Eileen Filler-Corn
Eileen Robin Filler-Corn is an American lawyer and politician who served as the Minority Leader of the Virginia House of Delegates from January to April 2022, a position she previously held from 2019 to 2020. She previously served as the 56th Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates from 2020 to 2022. She represented the 41st district in the Fairfax County suburbs of Washington, D.C., from 2010 to 2024. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She is also the first woman and Jewish person to serve as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Personal life
Filler-Corn was born in New York City and grew up in West Windsor, New Jersey, graduating from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School in 1982. She graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986. She attended law school at American University's Washington College of Law in 1993. In the time between her two college stints, she worked on Democrat Jeff Laurenti's unsuccessful 1986 campaign to defeat incumbent Republican congressman Chris Smith. She has two children with her husband Robert Corn, President of Landmark Strategies, Inc., a national issue advocacy, grassroots engagement and campaign voter contact firm.Career
Filler-Corn made her first run for office in 1999, running unsuccessfully for the 41st district seat.She again ran for the seat in a 2010 special election to replace David W. Marsden, who had himself won a special election to the Senate of Virginia the month before. She won by 37 votes. She was sworn in on March 3, 2010, after her opponent dropped his plans to request a recount.
During the 2010 campaign, she was endorsed by Jim Dillard, the Republican incumbent who had defeated her in 1999 because of her opponent's position that funding for Fairfax County Public Schools was "excessive".
On January 1, 2019, Filler-Corn became Leader of the House Democratic Caucus, and was the first woman to lead a caucus in the 400-year history of the Virginia House of Delegates. From 2020 to 2022, Filler-Corn served as the Chair of the Rules Committee and as Chair of the Joint Rules Subcommittee.
On January 8, 2020, the new Democratic majority elected Filler-Corn Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. She is both the first woman and Jewish person to serve in this position. On November 9, 2019, following elections where the Democratic Party of Virginia won control of the House, the incoming caucus officially nominated her for the position of Speaker in the 161st General Assembly. She began her term as Speaker on January 8, 2020.
On May 26, 2020, Filler-Corn endorsed Joe Biden for President after he had secured the nomination and was the presumptive nominee.
On April 27, 2022, Filler-Corn was removed from her position as Democratic leader after a vote of the party caucus; no official reason was given at that point in time. The caucus did not have an immediate vote to fill the position, but it is now held by Don Scott. It was later revealed that she was accused of not spending enough on Democratic House of Delegates races, money that her critics felt might have made a difference in some tight House races that went to Republicans.
In May 2022, a judge fined Filler-Corn $500 for violating the Freedom of Information Act. The violation occurred after a lawyer requested records on details surrounding the removal of Confederate statues from the Virginia State Capitol, which Filler-Corn responded stating that the documents did not exist. The lawyer then filed a FOIA request with the Virginia Department of General Services, which did return records.
In March 2023, Filler-Corn announced she would not run for reelection. On October 18, 2023, she announced that she would run for Congress in Virginia's 10th congressional district to succeed outgoing U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton. She lost the Democratic primary to Suhas Subramanyam.
In June 2023, a campaign finance complaint was filed to the Federal Election Commission against Filler-Corn, alleging violations of federal campaign finance laws. The complaint claimed her campaign misreported contributions and expenses and failed to accurately disclose donor information, raising concerns about transparency and compliance with campaign finance regulations. According to the complaint, Filler-Corn gave the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC $110,000 a day after the group endorsed her.