Zerlina chats with Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD-04), Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-04) & Rep. Bobby Sands (D-VA-03) about last week's presidential debate, the stakes of this year's election and more!
Guests
Rep. Glenn Ivey
Congressman Glenn Ivey is an attorney who served on Capitol Hill as chief counsel to the Senate Majority Leader, as counsel to Senator Paul Sarbanes during the Whitewater investigations, Chief Majority Counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, and on the staff of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). He also worked for U.S. Attorney Eric Holder as an assistant U. S. Attorney, and as chair of Maryland’s Public Service Commission. He was twice elected as State's Attorney for Prince George's County where he worked with the Obama Administration to cut crime.
Congressman Ivey established Ivey & Levetown in 2020, and recently represented a Lafayette Square protestor, arguing that the facial recognition software used to identify him compounds discrimination against dark-skinned people. The Department of Justice threw out the case. As chair of the County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ Police Reform Taskforce in 2020 Ivey led the committee that examined the police department’s internal policies.
As Prince George's County State's Attorney, he created a first-of-its-kind Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit and pushed for stronger witness intimidation penalties. When the real estate market went south, he established an award-winning mortgage fraud unit that stood up for homeowners.
Rep. Jennifer McClellan
Jennifer McClellan entered the U.S. Congress in 2023 after winning a special election to replace the late Congressman A. Donald McEachin. A lifelong Virginia native, McClellan was born in Petersburg to parents who served the community: her father worked as a professor at Virginia State University and her mother worked as a counselor at VSU. McClellan attended Matoaca High School in Chesterfield County, where she was valedictorian. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond, where she served as a Charter member of the Rho Rho Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She then obtained her Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law. McClellan has served the greater Richmond area in elected office for nearly twenty years. She was first elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2005 and served in that post until she was elected to the Virginia State Senate in 2017, where she succeeded A. Donald McEachin after his election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In Congress, she sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. A principled and progressive legislator, McClellan has always worked to ensure Virginians’ voices are heard in government.
Rep. Bobby Scott
Robert C. "Bobby" Scott has represented Virginia's third congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. Prior to his service in Congress, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1978 to 1983 and in the Senate of Virginia from 1983 to 1993.
During his tenure in the Virginia General Assembly, Congressman Scott successfully sponsored laws critical to Virginians in education, employment, health care, social services, economic development, crime prevention and consumer protection. His legislative successes in the General Assembly included laws that increased Virginia's minimum wage, created the Governor's Employment and Training Council and improved health care benefits for women, infants and children.
His 1992 election to Congress gave Congressman Scott the distinction of being the first African-American elected to Congress from Virginia since John Mercer Langston’s election more than 100 years earlier during the Reconstruction era. Having a maternal grandfather of Filipino ancestry also gives him the distinction of being the first American with Filipino ancestry to serve as a voting member of Congress.
In the 118th Congress, Congressman Scott serves as the Ranking Member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce—his fifth term as the Committee’s Democratic leader. Throughout his tenure, he has advanced legislation that improves equity in education, frees students from the burdens of debt, protects and expands access to affordable health care, ensures workers have a safe workplace where they can earn a living wage free from discrimination, and guarantees seniors have a secure and dignified retirement. Congressman Scott also serves on the Committee on the Budget where he is a leading voice on fiscal policy.
