1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

We are writing to demand your public condemnation of Rep. Jen Kiggans, who today agreed with and amplified racially charged language directed at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — the highest-ranking Black Democrat in the United States Congress — in retaliation for his support of Virginia’s redistricting effort. During a radio interview on Richmond’s Morning News this morning, a host used a racist term to attack Jeffries for speaking out about Virginia’s congressional maps. Kiggans did not push back. She agreed. This did not happen in a vacuum. Consider what Virginians have witnessed in the span of just six days: On May 6, the FBI raided the office of State Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas — the chief architect of Virginia’s redistricting referendum and one of the most powerful Black women in Virginia politics — while the Virginia Supreme Court was still deliberating the legality of those maps. Senator Lucas has not been charged with any crime. On May 8, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the redistricting referendum that 52% of Virginia voters had approved at the ballot box. And today, May 11, Rep. Kiggans went on the radio and agreed with a host using racist language to dismiss the Black leader who has vowed to keep fighting. This is a pattern. A federal raid on a Black lawmaker. A court ruling stripping voters of their approved maps. And now a sitting congresswoman amplifying racist attacks on the man leading the response. Silence in the face of this pattern is complicity. We demand that you publicly condemn Rep. Kiggans’ remarks, stand with Senator Lucas, and speak plainly to Virginians about what this week has made unmistakably clear. Democracy is not just a policy position. It is a promise. Keep it.