PrincipAl Biographies
Charlie brings more than two decades of experience advancing his clients’ government relations and political goals in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Charlie has advanced a wide array of interests in the halls of Virginia’s General Assembly, Executive branch and many of the state’s Boards and Commissions. He has lobbied and managed state politics for major Labor Unions, telecommunications companies, energy utilities, the casino industry, animal welfare organizations, K-12 public education and more.
Charlie has done considerable work for Labor Unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its locals 32BJ and 512 and the Laborers International Union of North America. Through his advocacy for working people, Charlie helped secure a path to $15 per hour for Virginia workers, a repeal of the Commonwealth’s prohibition on Collective Bargaining rights for public sector employees, and a substantial raise for thousands of workers at National and Dulles airports. Through his work with Governor Terry McAuliffe’s Administration, Charlie helped secure the Commonwealth’s first state-incentivized Project Labor Agreement. Charlie’s work for SEIU on behalf of Medicaid-reimbursed home care workers resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being allocated to raise rates, provide hazard pay and PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic and secure overtime and paid sick benefits.
Charlie has a proven track record of working effectively with Virginia’s Democratic trifecta, and his work during the 2019 and 2020 legislative and special sessions led to policy victories for his clients. On behalf of Rush Street Gaming, Charlie worked to ensure passage of historic casino gaming legislation. On behalf of Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS), Charlie worked to ensure that the school division was adequately funded during the pandemic and to declare a gun-free zone on its school division-owned property.
Charlie continues to represent major interests at the state and federal levels, including SEIU, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Rush Street Gaming, Dominion, Crown Castle, Loudoun County Public Schools, the Hopewell Fund and Church World Service, among others.
At the local level, Charlie has successfully managed communications, political, grassroots and direct lobbying campaigns for numerous developers, most notably for Leesburg developer John Andrews and Green Energy Partners on the unanimous 2010 approval of a 780-megawatt natural gas power plant in Loudoun County, Va., one of the nation’s fastest growing and wealthiest localities. More recently, Jackson-West has worked on behalf of Crown Castle within Arlington, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Albemarle County and other localities to advance small cell, fiber and cellphone tower applications.
Charlie’s ties within the Democratic Party are deep. He served two terms as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia’s 10th Congressional District and as a member of the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Steering Committee. He is the immediate past PAC Board Chairman for NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. In 2015, Virginia’s left-of-center blog, “Blue Virginia,” named Charlie the biggest winner during the Democratic primary campaign, as he helped lead a coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups to primary victories across the Commonwealth.
Christopher
West
Partner, Vice President of Public Affairs
For nearly twenty years, Chris has effectively offered public affairs, government relations strategy and issues management counsel to a broad range of corporate and nonprofit clients, including six annually ranked in the Top 15 of Fortune Magazine's "Top 100" Companies in America. In addition to his role at Jackson-West, Chris has spent the past fifteen years partnering with many of Washington D.C.'s top public affairs and lobbying firms as an outside consultant and field manager, where he has focused on coalition building, grasstops outreach, and local, state and federal government relations. These combined professional experiences have afforded him an insider's access to the skills and expertise of some of America's top government and public relations consultants.
Chris possesses an innate understanding of legislative, regulatory and reputational challenges facing organizations in a variety of industries and at all three levels of government. His professional career is built on a unique foundation, that of having worked at the local, state and federal levels. This gives him an inimitable perspective on public policy and public affairs issues and allows him to apply this expertise to help clients navigate the halls of power. Formerly he served in the federal office of United States Senator George Allen, the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and a Deputy Clerk for the Circuit Court of Virginia. Chris began his career volunteering and then being professionally hired on a wide variety of political campaigns ranging from local, state and statewide elections to federal elections for U.S. Senate and ultimately a role on Bush-Cheney 2004 in the crucial swing state of Florida.
In additional to his role at Jackson-West, Chris is also the founder of L5AutoUSA, a business that merges government affairs and public policy professionals with autonomous vehicle consultants. L5AutoUSA strives to educate, influence, and prepare both the private and public sectors, academia and policymakers on the future of autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence.
Over the last several years, Chris has gained a profound understanding of autonomous technologies which, combined with his nationwide background in public affairs, has allowed him to uniquely address some of the technological and societal challenges of an autonomous world, focusing primarily on the two largest obstacles facing the future of mobility; government regulation(s) and general public acceptance. As a thought-leader in the autonomous industry, Chris has presented before and advised numerous transportation planners, local and state elected officials, autonomous vehicle and technology companies, private-sector entities and local, regional and national transportation planning organizations.
Chris is very active in his Church, a Past-President and three-time Paul Harris Fellow in his Rotary Club, and two-time Past Master of his Masonic Lodge. He holds B.A. degree in Political Science with a minor in U.S. History from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.