JAHD KHALIL: Delegate-elect Stacey Carroll, thank you for joining us.

STACEY CARROLL: Thank you.

JAHD KHALIL: Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your district?

STACEY CARROLL: So my name is Stacey Carroll, I am the delegate-elect for the 64th District.

Prior to running for office and winning for the 64th district, I had no intentions or desires to run for public office.

My day job, I'm a CPA, licensed here in Virginia and DC, Ive been auditing the federal government's financial statements, working in public practice.

[Im] a member of the National Guard, I actually retire in a couple of more days from that in West Virginia.

And I'm a mom, a foster mom.

I've been enjoying my life, taking care of my part of the county, giving back and now delegate-elect for the 64th district here in Stafford.

JAHD KHALIL: This is a seat that you flipped, correct?

STACEY CARROLL: Yes.

JAHD KHALIL: So why do you think that you won?

STACEY CARROLL: I was able to go out and talk to every space or place here in the county.

You name it, I was there, whether it be a church, [indistinguishable], a mosque, at the commuter lots, at the Walmart at the local grocery stores.

You name it I was there talking to them about my story, who I am, why Im running and what I represent and once I win what I will do and how I will stand vote on issues as it relates to you.

I think the difference was, is I found myself talking more to people about what a delegate is and what they do.

Because most people that I talked to didn't even know who their current delegate was and or what the job title included.

So I spent more time educating, and I think it was just that personal connection when people can actually see not just another random politician, but they know me because I used to be a cheerleading coach here in Stafford County for the local parking racks, or their child went to school with my child at some point or they know me from church in some way, shape or form or some sort of other civic community organization that I'm a member of.

It made it a lot more personable than just some random person coming around and selling a dream.

JAHD KHALIL: Can you tell me why you decided to run for this office?

STACY CARROLL: Ahh!

Where do you want me to start?

The first thing that comes to my mind is I got tired of cussing at the TV, and I say that as authentically as possible.

Because a lot of times when we look at TV and we see the display of what politics is or how government is working, we often get frustrated because we feel that there's someone else better that can do the job for me.

With my financial background and understanding finances and policies, specifically government finances and policies, I understand it a little bit more, as well as me being a member of the National Guard.

I've been a member of the reserves, I have over five mobilizations so my vast array of experiences to be that would be working with foster care, or even having my son as a junior in high school.

All these breadth of experience experiences provided me the opportunity to come in and say, hey, you know, there's a way to be efficient and still provide the necessary services needed in order for our county to thrive.

And I just felt like there needed to be a voice that could provide that whether it be lived experiences as well as experienced.

JAHD KHALIL: Were there any particular moments that you remember, you know, getting upset at what was going on on the TV that you'd like to share?

STACEY CARROLL: I think for me, there were a few you tell me which one you want me to do, and there were a few, right?

And it could be something as simple as seeing the legislation coming out from the federal level, right?

And the specifically the Big Beautiful Bill.

Just not quite sure, how it affected the— or how it will affect the localities and how it's already affecting the localities.

If that particular part of it was explained as our legislators up on— in Congress were voting for it.

To me, it's again, I know we all have a feeling and have a specific agenda, but dealing with fact and understanding how the changes and things that we make impact our day to day operations, such as how those changes affect the kids in foster care becomes very important.

JAHD KHALIL: Speaking of the Big Beautiful Bill, that's kind of going to put a lot of hard budget choices on Virginia in a lot of ways.

I know that there's discussions about, you know, should Virginia be raising more revenue through taxes or changes?

Should we be changing the services that we're providing to people because of that?

What balance do you think the new General Assembly should be taking when it comes to that?

STACEY CARROLL: We have different challenges ahead of us this current session because we do have some of those tax cuts that we know that are coming from the federal government that that specific aid that comes down to the commonwealth as well as the influx of, how regular people such as me already address the economy and don't want to be squeezed out from whether it be the top end or the bottom.

So we have to take those into consideration and make sure that we're conservative as possible when we're asking the taxpayer to bear those burdens and find innovative ways to be able to— whether it be generate revenue or make sure that we utilize the revenue that we currently have already, to the best of our ability.

JAHD KHALIL: What do you think the upcoming General Assembly should be doing about education policy, whether that's the compensation of teachers, the way that the curriculum is taught in schools all those sort of issues.

STACEY CARROLL: I think if there's one thing that that I would like to see, and I'm excited that, me and my colleagues will, I'm prayerful and hopeful that we will, implement legislation that is actually meaningful.

A lot of times we come in and we enact the legislation that sounds good, or the intent is good but the overall implementation of that policy on the local levels becomes maybe more tedious, and more work and more cost intuitive than we understand as legislators.

I am interested in us as a General Assembly slowing down and understanding how some of the mandates or things that we require for our localities to be able to do, how we really understand how that turns out to the end user prior to enacting some more legislation.

Generally speaking, I think we should, without question, fully fund the schools.

I am a product of public education.

My parents were products of public education.

My children and foster children are products of public education.

I stand behind public education.

So, I think as it relates to right now, that we see various changes coming out of the US Department of Education specifically from a Commonwealth of Virginia perspective.

We need to fully fund and support our schools to make sure that kids across the commonwealth, are fully supported and have an equal opportunity and access.

JAHD KHALIL: When you get sworn into office in January, do you have specific issues or plans that you have for the office?

STACEY CARROLL: Some of the issues that I align with mostly have always been some of that of our governor-elect, to be the affordability crisis.

We know that prices are going up.

I've spoke [in] detail with our current attorney general-elect on various policies that we could implement on how to make sure that we make things affordable right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia for renters such as, we know the RealPage lawsuit on the federal level, making sure that some of the legislation that our previous attorney general did not enact on behalf of the renters, that we do move forward with that.

And I'm excited about, some of the other legislation and pieces and stuff that we're able to implement.

But I think it's going to be once we get in the room on how we're going to be able to adequately address it in the scope of things.

JAHD KHALIL: Delegate-elect, thank you so much.

STACEY CARROLL: Thank you.