Andrew Kerley, Executive Editor
Charlie Schmidt took it all the way.
Once like many-a-VCU-student — riding the city bus lines and organizing anti-war protests — the academic turned activist, civil rights lawyer and public librarian recently secured himself a seat at the Virginia State Capitol after winning a special election to fill a House of Delegates seat between Southside Richmond and Chesterfield in an upset victory.
In a shuffle between deep-blue districts, Schmidt ran to replace the seat held by Del. Mike Jones, who will soon be known as Sen. Mike Jones after running to fill the seat left behind by Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi.
Schmidt’s main hurdle was the Democratic primary, in which he defeated well-known former Richmond City Council speaker Michelle Mosby, who finished second in the 2024 Richmond mayoral race. Schmidt received 639 votes to Mosby’s 488.
It took a lot of community organizing to defeat the more established Mosby — who had the endorsements of multiple city council members, Mayor Danny Avula and even Jones himself.
“I was like, ‘I’m gonna go talk to voters and have this ground game’ that really disrupted the usual ‘oh here we’re gonna christen our heir-apparent, and I’m gonna pass off my seat to this person, get all the endorsements,’” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he has high regards for both Jones and Mosby.
Though Schmidt’s campaign — which he only had a week to formally conduct — speaks for itself.
The delegate-elect set aside some time on a busy general election day to speak to The CT about his upbringing, policy goals at the General Assembly and how VCU taught him about organizing, activism and civic engagement.
Humble, and unhumble beginnings
Schmidt was born out of a union of economic class.
His father was a welder, a real “blue collar guy,” Schmidt said. He was the type of man who saw justice differently.
“He instilled in me a particular value and belief against this fake meritocracy, this bootstrap conservatism,” Schmidt said. “He understood that he was standing on the shoulders of his parents and their parents and the parents before them that benefitted him, and did not benefit others.”
Schmidt’s father saw the people he worked with get “passed over” as he kept moving forward in his career — he understood and saw that privilege, and really did not like bullies.
“It kind of boils down to elementary school politics,” Schmidt said. “We would talk a lot about somebody just being a ‘bully,’ because he didn’t go to university, he wasn’t highly educated, so he just put it in plain terms.”
Schmidt’s mother, on the other hand, came from a well-educated family with long roots in Richmond. She taught him it was his civic duty to be engaged in politics; not just give money to the church, but to carry out his obligation to people as a person of privilege.
“There was a civic duty instilled by both my parents, but the messaging was totally different,” Schmidt said.
Pursuing justice in the courtroom, capitol and community
After college Schmidt filled roles at the Virginia Holocaust Museum and the Richmond Public Library before becoming a civil rights attorney, often working with the American Civil Liberties Union.
At the time, Virginia was lacking in criminal justice reform and critical protections for LGBTQ+ students, Schmidt explained. He sought to protect constitutional rights, mostly through lobbying at the General Assembly.
“When I started, Virginia had some of the worst immigration laws on the books,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt also did civil rights investigations for the Virginia Department of Justice — digging into complaints against staff, probation officers, deputies and jail staff, often by incarcerated youth and their parents.
Finally, in 2023, Schmidt landed at his current gig: a “law librarian” for the city, which he utilizes to help people file complaints and hire private attorneys, teach know-your-rights workshops and ensure people know which legal aid they need to contact for their cases — especially those who cannot afford an attorney.
“The law library at the Richmond Public Library is an access point for trying to bridge the justice gap,” Schmidt said.
It was out of that justice-access work that Schmidt and three others , including VCU assistant professor of focused inquiry Kristin Reed, founded the Richmond Community Legal Fund.
“We knew that we needed to build a legal fund to address what we knew was a constitutional crisis coming with Trump two-point-o,” Schmidt said.
Virginia is a hotspot for immigration enforcement, data shows. Over 2,000 Virginia residents received deportation orders in March 2025 alone — 300 of whom were in the Richmond area. Arrests in June 2025 were six times higher than in June 2024, according to previous reports by The CT.
The Legal Fund does much of what Schmidt does at the library: connecting people, mostly noncitizens, with resources, such as good, vetted attorneys who will provide good legal aid.
“There are still some attorneys that’ll be like ‘yeah sure, I’ll take your case for $5,000,’ knowing that it’s not gonna go anywhere,” Schmidt said.
Unlike other cases, there is no bail bond system for immigration. People have to pay the full amount upfront, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars.
In response, The Legal Fund raised $130,000 for immigration help — which has gone toward 42 individuals and families for legal costs and “stabilization costs” like rent and food.
In 2025, attorneys for the Legal Fund hosted 21 know-your-rights workshops and 25 “legal clinics” to help families prepare for court, according to their Instagram. They installed 1,000 anti-ICE yard signs and 500 of the now-famous “ICE IS NOT WELCOME HERE” business signs.
VCU was ‘fundamental’ for Schmidt
Schmidt graduated from VCU in 2004, where he was “getting arrested a lot” while protesting, he said.
While Schmidt was attending, students, faculty, staff and community members were working on a Living Wage Campaign to ensure contract workers and Aramark workers — who provide VCU dining services — were earning their fair share.
Schmidt and others lobbied officials and tried to get like-minded students and faculty into university council so they could pass a resolution.
When the Sept. 11 attacks happened, Schmidt was riding the city bus into school — and almost immediately the coalition they built for economic justice turned into an anti-war, anti-spying movement.
“Just about every month there was some sort of anti-globalization, anti-war protest up in D.C.,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt mentioned how similar the current conflict between the Trump administration and Venezuela is to the Global War on Terror of the 2000s.
“America seems to be stuck on this revolving door of colonialism, capitalism that leads to war,” Schmidt said. “And these cycles of war against countries that have natural resources that we want, or they’re strategically located.”
People talk about Venezuela the same way they talked about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Vietnam, Schmidt said. 20-somethings protest, and then they despair because their generation “failed” to stop their particular war.
“I quickly learned from VCU and from my mentors at VCU that that’s a selfish world view,” Schmidt said. “What we have to do is continue to engage, pass on to the next generation and help them build that connective tissue so that they can understand ‘you are part of this longer, more important history.’”
In Schmidt’s view: people do not tangibly know what their impact is, but they can see it as they grow older. To Schmidt, that is what public universities are for: to ensure public knowledge is passed on throughout the long, unbroken chain of history.
“I’m honored and privileged and humbled to be a tiny part of it, to see that we are connected in the same way to the students that did the sit-ins in the 50s and 60s, and the communists and socialists against World War I that were arrested and jailed for simply speaking their mind,” Schmidt said.
The VCU Living Wage Campaign returned over a decade later, as Schmidt himself is featured in an article by The CT from 2014, when he was working as an adjunct political science professor.
Schmidt started teaching after he was asked to Dr. Dierdre Condit, the longtime director of political science and gender, sexuality and women’s studies. His other mentor was Njeri Jackson, the first African American studies director to oversee a dedicated major for her department.
“They were like ‘you need to support others in your work, be in the fight, be out there,’” Schmidt said.
When Schmidt first started teaching there were many DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students whose legal statuses were up in the air.
“They were quite worried they wouldn’t be there the next semester,” Schmidt said. “That shaped my worldview tremendously. I realized I can no longer just enjoy my status as an american citizen, I need to do as much as I can in the immigration legal space.”
Schmidt tried to be a professor of “practical application,” relating all sorts of lessons to constitutional issues. He wanted to ensure students understood the realities of America, show them pathways to get out in the streets and ensure they would be a part of the solution.
“I love academia, I love teaching, but it’s not called the ivory tower for nothing,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt is also a founding member of the VCU chapter for the United Campus Workers of Virginia.
Schmidt’s Rate My Professor score is 4.1/5 — pretty solid. Students have described him as funny, laid back, having a heart of gold and as one of the most understanding professors at VCU — though his lectures can be long-winded or circular.
Schmidt said he hopes to be similar as a legislator: inclusive and ensuring people are connecting to each other, and something bigger in the community.
He currently teaches at the University of Richmond, and hopes to teach a class at VCU again (though that is hard to imagine given the busy schedule of a General Assembly member).
“I’ll try not to be so long-winded as a legislator,” Schmidt said.
On Immigration, ICE and the issues
Schmidt’s 77th District stretches from Southside Richmond down Midlothian Turnpike to north Chesterfield and Bon Air, where the effects of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity have been “devastating.” 39.5% of residents are Black, 35.6% are white, 7.5% are multiracial, 2.1% are Asian and 15.4% identify as “other.” 20.4% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino.
“They’re scared,” Schmidt said. “My neighbors in my community have to do a certain amount of retreating from public life unfortunately.”
Despite all the “vile rhetoric, xenophobia and absolute filth and sludge” coming out of the Trump administration, the people of the 77th District are still incredibly gracious, Schmidt said.
“They are amazing neighbors,” Schmidt said. “They’re doing what they can for each other, they’re rallying mutual aid, they’re supporting each other and overcoming oppression that would absolutely cripple most Americans.”
While Schmidt and other Democrats might not agree on every little thing, he is confident Gov.-elect Spanberger and other party members will help him protect Virginians from ICE, he said.
Schmidt will be joining the legislature too late to introduce bills of his own this year, though he plans to support ones patroned by other Democrats to tackle the biggest problems in Southside, namely attacking junk fees, maintenance fees — such as the $100 fee to replace an air filter — and lack of code enforcement by unscrupulous landlords, he said.
Also on his to-do list is using the state government to investigate polluters and corporations, capping security deposits and campaign finance reform. Schmidt wants to cap campaign contributions around $10,000-$20,000.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous that somebody can dump $200,000 into a governor’s campaign coffers,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt’s advice for students: Get involved now.
“One of the greatest things about VCU is you are literally blocks away from the real power,” Schmidt said.
The easiest and fastest way to make connections is down at the General Assembly, according to Schmidt. It was an eye-opener for him — to learn how the system works and obtain hands-on experience.
“The real power in Virginia sits at the General Assembly,” Schmidt said. “There is no reason for students not to be down there during the General Assembly session every day; every chance they can, chime in, speak at a hearing, volunteer, be down there.”
As the sun set and polling stations winded down for the day, Schmidt wrapped up his lengthy interview with The CT. He won with 79.93% of the votes — no surprise there.
“Sorry, that was a long lecture,” Schmidt joked. “A little long-winded.”