My friend Matthew Berry recently announced that he is running for Congress in Northern Virginia. Specifically, he is presently running in the GOP primary in the Virginia 8th District that covers the Virginia suburbs right outside DC (Arlington, Alexandria, and Reston). The seat is presently held by Democrat Jim Moran. Matthew is the former General Counsel of the FCC, a former law clerk to Justice Thomas, and a tremendously sharp and thoughtful guy. I’m happy to support him, and I’m very glad he’s running. You can read more on the candidacy over at his website.
Jay says:
I’m not sure what chances an apparently openly gay, yet also apparently very conservative, fellow like Mr. Berry has of either winning the primary or defeating Jim Moran, but I hope someone does.
January 29, 2010, 5:40 pmArthurKirkland says:
I have long admired Matthew Berry for his extraordinary insight and strong record . . . ready to start pushing the Berry bandwagon with enthusiasm . . . until I determined the guy running is the wrong Matthew Berry.
After reviewing candidate Berry’s resume, I believe he would serve America best from the private sector.
January 29, 2010, 5:44 pmDr. Patent says:
It’s a shame that Moran will continue to represent this District. It’s gerrymandered so that the only way to beat him is in the primary. Mr. Berry probably is a fine fellow, but he can’t win unless Moran actually gets indicted, and even them it would be close.
January 29, 2010, 5:47 pmtherut says:
I hope he wins Moran is repulsive.
January 29, 2010, 5:52 pmAnonAnon says:
I, too, hoped this was about the Talented Mr. Roto.
January 29, 2010, 5:54 pmSteve says:
Anyone who has a paean to judicial restraint in the first paragraph of their bio must be a true believer!! Best of luck to your friend.
January 29, 2010, 6:00 pmSecurityGeek says:
Considering his interesting mix of personal story, political party, focus on “judicial restraint” and entire web page on “Individual Rights”, I would be interested in hearing his opinion on the Prop 8 federal trial. Is he a Ted Olson conservative?
January 29, 2010, 6:49 pmFedya says:
Somebody ought to tell people to design their web-pages so that you can read them with images turned off.
January 29, 2010, 7:34 pmDr. Barry says:
Was Mr. Berry out when he clerked for Justice Thomas?
Moran is rotten, especially on Israel and other Middle East issues. Good luck to Berry!
January 29, 2010, 8:35 pmDG says:
Moran is an outrageous anti-semite, as well as having quite a history of corruption. Arthur Kirkland – he’s your choice?
January 29, 2010, 8:40 pmDavid Nieporent says:
I hate when these foreign corporations like the Volokh Conspiracy try to influence American elections.
January 29, 2010, 8:49 pmArthurKirkland says:
Moran is an outrageous anti-semite, as well as having quite a history of corruption. Arthur Kirkland — he’s your choice?
Can we share hope that a better candidate emerges? Neither of the current choices is attractive.
January 29, 2010, 8:52 pmHoyaSaxa says:
I’m not exactly sure what some posters are referring to with the description “openly gay” or the question: “Was Mr. Berry out when he clerked for Justice Thomas?”. When I clerked for Matthew at the Institute for Justice during my second year of law school at Georgetown, I certainly didn’t know that he was gay. Not that he would have any reason to discuss his sexuality with me (I mostly obtained research assignments via email, and it wasn’t a long gig), but I just note for the record that he certainly didn’t have “gay pride” or triangle bumper stickers stuck to his officer door or anything if that’s what you’re referring to. If his friends and full-time employees of I.J. knew that he was gay, does that make him “openly gay”? I’m just asking since I’m not sure is being referred to here.
Anyway, most folks at I.J. were much more libertarian than traditionally conservative in their viewpoints, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he is in line with Ted on the gay marriage arguments (but I also wouldn’t at all be surprised if he views Ted’s constitutional arguments as a call for ridiculous judicial activism). But I have absolutely no idea what his views are on the subject, although I’m sure he’ll be asked about it soon if he hasn’t been already. All I know is that he came across as very smart, very measured, and quite nice.
I’ll have to forego a few cases of Monsters at Costco this month to make room in my budget to contribute to his campaign.
January 29, 2010, 9:03 pmJestak says:
Moran is not my favorite Democrat, but there’s nothing in Berry’s issue stands that I find at all attractive. He’s a routine Republican right-winger on virtually every issue, with nothing to offer but standard Republican talking points and boilerplate.
January 29, 2010, 9:48 pmJay says:
I had never heard of the guy in my life until this post, but discerned that he was open about his sexual orientation by reading to the end of his campaign site bio page, which says he lives with his partner Josh.
January 29, 2010, 11:56 pmyao says:
Do Republicans even have openly gay elected officials? Is this a point of pride, or is it something that bothers them?
January 30, 2010, 3:59 amJeff Walden says:
Wait, is this an election where you could legitimately and intelligently (if over-vociferously) make a sign that said “Get a brain! Moran!” (taking liberties with punctuation slightly)? Somebody please make this sign and pose for the picture! :-D
January 30, 2010, 5:44 amPorkchop says:
Having lived in Arlington for 30 years and having once been a member of the Arlington County Republican Central Committee, I can confidently state that that Mr. Berry’s chances of being elected are on a par with the proverbial snowball in Hell. Jim Moran is repugnant, but most likely would still win even if he were caught in bed with both “a dead girl [and] a live boy.” It has been years since Arlington elected an openly Republican candidate to office. (David Foster, a Republican, won a seat on the school board twice, but did not run as a Republican — the school board is nominally nonpartisan.)
January 30, 2010, 8:26 amManju says:
If he can get Monica and Rachel to campaign, he might have a shot.
January 30, 2010, 1:43 pmbyomtov says:
I’ll take Orin’s word that Berry is “a tremendously sharp and thoughtful guy.” Looking at the discussion of issues on his website, though, you wouldn’t know it. As Jestak says, he doesn’t offer much but standard Republican boilerplate.
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January 31, 2010, 11:34 pmBama 1L says:
I’ll give Berry this: coming out as gay now shows he’s smarter than some Virginia Republicans.
Virginia’s state Republicans have been pretty anti-gay and have mounted some pretty serious attacks on property rights to achieve their aims. It will be interesting to see how much support Berry gets from that quarter. Of course Moran can’t be beat, so it doesn’t matter.
February 1, 2010, 1:52 amThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Matthew Berry for Congress says:
[...] share Orin’s enthusiasm for Matthew, and just donated to the campaign, at berry2010.com. I urge you folks to do the same. [...]
March 5, 2010, 2:35 pm