Where I Stand
Plainly.
Without hedging.
No party approval required.
Where I Stand
Plainly.Without hedging.No party approval required.
Democracy & rule of law
January 6th is my litmus test. Organized individuals attacked the United States Capitol. Any candidate who cannot say so plainly is not ready to serve in the institution those people attacked. Democracy is non-negotiable.
Fiscal Conservatism
Voting to add $5.7 trillion to the national debt while calling yourself a fiscal conservative is not a position - it is a performance. I will not perform fiscal conservatism. I will practice it.
Reproductive Freedom
A woman has a right to choose. This is settled for me. I will not relitigate it, and I will not hedge it.
Gun Rights & Gun Safety
The Second Amendment is the law of the land. Common-sense regulation is also the law of the land. Both are true simultaneously. I will not pretend otherwise, and I will not use either position to avoid the other.
Immigration
Reagan compromised. So should we. A workable solution exists - a pathway, enforcement, and human dignity - and it requires the courage to negotiate rather than perform outrage.
National Security
We are in an unauthorized war. Firing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Chief of Naval Operations made us more fragile, not stronger. Hampton Roads knows this. I will say it - and act on it.
Energy & Infrastructure
I've spent a decade modernizing power systems for the DoD and utilities. This isn't ideology. It's engineering. Hampton Roads deserves a representative who understands the grid as infrastructure and as national security.
Ending donor control
Billionaire donors have too much power over our courts and our policies. This campaign accepts no PAC money - none. I will govern for the people who send me to Washington, not the ones who paid to get me there.
PILLAR I
Defend the Constitution
I took an oath to the Constitution as a second lieutenant at 22. I've never stopped keeping it. The Constitution belongs to the people it protects, not to the officials it restrains.
Democracy & Rule of Law
January 6th is my litmus test. Organized individuals attacked the United States Capitol. 147 members of Congress objected to certified electors. These are facts, not opinions. Any candidate who cannot say so plainly is not ready to serve in the institution those people attacked. Democracy is non-negotiable.
National Security & Alliances
Wars without defined objectives do not end — they consume. The Iranian regime is totalitarian toward its own people and hostile to the United States. Being clear about the enemy does not excuse Congress from asking hard questions about the war's objectives and when and how they'll be achieved. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen senior military leaders have been relieved or forced out of service, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the commander of NATO's ground forces. These actions haven't made us stronger — they've weakened us. Finally, our alliances are being put to the test. We have the only NATO headquarters on North American soil right here in Norfolk. Walking away from our partners in arms makes every American, and particularly our local servicemembers deployed in harm's way, less safe.
Gun Rights & Gun Safety
The Second Amendment is the law of the land. Common-sense regulation is also the law of the land. Both are true simultaneously. I carried weapons professionally for 28 years — I know what they are for and what they can do. I will not pretend these two truths contradict each other, and I will not use either one to avoid the other.
Life and choice
I support a woman's right to choose, and while I hope she chooses life, it is her decision. Every circumstance is unique. She should be advised by her physician, not dictated to by the government. I personally agree with the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment, which Virginia voters will decide this November. These decisions are the most deeply personal ones a person may face in a lifetime. They do not belong to the government — not to Washington, and not to fifty statehouses deciding which medications a woman may buy, and which borders she may cross for care. They belong to the woman who must live with the choice. Our job, as neighbors and as a country, is to support her: before, during, and after her pregnancy, whatever she decides.
Immigration
I served alongside Marines who were immigrants. They were great Marines. Not being a citizen doesn't make you a villain or the enemy. Let's give them a path to citizenship. And if they commit crimes, they must go — that's the deal any nation of laws offers: welcome, and accountability. Reagan compromised. So should we. I will negotiate.
Democracy & Rule of Law
January 6th is my litmus test. Organized individuals attacked the United States Capitol. 147 members of Congress objected to certified electors. These are facts, not opinions. Any candidate who cannot say so plainly is not ready to serve in the institution those people attacked. Democracy is non-negotiable.
National Security & Alliances
Wars without defined objectives do not end — they consume. The Iranian regime is totalitarian toward its own people and hostile to the United States. Being clear about the enemy does not excuse Congress from asking hard questions about the war's objectives and when and how they'll be achieved. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen senior military leaders have been relieved or forced out of service, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the commander of NATO's ground forces. These actions haven't made us stronger — they've weakened us. Finally, our alliances are being put to the test. We have the only NATO headquarters on North American soil right here in Norfolk. Walking away from our partners in arms makes every American, and particularly our local servicemembers deployed in harm's way, less safe.
Gun Rights & Gun Safety
The Second Amendment is the law of the land. Common-sense regulation is also the law of the land. Both are true simultaneously. I carried weapons professionally for 28 years — I know what they are for and what they can do. I will not pretend these two truths contradict each other, and I will not use either one to avoid the other.
Life and choice
I support a woman's right to choose, and while I hope she chooses life, it is her decision. Every circumstance is unique. She should be advised by her physician, not dictated to by the government. I personally agree with the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment, which Virginia voters will decide this November. These decisions are the most deeply personal ones a person may face in a lifetime. They do not belong to the government — not to Washington, and not to fifty statehouses deciding which medications a woman may buy, and which borders she may cross for care. They belong to the woman who must live with the choice. Our job, as neighbors and as a country, is to support her: before, during, and after her pregnancy, whatever she decides.
Immigration
I served alongside Marines who were immigrants. They were great Marines. Not being a citizen doesn't make you a villain or the enemy. Let's give them a path to citizenship. And if they commit crimes, they must go — that's the deal any nation of laws offers: welcome, and accountability. Reagan compromised. So should we. I will negotiate.
PILLAR II
Fix the Broken System
I've spent my life around high-stakes systems. When a system fails, you don't scream at it. You find the broken components and you fix them. Congress is a broken system — and both parties built it that way.
A Congress That Legislates
The last full Congress enacted 274 public laws — among the fewest in modern history. Of those, 95 declared "national days" and 30 renamed post offices. That is not legislating. That is theater with a payroll. The first vote every new Congress takes is the rules vote — and with it, members hand their legislative power to party leadership. My commitment: I will not vote for any rules package that concentrates legislative power in leadership's hands, and I will work to build a bloc of members from both parties who refuse with me.
Budgets Done On Time, Honestly
In the fifty years the modern budget process has existed, Congress has passed all its spending bills on time exactly four times. The last time was 1997. $41 trillion in national debt by 2028 is not conservative — it is reckless. Voting to add more than $4 trillion to the debt while calling yourself a fiscal conservative is not a position; it is a performance. I will not perform fiscal conservatism. I will practice it: honest budgets, on time, with tradeoffs stated out loud.
Courts You Can Trust
Both parties dismantled the 60-vote consensus requirement for judicial confirmations — step by step, each convinced the other started it, each escalating when it held the majority. The result: judges confirmed by bare majorities, courts presumed partisan. I will support restoring consensus requirements for lifetime appointments. And the districts themselves are rigged. I will support independent redistricting nationwide: no party draws its own map, period.
Money You Can Trace
You can believe in me. You can donate to me. You cannot control me. This campaign takes no PAC money — not corporate, not party, not billionaire super PACs — and publishes its funding with 100% transparency. Every dollar this campaign raises comes from a person, is reported in the open, and buys exactly one thing: nothing. I invite every candidate in this race to do the same.
PILLAR III
Build the Future
I'm an engineer. Engineers don't fear the future — we build it, and we build the guardrails that keep it from hurting people. New technology should make ordinary people stronger, not just make powerful people richer.
Energy & the Environment
I have spent a decade modernizing power systems — microgrids, battery storage, grid resilience for utilities and the Department of Defense. The grid that powers your home, your base, and your shipyard is aging while demand is exploding. That is a national security issue, an economic development issue, and an environmental issue all at once. I don't need a party to tell me what to think about energy. I've built it.
This district already paid the price for letting politics override engineering. The federal government ordered a halt to the offshore wind project off Virginia Beach — the largest in the nation, supporting roughly 1,100 Hampton Roads jobs — citing security concerns it never specified about a project the military itself had already reviewed and approved. The 26-day stoppage added $228 million to the project's cost. That wasn't security. It was politics, and Hampton Roads got the bill.
AI & Technology
America must lead in AI — falling behind is not an option. But leading doesn't mean letting it happen to people. It means guardrails that protect workers, families, and kids — and access that lifts the shipyard worker and the small business owner, not just the shareholders of the companies that build it. Neither party knows what to do. We have seen this movie before. We don't have to repeat it. Guardrails and access, from day one. That's what an engineer means by built right.
PILLAR IV
Deliver for Hampton Roads
Everything above is about fixing the country. This is about your street. I'm not running to make a point — I'm running to represent a district, and a representative who can't point to what he delivered doesn't deserve the job twice.
Veterans & Military Families
This district has more veterans and military families per square mile than almost anywhere in America — and we are failing them in the one area that matters most: readiness. Ships going to sea in poor material condition. Aircraft grounded for repair. Vehicles that aren't ready. Service members who aren't trained. No amount of token improvements will fix a problem that is now decades in the making. I will fight for service members and their families, show up at the facilities that serve them, and measure my own performance by whether readiness improves. I intend to bring all my service and engineering experience to bear on this. We can — we must — do better.
Jobs, Costs & the Kitchen Table
The shipyards, the port, the bases, and the businesses that serve them are this district's economy — and every one of them is squeezed by the same things squeezing your family: costs rising faster than paychecks, housing that outruns wages, health care bills nobody can predict. I won't insult you with a slogan. Kitchen-table math is still math. I'll show my work.
A Coast That Stays Above Water
Hampton Roads floods on sunny days. Norfolk has the highest rate of sea-level rise on the East Coast - rising water and sinking land at once - it threatens homes, roads, and the naval infrastructure the entire country depends on. This is not a debate topic in this district. It's a drainage problem, an insurance problem, and a national security problem. Flood resilience funding for this region is a first-term priority.
Educators and Our Kids
Teachers are one of the most important groups in our society if not the most important. Parents deserve to be kept informed on decisions that materially affect their child’s wellbeing. Somehow education has become more of political cage fight with book bans on one side, wholesale mandates on the other, than a focus on the job that matters: teaching kids to read, think, and add. School boards together with educators should be developing curriculum, not individuals with an agenda, and not Washington. Congress’s role is funding and civil rights protections, not running a classroom. It is clear that some things must change, but I must be honest, education is not in my background the way national security or energy are. I will do the work and spend time with parents, teachers, and school boards to better understand what is needed.
"The nation that draws a broad line between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards."
— Lt. Gen. Sir William Francis Butler
REBECCA C. BERRY EXPERIENCED RESULTS DRIVEN LEADERSHIP
2035