Policy Platform

Where I Stand On The Issues

I unequivocally support the following policies. If my platform does not address issues that you feel passionate about, please reach out at (contact@justinwoodfordforva.com) and I will get in contact with you at my earliest convenience.

Fight corruption and dysfunction in our state and local governments

  • Get money out of politics to the greatest extent possible by setting the most stringent caps on private donations possible, banning public corporations like Dominion from donating altogether, and funding a public option for campaigns that are willing to abstain from all but small-dollar private donations;
  • Give voters more real choices by empowering third parties and independent candidates adopting (ranked choice/approval voting) for single-winner elections;
  • Give Virginia voters more direct choices via referendum (Example: whether or not to fund a universal basic income funded by an increase in land value taxes);
  • Allow ballot initiatives in Virginia that are not dependent on the legislature’s approval to move to a vote;
  • Professionalize state legislators and board of supervisors so that more citizens can realistically run for these positions;
  • Reduce voter fatigue and improve participation by harmonizing Virginia’s state and local elections with the two-year federal cycle;
  • Improve state and local government websites to increase transparency and to help modernize services;
  • Reforming FOIA laws to increase government transparency;
  • Funding public-interest, local, and investigative journalism
  • Mandate that all local school boards in Virginia be elected

Create an economy that works for everyone where opportunity abounds, growth is inclusive, and your labor is consistently rewarded

  • Support for a unionized workforce and more worker co-ops by repealing the anti-union “Right to Work for Less” law;
  • Combat wage theft by employers, the largest source of theft in Virginia;
  • Guarantee paid parental and sick leave;
  • Reduce the concentration of corporate economic power in Virginia to empower small business creation;
  • Raise the minimum wage such that no Virginian working a 40-hour week is poor.

Build a comprehensive social safety net so that nobody in Virginia is left to suffer in poverty

  • Establish healthcare as a human right by creating a state-level public health insurance option and fully funding it such that regardless of their ability to pay, all Virginian residents are covered;
  • Establish a right to affordable housing for every Virginian and fully fund a ‘housing first’ strategy to end homelessness;
  • Get Virginia’s skyrocketing housing costs under control by banning private equity from purchasing single family homes;
  • Create a quality and well-funded public option for daycare to better support parents and guardians

Increase investments in ourselves and our children’s future by fully funding education, infrastructure, and the environment

  • Fully fund public K – 12 schools, from capital improvements to teacher and support staff salaries;
  • Expand the G3 program to make community college, as well as career and technical education, universally free to residents of Virginia;
  • Make four-year undergraduate degrees and certain graduate degrees at state universities free to those who commit to working in Virginia for a certain number of years;
  • Improve the safety of transportation infrastructure to reduce the epidemic of traffic violence in our community;
  • Give people more practical transportation options than total car dependence by fully funding more protected bike lane networks, universal sidewalk coverage in residential areas, and robust mass transit systems within and between our cities (as well as paratransit throughout the state);
  • Preserving rural areas by stopping additional suburban sprawl and prioritizing infill development in larger cities, as well as revitalizing small towns in rural areas as local economic anchors;
  • Promote renewable energy; whether it’s wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear, we need an ‘all of the above’ approach to help ensure the climate crisis does not become a climate catastrophe;
  • Build electric vehicle infrastructure throughout Virginia to make the transition to EVs smoother and faster;
  • Implement tighter controls on known sources of pollution in our air and water and put a moratorium on commercial overfishing in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay

Ensure the wealthiest Virginians pay their share to fund necessary investments

  • Adjust the highest bracket of the state income tax to raise more revenue from the highest earners;
  • Create a state-level inheritance tax;
  • Shift the state and localities away from flat-rate property taxes to a system of split-rate property taxes that largely apply to the unimproved land value and the value of improvements above a threshold that would exempt most homes; 
  • Shift the state and localities away from the flat-rate car tax to a system that taxes luxury cars more and better taxes the source of most road degradation, i.e. heavy trucks

Protect our civil rights and civil liberties from government abuse and overreach

  • State constitutional protections for all Virginians to guarantee their rights and liberties be respected regardless of race, religion, sex, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status;
  • Enact state constitutional protections for all Virginians’ reproductive rights against any encroachment, including protections for abortion care, contraception access, and shield laws to protect both providers and patients;
  • Guarding against police abuse by instituting stricter hiring standards, implementing training to promote de-escalation and reduce the use of force, and holding the ‘bad apples’ who abuse their authority accountable;
  • Limiting state and local government’s ability to surveil you and harvest your data;
  • Funding public defenders at least as well as we fund prosecutors;
  • Ending the institutional abuse and neglect of prisoners to decrease recidivism and move from a punitive criminal justice model to a rehabilitative- and public safety-oriented one;
  • End the practices of felony- and disability-related disenfranchisement