Tom Perriello

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Tom Perriello is an American public entrepreneur and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from the fifth district of Virginia. Perriello, a Democrat and resident of Albemarle County, is currently a guest lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law where he teaches a course on transitional justice. He has spent much of his career working in Western Africa and the Middle East to create strategies for sustainable peace, and he was involved in the peace processes that helped end the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.^[1] As a public entrepreneur, he has helped to launch organizations and movements focused on social justice and human rights. He is a founding partner of Res Publica, which develops innovative solutions to global justice and security threats, and of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which has worked since the 2004 election to help balance and expand the faith and values discourse in America. The 2008 congressional race is Perriello's first run for elected office.

1 Biography
2 Campaign for Congress
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Born and raised in Albemarle County, Perriello attended Murray, Meriwether Lewis, Henley and Western Albemarle High School in the county school system, and then graduated from St. Anne's-Belfield School. He received both his B.A. (1996) and J.D. (2001) from Yale University. From 2002-03, Perriello was special advisor to the international prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where he worked with child soldiers, amputees, and local pro-democracy groups, and helped to prosecute warlords.^[2] He then became Special Advisor and spokesperson for the international prosecutor who indicted Liberian dictator Charles Taylor and helped force him from power peaceably. He has been a consultant to the International Center for Transitional Justice in Kosovo (2003), Darfur (2005), and Afghanistan (2007) where he worked on justice-based security strategies. Perriello has also been a fellow at The Century Foundation and consultant to the National Council of Churches of Christ. He helped to launch FaithfulAmerica.org, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and is a co-founder of DarfurGenocide.org and Avaaz.org, an international on-line community of 1.5 million members, operating in 12 languages, dedicated to building a global response to "problems without borders," such as climate change. He has also worked with the Rev. James Forbes on prophetic justice principles.^[3]

[edit] Campaign for Congress

Perriello is challenging seven-term congressman Virgil Goode, a Republican, who made headlines in 2006 for his comments regarding Congressman-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Islam, the Bible, and immigration. In his bid for Congress, Perriello is calling for a restoration of America's commitment to the common good. He has twice broken fundraising records for the district^{[citation needed]} and out-raised Virgil Goode in 2007.^[4]^[5]

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has targeted the Goode-Perriello race, partly based on the level of local fundraising.^[6]^[7] But as of May 20, 2008, CQ Politics and other analysts consider the seat safe Republican.^[8]^[9]^[10] Democratic Governor Tim Kaine carried the district narrowly in the 2005 gubernatorial election.^[11]