Phyllis Randall

Phyllis Joycelyn Randall (born ) She began her career as a mental health counselor,

Randall ran unsuccessfully for Loudoun County school board in 2003 and for district supervisor in 2007 before being elected chair at-large in 2015. Her election made Randall the first African American woman in Virginia’s history to be an elected chair of a county board, as well as becoming one of the first two African Americans to serve on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, along with Sterling District Supervisor Koran Saines.

She was re-elected in 2019, overseeing a growing jurisdiction which by 2019 had 413,000 residents. With 56% of the vote, she defeated Republican John Whitbeck, despite Whitbeck fundraising more than $950,000 to Randall’s $616,000 in the last reporting period before the election.

Also in 2019, Randall was the defendant in a lawsuit, Davison v. Randall, that established public officials may not block constituents on government social media accounts, as a matter of First Amendment rights. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision found that Randall had converted her Facebook page into a public forum by inviting, in a post she wrote, “ANY Loudoun citizen on ANY issues, request, criticism, complement or just your thoughts” as well as encouraging constituents to use her “county Facebook page” to contact her. Consequently, the court said, when she deleted a critical post alleging corruption by the county board and blocked its author, she violated the poster’s First Amendment rights.

Electoral history