But what’s in a name?

Though by contrast, it is legal in West Virginia for public sector workers to unionize and strike, the WV Attorney General and the Governor declared the strike “illegal” soon after the teacher’s union leadership sold them out during negotiations, urging them to accept a shoddy proposal and go back to work. Regardless, they continued the strike in all 55 counties. If our Appalachian neighbors have shown us anything, it’s that legal technicalities and injunctions can’t stop a body of organized workers if we don’t let them. Teachers across the country have already started taking up the fight that they started, as well as workers in other industries like the Communications Workers of America, who just announced a strike in locations across Virginia and West Virginia on Sunday.

So, fellow Virginia educators, it’s clear the iron is hot. Will we strike?

Editor’s Note: This story was submitted by a Virginia educator who wished to remain anonymous out of professional concerns. 

Tuesday night’s mayoral forum turns from debate on education and transportation, to targeting Mayor Jones

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Eleven mayoral candidates met at Richmond Community High School Tuesday night to discuss their visions for the Northside and the city as a whole. The forum, organized by the Brookland Park Area Association, featured all the presumptive front-runners as well as lesser-known candidates trying to introduce themselves to voters.
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