Tom Perriello

Tom Perriello
United States Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes and the Congo-Kinshasa
Incumbent
Assumed office July 6, 2015
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Russ Feingold
Special Representative for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review
In office February 24, 2014 – April 28, 2015
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	David McKean
Succeeded by	Vacant
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 5th district
In office January 3, 2009 – January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Virgil Goode
Succeeded by	Robert Hurt
Personal details
Born	Thomas Stuart Price Perriello (1974-10-09) October 9, 1974 Ivy, Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Yale University
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Thomas Stuart Price "Tom" Perriello (/pɛriˈɛloʊ/; born October 9, 1974) is an American attorney, diplomat and Democratic Party politician. He served one term as a U.S. Representative for Virginia's 5th congressional district, serving from 2009 until 2011, was the United States Special Representative for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review from 2014 to 2015 and has been the Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes and the Congo-Kinshasa since 2015.

Born and raised in Ivy, Virginia, Perriello graduated with a J.D. from Yale University in 2001 and then worked as a Special Advisor to the international prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He then worked for the International Center for Transitional Justice, The Century Foundation and for the National Council of Churches of Christ. He also launched several international and faith-based organizations.

Having previously worked as a legislative page in the Virginia House of Delegates, Perriello ran for Virginia's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives in the 2008 elections. He defeated six-term Republican incumbent Virgil Goode by 727 votes out of over 317,000 cast. At the time he served, the district included much of Southside Virginia and stretched north to Charlottesville. A populist Democrat,^[1][2] Perriello was a key ally in Congress of President Barack Obama,^[3] and was narrowly defeated in the 2010 election by Republican State Senator Robert Hurt.^[4]

After leaving office, Perriello served as President and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and as a Counselor for Policy at Center for American Progress, where he spoke out on issues of immigration reform,^[5] voting rights,^[6] inequality, and campaign finance reform.^[7] In February 2014, he was appointed Special Representative for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, serving until April 2015. In July of that year, he was appointed Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes and the Congo-Kinshasa, succeeding former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold.^[8]

Life and education

Perriello was born in, and is a lifelong resident of, Ivy, Virginia, a small unincorporated community west of Charlottesville. He is the son of Linda (née Gillooly), a financial analyst, and Vito Anthony Perriello, Jr., a pediatrician.^[9] His paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants, and his mother is from an evangelical Christian family from Ohio.^[10] 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 attained the rank of Eagle Scout in Boy Scout Troop 114 in Ivy, and was a legislative page in the Virginia House of Delegates. He earned B.A. (1996) and J.D. (2001) degrees at Yale University.^[11][12] At Yale, Perriello was a Humanities major.

Early career

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.^[13] 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.^[11] 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 20 million members, operating in 16 languages, dedicated to building a global response to "problems without borders" such as climate change. He has also worked with the James A. Forbes on prophetic justice principles.^[14]

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.^[15]

U.S. House of Representatives

Conviction politics

In announcing his first bid for Congress in 2007, Perriello credited conviction politics for his inspiration to run. "Conviction politics will make me more effective if I win. The first question I asked myself before deciding to run for office was not "can I win?" but "can I improve people's lives if I win?"^[16]

Citing the 2006 midterm elections, Perriello pointed toward the example of fellow Democrats including Senators Jim Webb, Sherrod Brown, and Jon Tester—all winning in difficult political environments with firm positions that cut across typical progressive or conservative ideologies. Perriello framed his positions as "for the people and not for the corporate establishment" and did not focus on partisan divisions.^[17]

During his time in the House of Representatives, Perriello would often explain his support for controversial votes by his standard of conviction politics. Perriello described his vote for Cap and Trade legislation as a national security imperative, stating "There’s got to be something more important than getting reelected,” in an interview with Politico. “If I lose my seat, and that’s the worst that happens, I could live with that.”^[18]

Political campaigns

2008

In the 2008 election, Perriello launched a campaign based on conviction politics, achieving what was described as an upset victory over entrenched Republican incumbent Virgil Goode, a longtime figure in Virginia politics who had represented a large portion of the district in the Senate of Virginia before serving six terms in Congress.^[19][20] Perriello trailed Goode in the polls by 30% only three months before the election. Politico remarked that Goode's campaign was impaired by remarks by Goode that were interpreted as anti-Muslim and by a flap over Goode's tenuous connection to a gay-themed movie.^[19][21]

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.^[22]

2010

Perriello lost to Republican nominee State Senator Robert Hurt in a race between the two and Independent candidate Jeffrey Clark. During the race, Perriello was noted for touting Democratic achievements during his two years in office rather than running from them. In recognition of his support for gun rights, Perriello received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.^[23] He also received the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in the race in recognition of his “strong support for veterans, national security and defense, and military personnel issues.”^[24]

His reelection campaign was targeted by the national Democratic party, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent financial resources, ads, and staff to the district in an effort to protect a seat that Perriello had won for the Democrats by a razor-thin 727 margin in 2008.^[25] His effort to maintain his seat was marked by full days of campaigning, including one period called "24 hours of Tom" in which the congressman held one or two events every hour for twenty four hours in the final weeks of the election.^[26]

Congressman Perriello's national attention included a rare visit from President Obama at a Get-Out-The-Vote rally in Charlottesville, Virginia days before the midterm election, as well as millions of dollars in positive and negative advertisement from outside political groups.

Ultimately, Perriello lost by 3.9 percentage points, over-performing in the Republican +5 district. As a point of comparison, another freshman Democrat in a Virginian Republican +5 congressional district (VA-02) lost by 11 points in 2010 to his Republican challenger.^[27] The two congressmen took dramatically different approaches to campaigning, with Perriello embracing his short congressional record that included votes for progressive legislation like the Affordable Care Act, and the other Democrat attempting to distance himself from his party.

Propane gas line incident

In March 2010, a propane gas line at Perriello's brother's home was cut, after the brother's address was mistakenly listed on a website as the congressman's. The incident was investigated by the FBI as a threat to Perriello over his vote on healthcare reform.^[28]

Tenure

During the 2009 legislative session, Perriello voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,^[29] the American Clean Energy and Security Act,^[30] and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010.^[31]

Perriello voted against the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009,^[32] because the bill extended unemployment benefits for only some states and excluded Virginia.^[33]

Perriello called for "keeping America safe by working to ensure that our military is equipped with the resources, equipment, and training necessary to win the global war on terrorism".^[34] Although he cast votes for the continuation of U.S. military action in Afghanistan,^[35][36] he also cosponsored legislation requiring U.S. President Barack Obama to submit an exit strategy for the end of combat operations in Afghanistan.^[37][38] Perriello also opposed removing the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan.^[38] In 2010, Perriello voted in support of the defense bill, 2010 military appropriations and spending for combat operations.^[36][39][40]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tom Perriello.

• Tom Perriello for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Profile at Project Vote Smart
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN