Monday April 17, 2023
CANDIDATE PROFILE: Joel Griffin | GUEST COMMENTARY: Local politics and the preservation of democracy
CANDIDATE PROFILE: Thirty Minutes with Joel Griffin
F2S is committed to bringing candidates for local offices into focus for voters. Not just their policy stances, but who they are as people. From the beginning, we have shone a bright light on the race for Senate District 27 - a new district that could well decide the balance of power in the Senate.
On March 6, we had Joel Griffin, who is seeking the Democratic nod, answer a set of policy questions. (Democratic candidate Ben Litchfield answered the same set of questions in our February 3 edition.)
Today we begin to take a more personal look at the candidates. In recent days I spent time with both Griffin (at Hyperion) and Litchfield (at Tito’s Diner) to get to know these two candidates as individuals.
F2S believes strongly that who candidates are as individuals is an important part of understanding how they will act as elected officials. It is our hope that you will come away better informed about the people seeking the 27th Senate District seat.
Today’s interview features Joel Griffin. On Thursday, we’ll highlight Ben Litchfield.
Note to Readers: F2S has extended invitations to Monica Gary (Independent), as well as Tara Durant and Matt Strickland (Republicans) to answer the policy questionnaire and be interviewed. As of this edition, we have not received a commitment from any of the three. We will continue to encourage them to take part so that readers can better understand them.
F2S: Can you begin by telling us something about your background and how you came to be involved in local politics?
JG: I grew up in rural North Carolina, where there was a high degree of community. You could call on your neighbor and your family for help, and they would come. When I joined the United States Marine Corps, I found a similarly tight-knit community.
When I got out, I was looking for a place that offered that same sense of community. My last duty station was Quantico, and we settled in Stafford where we raised our family.
My desire to serve the community personally started with my daughters’ schools, where I got involved with the school board’s career and technical education committee.
On my career side, that same sense of volunteering and career service was important to my professional path. After 9/11, I was among a handful of people to go into the crash site and retrieve critical equipment. That led to me volunteering to work with other organizations and creating more security. That led to volunteering to go for the committee on homeland security as it transitioned into a department.
F2S: Tell us more about your professional life.
I’d earned a security clearance while in the Corps. When I got out, I used the GI Bill to earn my college degree from Penn State University. These experiences led me into government contracting. My first job was with Lockheed Martin. Eventually, I ended up at Homeland Security, as I noted above.
From there, I launched my own business, which I sold in 2018 to what is now KBR. That experience was important because it gave me an understanding of the acquisitions side of the business world.
My business partner is now retired. I decided to launch the Riphean Group, which has a simple goal. To invest in businesses that are making on impact. Riphean Group has several arms.
Riphean Investments is a venture capital group that uses investors dollars to invest in national security.
Riphean Hospitality invests in new restaurant concepts. We launched Rebellion in downtown Fredericksburg, and will soon be launching a seafood venture called Port.
Riphean Endeavors represents my own investments in veteran-owned businesses.
F2S: This theme of service and community seems to run through your life story. The notion of politics as service was once common, but over the last couple of decades that idea has gone into retreat. How did you reach this point in your life with a solid commitment to public service?
JG: I’ve always been a big reader, and I’m especially interested in historical leaders who would do what is right, as opposed to what is best for them. George Washington, who is from this area, is a great example. He could have easily become king, but made the decision to step aside after his second term, setting a precedent for those who followed him.
This service concept is also central to the bible. I’ve long been moved by the passage in Isaiah:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
And John F. Kennedy, of course, who stands tall in the history of the Democratic Party. He led from a position of what is good for the country.
As important as all that is, however, at the end of the day, for me, service is about looking in my daughter’s eyes and saying: “I did all I could to leave things better than I found them.”
F2S: As this is your first time pursuing an elected office, how do those leaders inform you in this race?
JG: I’m learning the political game, but the lesson these leaders have taught me is that it’s important to know who you are, and to be true to yourself. If you’re running because you want the title, you’re in it for the wrong reasons.
I’m running because I want to have the job not only to hold the line for our Democratic values, but also move the ball forward and bring people back together. We’re all Americans. How do we coalesce and make things better?
This is a new senate district, and the person who wins this seat is going to set the tone for this district not just now, but in the years to come. I know that I’m the only Democrat out of the current pool who can win this Senate race.
I know that not because I’ve read a book or talked to people, but because I’ve actively done it. I’ve already worked to pass legislation at the statewide level (Gwyneth’s Law). I have worked in this region for a number of years, and I know how to work with employers and employees to achieve common goals. I’m able to understand legislation and enact it.
I was just with Sen. McPike (D-Va. 29) in January to get Gywneth’s law amended.
I’m going to the Senate to make sure there’s a Democrat in that seat to maintain the Blue line in the Senate, but also to be able to work collaboratively with Republicans to pass laws that are important to all Virginians.
But let’s be clear. There are extremist Republicans and Tea Party Republicans that absolutely want to destroy the rights of many of our citizens, and most poignantly are our women citizens who are having their rights stripped away from them if Republicans have their way.
I’m willing to work across party lines to get things done. But I know who I am and am willing to fight for the morals and values that protect all citizens.
There are things those extremists want to do. They’re emboldened by Youngkin pouring money into the state. He has an agenda to become president, and he wants to do that by putting Republicans in office.
Again, I’m the only Senate candidate in this region who can hold this seat.
This race is about experience. Put all the candidates’ resumes side-by-side, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, there’s not one that compares. I have done the work, I’ve been doing work, and I will continue doing the work after I’m elected.
F2S: It is clear that you are concerned about the recent turn in Republican politics and the threat that this poses to American society. Especially in the wake of the events of January 6. At a time when many Democrats shy from this topic, can you say a bit more about why you’re so vocal?
JG: Over the past several years, the previous administration undermined law enforcement, rule of law, judicial system, and ability of people to have discourse and disagree without resorting to physical confrontations. That was very disturbing to me
What January 6th made clear to many of us is that our democracy is only as safe as we make it. Watching those events, I felt compelled to get involved. Not because I hold any animosity against people who felt they needed to do that. But it does raise two questions. The first is, under the rule of law, there are consequences to those actions. It’s taken the judicial system time to process all that, and we’re still going through it. So what are the consequences?
Number two, I think the Republicans have taken the mantra that they are the business party and the military party. I simply don’t believe that’s true.
I know many vets and business owners who are Democrats. I, personally, am proud to be a veteran and a business owner.
And thirdly, as a Marine, I took an oath to protect the Constitution, not a person. It’s of concern that people were willing to pick up arms against their country.
That is the cliff edge that we are on.
We need to be involved in our democracy, down to the local level. We need to be able to have a discussion and disagree. But we can’t be willing to take up arms against the country.
That, and Youngkin’s political ambitions - which he believes he can reach by getting more Republicans elected, and that in turn leads to women losing their rights - are part of what I’m fighting for. At the end of the day, I have to stand for this region, represent the values that protect everyone, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Local Politics and the Preservation of Our Democracy
by Will Mackintosh
Like many Americans who care about the future of US democracy, I have been watching the events unfolding in the Tennessee State House of Representatives with a growing sense of awe and horror. The fact that a supermajority of the Tennessee House saw fit to expel two duly elected members for what was fundamentally an act of political speech—disruptive though it may have been—seems shockingly undemocratic and a troubling sign of the political currents of American life.
The majority chose a “remedy” that not only punished Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two of the representatives who participated in the pro-gun control protest, but also punished all the Tennessee citizens who voted for their representation. To say I was dismayed was an understatement.
As a historian of the 19th century United States, the saga of the Tennessee Three brings to mind an older American political saga. Their sorry treatment reminds me of Joshua Giddings, an avowedly abolitionist US Representative from Ohio in the 19th century. In 1842, he spoke up in favor of the enslaved people who had escaped to British territory about the ship Creole. Their fate touched off a political firestorm back in the United States, with abolitionists celebrating the escape and their liberation, and slaveholders decrying it and calling for the US to pursue their return through diplomatic channels.
Joshua Giddings
Giddings weighed into this saga by introducing resolutions into the US House of Representatives discouraging a diplomatic effort to recover the escaped people, and he was summarily censured by House leadership for violating their “gag rule” prohibiting the discussion of slavery in House of Representatives. After being censured, he resigned his seat and promptly stood for reelection for the vacated seat and was overwhelmingly reelected by his voters. The vote was indeed the widest margin ever achieved in a US House election. His triumphal return effectively killed the gag rule, which was repealed 2 years later.
There are some obvious differences between Giddings and Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. Most notably, they were expelled, whereas he resigned as part of a voluntary political strategy. However, I think there’s a good chance the outcome will be similar: the Justins seem likely to return, vindicated and reaffirmed by the voters, and only the stronger for it. Undemocratic attempts to stifle political speech—whether in the form of a 19th-century “gag rule” or a 21st-centiry act of expulsion—are likely to backfire when that political speech reflects the true majority will of the local voters who chose those representatives to represent them.
As someone deeply invested in local politics, the saga of the Tennessee Three reminds me of the deep and enduring importance of those local politics. In both cases, undemocratic power moves by powerful distant politicians are no match for local voters, local organizers, and local elected officials.
In the case of Giddings, he knew that his constituents agreed with him on the questions of slavery and slave trade, and could be counted on support him in his confrontation with the House leadership.
In the case of Jones and Pearson, the connection is even more immediate: as of this writing, they have both been temporarily reappointed to their seats by the local leaders on the Nashville Metro Council and the Shelby County Council. And of course, the voters will likely choose them in the special elections to permanently fill their unjustly vacated seats.
Local politics in Nashville and Memphis mattered enormously in this case of pushing back on the Tennessee State House’s undemocratic power moves. Let this be a reminder to all of us that local politics really matter when it comes to preserving our democracy.