2023 Candidate Profile: Matt Lowery For Commonwealth's Attorney

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA — Matt Lowery is hoping to be Prince William County's new commonwealth's attorney after November's general election.

Lowery is challenging incumbent Amy Ashworth, who was elected in 2019.

Patch asked Lowery and Ashworth to fill out the following questionnaire to share with voters before November's election.

Name

Matthew B. Lowery

Town of Residence

Woodbridge

Party affiliation

Republican

Family? Names, ages and any other pertinent details you wish to share.

Two sons, ages 22 and 20 on Election Day.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My older son is employed as a career firefighter recruit in Prince William County.

Education Level

Juris Doctor, University of Richmond, 1997; B.A., Political Science, Magna Cum Laude, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1994.

Occupation, including employer and years of experience.

Practicing attorney for 26 years. Current employment: Attorney, Of Counsel, Tobias Iszard, PC, 9303 Grant Avenue, Manassas, VA 20110

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Assistant/Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney, Fairfax County, Virginia, 2020-2022; Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney, Prince William County, Virginia 2016-2019; Assistant/Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, 2004-2016

Campaign website

mattlowery4ca.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

My initial career goal was to be a firefighter. While working as a young volunteer firefighter in Woodbridge, I witnessed firsthand the effects of violent crime, drugs and other crimes, and worked directly alongside police officers while working to help stop it. This inspired me to do more, and I decided that I could better serve my community by becoming an attorney and a prosecutor. I went to college and law school, and eventually earned a spot in the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney for Prince William County, which was my dream job. I have served as a prosecutor and attorney supervisor for most of the last 20 years. I never thought that I'd need to run for office. In 2019, the current C.A. replaced Paul B. Ebert as the first new prosecutor to serve in PWC in more than 50 years. Upon taking office, prosecution policies and office procedures were intentionally changed by the sitting C.A. to follow a political agenda, not an agenda focused exclusively on sound policy and seeking justice. The results of these changes have been disastrous. Crime has spiked. Drugs are out of control. The streets have become dangerous and untenable. People fear crime. People have lost faith that they can get justice from the criminal justice system. These problems can be fixed. I know how to fix them. There isn't anyone else with my background, experience, or my drive to protect public safety. I'm running for office because I can make things better for everyone, and while on the campaign trail, I've come to feel that I'm running because it is my duty to do so.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

At this point in the campaign, I've knocked on hundreds of doors, and received reports from thousands. The most pressing issue in Greater Prince William County is crime. When I am elected Commonwealth's Attorney, I'll replace the incompetent prosecution policies of the current C.A. by removing all politically motivated policies and changing the focus of operations back to victim-centered and community-focused prosecution. This means treating victims of crime as the victims, and not the offenders, and making sure that in evaluating cases that community protection is valued more than preserving the clean record of undeserving offenders. These changes will result in a more fair and even-handed application of the law, and will put the focus of the entire office back onto protecting the entire population that it serves.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to recent issues (i.e. the pandemic)? What if anything would you have done differently?

Since the 2019 election cycle, our state and local officials have failed everyone by enacting crime policies and procedures that have made everyone less safe. There is a national-level criminal justice reform movement in the United States. Many of the problems addressed by the national criminal justice reform movement (e.g., cashless bail, elimination of private prisons, abusive charging decisions by prosecutors) are not, and have not been significant issues in Virginia, which has long been the vanguard of fairness and correct criminal justice operations. Without regard to that, elected leaders at every level have "fixed what wasn't broken" in the name of "criminal justice reform", and have made a complete mess of criminal justice, and in the process have endangered us all, and made everyone's life worse. As the elected prosecutor, the single thing that can be done differently is to recognize that the job of a prosecutor is to enforce the law, and not to make the law. Discretion can be applied to individual cases, but not to entire classes of cases. Changing the law is the province of the General Assembly. Justice starts when prosecutors hold the line on following the law, and hold accountable those who break it.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I was inspired to run for office out of a sense of duty to serve my community and to see to the protection of my neighbors. The incumbent has publicly admitted that she never intended to be the prosecutor, and that she ran only after she was recruited to run for Commonwealth's Attorney by politicians who needed a voice in the C.A.'s Office to provide political cover for and to help push through changes to the criminal law, many of which have had negative effects on public safety.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

The greatest failure of the incumbent has been her intentional destruction of a well-functioning criminal justice system in Greater Prince William County, which has been compounded by a failure to acknowledge or adjust to the skyrocketing crime that has resulted, in part, because of the failed policies of the C.A.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

My sole focus in running for this office is the restoration and maintenance of competent, even-handed, and community-focused prosecution policies, which will have the effect of deterring crime, holding offenders properly accountable, and protecting all of us.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have prosecuted cases ranging from traffic tickets to capital murder. I am an award-winning instructor of prosecutors statewide. I was honored to serve on the faculties of Virginia's Homicide prosecutor's school and Virginia's elite counter-narcotics school. I have protected children. I have saved people from human trafficking. I have kept people from dying from drugs. I have been a supervisor and helped to mentor other prosecutors into successful careers. Most importantly, I have earned the endorsements of Paul B. Ebert and the Prince William County Police Association, because they know best what sort of prosecutor our jurisdictions need, and have let the people know that I am the best candidate for the job.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Be yourself. Everything else will work out.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I think that when considering who should be the Commonwealth's Attorney, that politics and partisanship should be de-emphasized, if not completely ignored. Proper prosecution operations rely on policy, not politics, and those operations should only ever be guided by the law, the facts, and consideration of what is the "right thing" to do in each individual case. We don't have that right now because a political agenda is driving prosecution operations in our courthouse. I am running because the public deserves to know that when they are victimized, that they will get justice, that society will be protected, and that offenders will be fairly handled. I am the candidate to re-implement this.