Dan Helmer

Helmer is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, and several domestic postings. He works as a business strategist in the private sector advising both U.S. government agencies and companies. He is a Rhodes Scholar.[1]

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What would be your top three priorities, if elected?

1. Ensuring that Northern Virginia finally gets its fair share of transportation funding so that we spend less time in traffic and more time with our families.

2. Investing in our teachers and schools to ensure every NOVA student has access to a high quality public school education that prepares them for citizenship and the 21st Century work force, including high quality trade apprenticeships and community college.

3. Protecting Virginian's access to healthcare, including ensuring those with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage, driving down the cost of healthcare, and protecting women’s access to reproductive health services.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

1. Everyday I get up, put my son on the bus, and begin an hour-long commute to the small business I help run. Like so many Virginians, this commute takes days away from my time with my family, costs my business and our staff vast sums each year, and creates pollution that hurts our health and our climate. For a generation, some local politicians have chosen to serve partisan interests instead of the interests of our community. While cynically claiming credit for minor transportation improvement enacted by the County, these politicians have starved Northern Virginia of hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation funding – all while sending our hard-earned taxpayer money to build roads in other parts of the state. As a result, too many of our roads are in disrepair, we have limited pedestrian options, and parts of our Metro system are shutting down for months of repairs due to a lack of maintenance. I’m passionate about fighting to ensure Northern Virginia finally gets its fair share of transportation funding and investment and that we develop transportation solutions that ease traffic, address pollution, and have us at home with our families.

2. My family and I have access to healthcare as a result of my military service and for years I’ve worked to help solve some of the most vexing challenges in healthcare access and cost for America’s veterans. I believe that EVERY Virginian should have access to affordable healthcare. This means protecting access for those with pre-existing conditions, lowering costs, expanding access to mental healthcare in Virginia, and ensuring recent assaults on women’s access to reproductive health services in places like Alabama and Missouri don’t happen here in Virginia.

3. My wife Karen is a Fairfax County Public School teacher and both of my children go to Fairfax County Public Schools. For far too long we’ve underinvested in our schools leading to an 8% drop in per-pupil funding in the last decade. My son spends part of his day attending class in a trailer, while my wife is often up working until 10 or 11 PM at night because she doesn’t have the resources she needs in her classroom and she’s not going to let her students fail. This is simply unacceptable. Every child deserves a high quality public education and it’s time we finally had a representative who will fight for our families.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Leadership, service, and the ability to put community interests ahead of partisan ones are critical characteristics for any elected official. As a leader in the Army in combat zones you never ask the person sitting next to you in a HMMWV whether they are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. You focus on getting the mission done, serving the interests of our country, and bringing soldiers home safely. Politics should work the same way but too often some local politicians have used their office to personally enrich themselves from campaign accounts, serve special interests instead of the public interest, and gerrymander districts to deny constituents the ability to change representation. This is out of step with our ideals and has contributed to vast dysfunction in Richmond. That’s why we need elected officials who will lead and serve the community by enacting campaign finance reform, ending partisan gerrymandering, and focusing on pragmatic problem-solving to address the needs of our community.

What happened on your most awkward date?

I was still in high school and I picked up a girl from her family’s house. Her parents looked skeptically at what they regarded as a slovenly approach to dress and read me the riot act about getting her home on time. I then took her out to dinner at pizza place that probably later gave her food poisoning. We went to a movie. but neither of us really enjoyed it and we had to leave early to make it home on time. I’m not sure what she saw in me but she kept dating me, first through high school, then through four years at West Point. Finally, we got married and have two beautiful boys together. Karen is my best friend and the love of my life and is proof that sometimes love can transcend a terrible, awkward date.

What is your favorite holiday? Why?

We are a Jewish family and my favorite holiday is Passover, the celebration and remembrance of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. As a child, my extended family would gather each year at my Great-Grandma Lina and Great-grandpa Sam’s home. There, we would recall the tale of the Exodus. For our family this isn’t an event from the deep Biblical past. Instead, it is a remembrance of our own Exodus – survival of our family in hiding in Poland during the Holocaust, escape from the Soviet Union, and finally safety in our Promised Land -- the United States of America. Growing up with this story left me deeply dedicated to serving our country, which welcomed my family and gave us the opportunity to live in peace. It’s why I attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy and, after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, am still an officer in the US Army Reserve. It’s why, today, I’m running for public office, because I believe we deserve public servants who will put our community first and know we can do better than our current politics.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

Just reading this question now has the Cranberries’ song “Zombie” stuck in my head.