Norfolk Del. Jerrauld “Jay” Jones, a 31-year-old attorney whose family has a legacy of public service and civil rights in Virginia, announced Monday he is running for state attorney general in 2021.
Jones, a Democrat who was first elected to the 89th House District in Norfolk in 2017, said in a press release Monday morning his decision to run stems back five generations, to when his ancestors were freed from slavery.
“Clearly progress has come, but not quick enough,” he said in a video accompanying the press release. “We’ve become more equitable but not enough.”
The announcement comes 2 1/2 months after Jones told The Washington Post he was exploring a run. He’s the first to formally announce a campaign.
Jones also announced the endorsement of several elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria, who represents parts of Hampton Roads, most of the region’s Democratic state lawmakers and most members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.
Jones said the state deserves a “new, fresh generation of leadership who are going to be working for everyday Virginians.”
The attorney general’s office works to defend the state’s agencies and the governor’s office. The attorney general issues official opinions interpreting law and conducts or assists in criminal investigations on issues like tax fraud, identity theft and computer crimes. The seat is currently held by Mark Herring, who announced in 2018 he would be running for governor in 2021.
At 31, Jones is one of the youngest lawmakers in the General Assembly — barely meeting the constitutional requirement that the attorney general be at least 30 years old — but frequented the halls of the Capitol long before he was elected. His father, Jerrauld Corey Jones, held the 89th District seat from 1988 to 2002.
The senior Jones is now a Norfolk Circuit Court judge and is a Gov. Ralph Northam appointee on the state’s Commission to Examine Racial Inequity in Virginia Law. Jay Jones’ mother is a judge in Norfolk’s juvenile and domestic relations court.
Jay Jones’ grandfather, Hilary H. Jones Jr., was the first African American appointed to both the Norfolk School Board and the Virginia Board of Education.
In a 2019 speech about racism in response to the governor’s blackface scandal, Jones recalled attending a General Assembly retreat as a child and hearing the significant other of another legislator tell a little girl not to play with Jones because he was Black.
In the 12-minute speech on the House floor that got him a standing ovation, Jones painted a picture of two modern, parallel states — a white Virginia and a Black Virginia — where one knows privilege and one knows oppression.
Jones has pushed for state legislation to combat climate change, sea level rise and recurrent flooding, an issue familiar to his constituents in Norfolk. He’s also tried to take on powerhouse Dominion Energy through a bill that would allow the State Corporation Commission to review the company’s base rates.
In 2019, he passed a bill allowing landlords to get a 10% credit on the annual fair market rent of a unit for accepting housing vouchers in areas where there were few residents living below the poverty level. The idea is to get low-income residents living in neighborhoods with lower crime, better schools, and better access to things like grocery stores.
As a freshman delegate, he championed the “Ashanti Alert,” which created a “critically missing adult” alert for missing or endangered adults. It was named after 19-year-old Ashanti Billie, who disappeared from a Virginia Beach Navy base in 2017. A version of the state law was later adopted at the federal level.
After penning an op-ed with a Republican senator in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the importance of investing in public schools in January, he voted along party lines to kill a Republican-sponsored bill establishing a state school construction fund that would administer grants for the design and construction of new schools and the rehabilitation and maintenance of aging schools.
And in the ongoing debate over police accountability and criminal justice reform, Jones has said he would introduce legislation to hold governments accountable and allow victims of police brutality to sue the city. Currently, localities and their employees are protected from liability in the event of police negligence or misconduct through something called sovereign immunity. He also said he would propose bills on police de-escalation training and use of force.
Jones got his undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary and his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he graduated from in 2015. He’s currently a partner at Bischoff Martingayle, where he focuses on civil, commercial, employment, criminal, traffic and municipal law. He lives in the Larchmont neighborhood of Norfolk.
Marie Albiges, 757-247-4962, malbiges@dailypress.com
