Attorney general candidate Shannon Taylor would challenge Trump’s executive orders

Attorney General candidate Shannon Taylor says if elected, she will challenge President Trump’s executive orders, unlike current Attorney General Jason Miyares, who failed to do so and failed to stand up for Virginians.

Taylor is running in the Democratic Primary on June 17. Voting is already underway. Voting at satellite locations, including the Mason Government Center, starts tomorrow.

Taylor, the commonwealth’s attorney for Henrico County, outlined her priorities at a forum June 4 at the Providence Rec Center hosted by the Arlington-based group &Democracy.

Her opponent in the primary, Del. Jay Jones (Norfolk), had planned to attend but had to cancel due to the death of his father, Jerrauld Jones, a civil rights pioneer, legislator, and judge.

Taylor said Miyares, who is running for re-election, is only interested in “protecting the people who he thinks voted for him.” She called it “unconscionable” for Miyares to fail to challenge the executive orders that would inflict harm on Virginians.

“While executives can issue executive orders, that does not mean they should go unchecked for constitutionality and legality. They’re not laws,” Taylor said. “We need an attorney general who’s going to do that work. And we need an attorney general who’s going to take Trump to court.”  

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She lauded the efforts of the Democratic attorneys general from states around the country who are filing lawsuits against Trump’s executive orders and said she would join that effort on day one.

Virginia has the most federal employees and has a large population of veterans and seniors. “That means we should have been the number-one state in filing these lawsuits, and we weren’t, because Jason Miyares failed to do that,” she said.

Taylor touted her experience, noting she’s been practicing law for almost 30 years, handling thousands of cases and hundreds of jury trials. “I know what it takes to put on a case because I’ve done it,” she said.

One of the cases she successfully prosecuted involved the white supremacist who drove a truck through a Black Lives Matter march in Charlotte. And on the day the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, eliminating abortion rights, she said, “I got on the national stage and said I would never prosecute a woman or doctor for engaging in that very personal choice.”

Taylor also told the audience she has “proven electability.” She was first elected commonwealth’s attorney in 2011, when Henrico County was a Republican stronghold.

She vowed to build on her successes in Henrico in prosecuting human trafficking and elder abuse cases. “We want to have systems in place that ensure nursing homes and assisted living facilities are safe and have accredited employees,” she said.

Miyares, she said, has completely ignored the civil rights and environmental protection units in the state attorney general’s office. One of the first things she would do, if elected, is strengthen the office’s ability to investigate complaints about nursing homes, an issue neglected by Miyares.

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When asked how she feels about restorative justice as an alternative to jail, Taylor said that as a commonwealth’s attorney in Henrico County, she found there are better ways to handle crimes like petty larceny.

“We need to ask ourselves why people do what they do,” she said. “Were people stealing because of substance abuse disorder? because of behavioral and mental health issues? Were they stealing because of socioeconomic issues, because they wanted to be able to put food on the table?”

“We knew what a felony conviction could do to somebody, impacting employment, housing, and transportation. We need to be smarter about how we approach this, giving people opportunities and resources to get them back to a healthy lifestyle,” Taylor said.

“That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions,” she said. “There are people who do bad things, and they should go to jail for a long time.”

In response to a question about Trump’s actions to detain and deport people who are in the U.S. legally, she said, “It is awful that people are getting hurt, and it is scary and it is offensive.”

“We know there are people who came here for protection because they were fleeing rapes, their family members were being murdered, and they were allowed to ask for asylum and they were granted that,” she said. People are here legally on student visas and work visas, “and what this administration has done has literally cast it all aside.”

Congress was ready to come up with legislation to fix the immigration system, she said, “but Donald Trump got in there and said do not pass this bill, do not fix immigration. And we all know why – because he ran on it as his platform.”  

She decried Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s actions in sending state police officers to work with ICE agents. “That removes them from doing their jobs,” which is arresting speeders on the highway and helping rural police with crime, she said. “Why is the governor letting them do that? because Donald Trump said so.”

“There is supposed to be due process for everybody,” she said, promising to “stand up for the people – documented or undocumented – who deserve the protections of the Constitution.”

In response to a question about why she accepted a donation from Dominion Energy, she said, “When it comes to campaign financing, Virginia is the wild, wild west. We have no parameters.” Candidates have to raise funds to get their message out to voters.

“I am beholden to no special interests,” she said. “I am only beholden to the rule of law and the Constitution.”