Danica Anthony Roem ( ; born September 30, 1984) is an American journalist and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party. In the 2017 Virginia elections she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, winning the Democratic primary for the 13th district on June 13, and the general election on November 7. She is the first out transgender person to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and in January 2018 became the first to both be elected and serve while openly transgender in any U.S. state legislature.
Early life and education
Roem was born at Prince William Hospital and raised in Manassas, Virginia, the child of Marian and John Paul Roem. Her father died by suicide when she was three years old, and her maternal grandfather, Anthony Oliveto, acted as a father figure. Living in Manassas, Virginia, for her whole life, she attended the majority of her schooling there. She went to Loch Lomond Elementary School for grades K-3, and then All Saints School for grades 4–8. She then attended Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax, Virginia, and then went to her aunt and uncle's alma mater, St. Bonaventure University in St. Bonaventure, New York, to pursue journalism. As a student at St. Bonaventure University, she had a 1.1 GPA her first semester and was more focused on music than homework. During her second semester, she made a comeback and raised her GPA to a 3.48 and made the Dean's List. Her professors described her as tenacious, persistent, and someone who worked for those whose voices were often ignored. She returned to Virginia after graduation.
Roem has stated that her role models growing up were Senator Chuck Colgan and Delegate Harry Parrish because, although they were affiliated with a party, they had more independent ideologies.
Journalism career
When Roem was a child, her grandfather would tell her, "the basis of my knowledge comes from reading the newspaper every day." This influenced her to become a journalist. She was a journalist for ten and a half years. Her first job out of college, in 2006, was at the Gainesville Times in Gainesville, Virginia. She was lead reporter for the Gainesville Times and Prince William Times. She then went to work as a news editor in August 2015 at the Montgomery County Sentinel in Rockville, Maryland, where she was employed until December 2016. She then decided to run for public office. She said her journalism career has given her a wide knowledge of policy issues. She won awards from the Virginia Press Association seven times.
Political positions
Education
Roem opposes a bill that would require schools to notify parents if their child identifies as a gender different from the student's assigned sex.
Freedom of the press
In 2020, Roem, a former journalist, co-sponsored a bill (HB 36) to protect freedom of the press. The bill would affirmatively protect the free-speech rights of student journalists at public schools and prohibit school administration from censoring their work unless it is defamatory, violates federal law, or is likely to spur unlawful acts of violence. The bill was co-sponsored in the House by Chris Hurst and has a companion bill in the Senate which was introduced by David W. Marsden. The bill was introduced in response to multiple instances of schools censoring journalism by students on campus, which is permitted under the 1988 Supreme Court ruling Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. Similar bills have been introduced by Roem and other General Assembly members in three previous legislative sessions but have failed to advance.
Political career
Elections
2017 election
Roem first became interested in politics in 2004 following President George W. Bush's proposal to add a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. After that, she was interested in looking into how the government operates and how she could change it.
Roem was recruited to run for the Virginia House of Delegates by her local Democratic Party and specifically Delegate Rip Sullivan, the recruiting chair for the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. She states that she had never considered running, but it did not take a lot of convincing. In 2017, a first-time candidate, Roem challenged Republican Bob Marshall, who was a 13-term incumbent representative. Marshall is a self-described "chief homophobe" and was a sponsor on Virginia's bill to end same-sex marriage and Virginia's bathroom bill.