Phyllis Randall

Randall grew up in Denver and moved to Ashburn, Virginia from Colorado in the early 1990s.^[2][3] She began her career as a mental health counselor,^[3] working with juvenile and adult offenders both in and outside of incarceration.^[4] Governor Tim Kaine, a Democrat, appointed her chair of the Virginia Fair Housing Board, a role she continued in under Republican Governor Bob McDonnell.^[4] Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe appointed her chair of the State Board of Corrections.^[4]

Randall ran unsuccessfully for Loudoun County school board in 2003 and for district supervisor in 2007 before being elected chair at-large in 2015.^[3] In the four-way race that year, Randall defeated the incumbent Scott York as well as the other challengers, winning with 37% of the vote.^[5] Her election made Randall the first African American woman in Virginia’s history to be an elected chair of a county board,^[6] as well as becoming one of the first two African Americans to serve on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, along with Sterling District Supervisor Koran Saines.^[7]

She was re-elected in 2019, overseeing a growing jurisdiction which by 2019 had 413,000 residents.^[1] With 56% of the vote, she defeated Republican John Whitbeck, despite Whitbeck fundraising more than $950,000 to Randall’s $616,000 in the last reporting period before the election.^[8]

Also in 2019, Randall was the defendant in a lawsuit, Davison v. Randall, that established public officials may not block constituents on government social media accounts, as a matter of First Amendment rights.^[9] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision found that Randall had converted her Facebook page into a public forum by inviting, in a post she wrote, “ANY Loudoun citizen on ANY issues, request, criticism, complement or just your thoughts” as well as encouraging constituents to use her “county Facebook page” to contact her.^[10] Consequently, the court said, when she deleted a critical post alleging corruption by the county board and blocked its author, she violated the poster’s First Amendment rights.^[10] Randall tried to justify her actions by claiming her Facebook page was "private" despite using her government-paid Chief of Staff to administer the page. Use of a public official for private purposes constitutes a crime in Loudoun County. The case drew particular attention because at the time US President Donald Trump was also blocking critics on social media.^[10]

Randall lives in Lansdowne, Virginia.^[3] She is married with two children.^[11]

• Twitter