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tjTODAY sat down with Noah Bardash, Chief of Staff to Va. Delegate Dan Helmer, to learn about his rise into politics and his message to young people by Vikram Achuthan and Pratika Katiyar
oah Bardash graduated from Jefferson in 2013 and went on to major in both Systems Engineering and International Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Though not always set on a career in politics, his experiences at Jefferson and beyond helped lead to his current role as Chief of Staff to Delegate Dan Helmer, who represents a portion of Prince William County and Fairfax County in the Va. House of Delegates.
student at TJ. I served as vice president of the Young Democrats club in my senior year. President Obama's reelection campaign also took place during my senior year, so that was actually the first campaign that I had been involved in. I learned the nuts and bolts of phone banking and canvassing and voter outreach and all that goes into working on a campaign and building a grassroots movement. It was a very powerful experience for me.
tjTODAY: Can you describe your current role as Chief of Staff for Delegate Dan Helmer?
tjTODAY: Did you always want to go into politics?
NB: There are a number of different
in politics but I have always had an interest in politics. I would say that until the 2016 election, I didn't think that I was going to be pursuing this as a career. But in the aftermath of that election four years ago, I thought about the values that are important to me and that was part of what led me to seek out this internship for Senator Claire McCaskill in 2017, then to take that into a career after graduating from university.
responsibilities that fall into several categories. The primary focus of a legislator is to serve the communities that legislator represents. Right now we're in the middle of a year which has been full of a lot of hardship for many people. There's been a lot of folks who have been reaching out to our office and this year is a particularly challenging time. On the legislative front, for the first time in decades both the House and the Senate were under democratic leadership, and the General Assembly took action that Virginians want on voting rights, climate action, gun safety measures, and women's rights.
tjTODAY: What types of activities
did you do at TJ that allowed you to discover your passion for politics? Any certain classes?
NB: A lot of my interest in activism and in politics did start when I was a
NB: I was never dead set on working
tjTODAY: Why is it important for young people to get involved in politics, and particularly, politics at the state and local level? NB: I think that young people's voices are an incredibly, incredibly important part of politics and unfortunately young people don't vote, at the rates that some older Americans do. As a result of that, you see issues that are important to young people don't always get the same
amount of urgency or airtime as others. When young people get involved and say “this is an issue I care about,� they can really make a difference and help determine elections. I would encourage the whole TJ student body to reach out to offices like ours to say, this is an issue that matters to me and I'm going to be watching how you vote on this issue. While the top of the ticket, the presidential race, gets the lion's share of the attention, these local and state races have a huge impact on our daily lives, on budgets, on criminal justice, and policing reform.
tjTODAY: Looking forward, what are your goals for your career in politics? NB: I'm definitely interested in climate change and voting rights, and I'm really proud of some of the work that the Virginia legislature has done on both of those issues. I'm looking forward to continuing that advocacy on those issues and whether that remains directly in electoral politics permanently, or elsewhere, is something I'm still looking at. But I know that I intend to remain active in community building and organizing, especially on those issues that are most important. This interview has been condensed and edited.
