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About Betsy Carr
Betsy Carr is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing the 78th district which includes a large part of the City of Richmond. She served on the Richmond City School Board before being elected to the House of Delegates where she has served for 15 years.
She serves on the Appropriations, General Laws, Transportation and Rules committees. In addition, she serves on the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission, the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation Board of Trustees, and the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center.
She has been recognized for her service with numerous awards including those from the Sierra Club, the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the Virginia Chamber’s Free Enterprise Award, and the YWCA's Outstanding Woman Award.
In addition to serving as a delegate, she also served 16 years as outreach director at St. Paul’s Church in downtown Richmond. She was a founder of the Micah Initiative in which faith communities partnered with city elementary schools to provide volunteers and tutors.
She is an honors graduate of Hollins University, has 3 grown sons and 6 grandchildren.
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Betsy Needs Your Help! Volunteers Make All the Difference
Want to know what goes on at the General Assembly? Volunteer during the legislative session January through February to get a firsthand experience and to help Betsy. In addition, Betsy is always walking and meeting folks in her district, not just during campaign time, but because she believes it is important to hear first-hand from her constituents about their concerns. Please, come walk with Betsy – it’s a fun and enlightening experience.
She and her staff would also love help with all the mailings and communicating Betsy does with folks.
Get Involved
Healthcare
Betsy knows that every Virginian must have access to affordable quality health care and to reproductive health care. She is proud to have a 100% pro-choice track record in the legislature. She was a strong supporter and advocate for expanding Medicaid and she continues to work to ensure every Virginian can see a doctor for sickness and preventive care. No one should ever have to choose between filling a prescription and food on the table. Medications simply must be affordable for all.
Public Education
All children, no matter their zip code, should have a quality public school education, preparing them for a good-paying job or for higher education. They must have access to modern technology, so they can thrive in our 21st century global world. We need to have the best and brightest teachers and we need to pay them and respect them like the professionals they are.
Environment
Climate change is the crisis of our time and time is running out to make the very essential changes to leave a healthy earth for our children and grandchildren. Moreover, we need to ensure everyone has access to potable water, unspoiled land, and clean air. We need to remedy the environmental problems that have disproportionately impacted minority and rural communities, leaving them with too many respiratory ailments and other diseases. Environmental justice must be a priority.
Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal justice should be about helping folks become constructive, productive residents of their communities and keeping our neighborhoods safe. Betsy has worked hard to get illegal guns off the street and protect Virginians from gun violence. She supports legalizing marijuana so that young people, especially minority young people, are not singled out and lives ruined. She believes we need fair and equitable justice and that we don’t just lock people up. She supports automatic restoration of rights after a person has finished his or her sentence. She supports body-worn cameras and making sure we create a system where Black and Brown Virginians don’t have to worry about a police encounter. The goal of the criminal justice system must be to keep people safe in a compassionate, fair, and just way for all.
Equity, Opportunity, Justice and Fairness
ALL Virginians deserve equal opportunity, fairness and justice and the law must uphold those ideas. A person’s skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation, country of origin, disability or age should not be used to discriminate. Betsy knows we have a responsibility to remove discriminatory laws and to legislate to make a fairer, more just Commonwealth for all.
Voting Rights
All eligible Americans should have the right to vote, and it is our responsibility to make it easier and to increase access. Recently, we are seeing attempts all around the country to suppress voting and to make it more difficult, especially for minority communities. This is unacceptable. Betsy supports expansion of early voting, including Sunday voting, use of secure drop boxes and for any voting list purges to be limited, not to be used to simply strike people from the voting roles.
Op-Eds
Betsy B. Carr column: Virginia needs Biden’s care plan
July 25, 2021
Home care is the foundation of this country; it is work that makes all other work possible. As a delegate, I know firsthand how critical this workforce is to keeping Virginia healthy and our economy running. While we will continue to work on needed change in the General Assembly, I am calling on Congress to back Biden’s plan to invest in our home care workforce. Investing in care now is an investment in our commonwealth’s future. Learn more ➝
Lowering the limit: How allowing 15 mph zones could save lives in Virginia
March 11, 2021
In 2019, we hit a new record number of pedestrian deaths and, despite the reduction in driving during the pandemic, speeding fatalities increased. We had 123 pedestrian fatalities in 2020. One in six people killed on Virginia’s roads is on foot now. HB1903 authorizes local governing bodies to reduce the speed limit to less than 25 miles per hour, but not less than 15 miles per hour, in a business district or residential district. Ten miles per hour difference may not seem huge, but for pedestrian safety advocates and the families of victims of traffic collisions, the change could mean the difference between life and death. Learn more ➝