over the course of my lifetime, and i m old. i was born in 1973. i know, right? over the course of my entire life, every time a new president has been elected to the white house, the other party wins the virginia governor s race the following year. virginia holds its governors races in off years, in odd years, and so there s always a governor s race after a presidential election. the year after. and it happens every single time that whoever the new president is who just won the presidency, the other party then wins in virginia, every single time. when i was 3, jimmy carter won the presidency in 1976, a democrat, obviously, then in 1977, a republican wins for virginia governor. then in 1980, it was ronald reagan who won the presidency, obviously a republican, and so in 1981 it was a democrat who won the virginia governor the following year. it happens every time. when george h.w. bush won in 88 as a republican, democrat won as governor in virginia. when clinton won, virginia
virginia holds its governors races in off years, in odd years, and so there s always a governor s race after a presidential election. the year after. and it happens every single time that whoever the new president is who just won the presidency, the other party then wins in virginia, every single time. when i was 3, jimmy carter won the presidency in 1976, a democrat, obviously, then in 1977, a republican wins for virginia governor. then in 1980, it was ronald reagan who won the presidency, obviously a republican, and so in 1981 it was a democrat who won the virginia governor the following year. it happens every time. when george h.w. bush won in 88 as a republican, democrat won as governor in virginia. when clinton won, virginia governor s race went to a republican in 1993. when george w. bush won in 2000, a democrat won the virginia governorship the following year. after obama won in 2008, that s how we got republican virginia governor bob mcdonald in 2009, after trump won
Turning point in your life. it seems to have set you off on the path you re on now. absolutely. the hate crime, to say the least, definitely changed my life, and the cyber harassment that ensued afterwards continued to do so. i m definitely one of the lucky ones. i m one of the people who have survived. i take it as an obligation and a responsibility to share my story because unlike heather heyer, you know, i m able to share my story as my own person and on my own behalf. luckily heather has her mother, susan and other folks around there to advocate on her behalf but as a survivors and one of the lucky ones, i m sharing my story. what should we understand, obviously you re now a practicing civil rights lawyer yourself. you have been through this process through a very unusual circumstance given what you went through. what should we understand? what should the country understand about this strategy, about using civil litigation, in
Which the victim, as the plaintiff goes after the perpetrators through civil litigation to bankrupt them, make them literally pay for what they have done. how should we understand that in terms of its overall effectiveness against these kinds of crimes or behavior, but also what kind of difference it makes to victims? absolutely, so civil litigation is just one of the many tools available to survivors of hate incidents and hate crimes. to be able to bring their perpetrators to accountability. in my suit, we were able to sue three of the individuals who cyber harassed me online as well as the daily stormers parent company, and they were using a novel kind of idea using public accommodations as that avenue, and so basically you re not allowed to discriminate against people because of places of public like schools and hospitals and other places that are accessible to the public. become able to use, you know,
So to his mind, that meant he didn t need to respond to the court anymore or produce any documents demanded by court order. you will be surprised to learn that the court disagreed, oops, i dropped it in the toilet isn t a legal defense to compulsory proceedings. so seven of these guys have already lost the case already by default judgment. three of them are facing fines over $10,000 already as sanctions from the court. and did i mention they re only at the point of jury selection? the thing hasn t even gotten started yet. the point of this litigation overtly is to bankrupt the neo-nazis and white sue prem zitss, the individual leader who is made charlottesville happened, who promised it would be used as an occasion to bring violence in the name of white supremacy, and to terrorize black and jewish people. that s what they did charlottes for, that s how they overtly planned t and that is how they carried it out. holding them accountable for it