Who is Louise Lucas, Virginia’s outspoken state senator?
Louise Lucas, the candid Virginia state senator whose office and cannabis retail business the FBI reportedly raided this week, is a longtime public servant servant known for her no-holds-barred style, marijuana advocacy and jubilant, post-victory dancing.
Media outlets reported May 6 that the FBI had descended on Lucas’ offices in addition to The Cannabis Outlet, a shop she co-owns, both in her native Portsmouth, Virginia. The raid was conducted as part of an ongoing corruption investigation, The Washington Post reported.
Lucas, 82, who has served as a state senator since 1992, is the senate’s president pro tempore and among the state’s most prominent and outspoken Democrats.
In November, for instance, Lucas blasted Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson for praising a Democratic win in the Virginia’s governor’s race while failing to confront Republican efforts, backed by President Donald Trump, to redraw congressional maps in their favor.
“Get our victory in Virginia out of your mouth while you echo MAGA talking points,” she said in a Nov. 5 post on X. “Grow a pair and stand up to this President.”
In Dec. 2023, when someone on X suggested her vote could be bought, she responded: “In the words of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who in 1968 became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress, ‘I am un-bought and un-bossed.’”
Advocacy for cannabis legalization
According to Norfolk State University, where she earned degrees in urban affairs and vocational-industrial education, Lucas was among the first women to graduate from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s apprentice program and became its first female shipfitter in 1971.
She began her political career in 1984, becoming the first Black woman to be elected to Portsmouth’s city council, then was elected to represent the state’s 18th District in 1991. Since then, she’s advocated for voting rights, expanding background checks for firearms purchases and regulating casino gaming.
Lucas has also been a proponent for the use of cannabis, with advocacy group NORML granting her an “A+” rating. According to the organization, Black Americans are arrested for violations of marijuana possession laws at four times the rate of White Americans despite both groups consuming marijuana at roughly the same rates.
In 2021 Lucas sponsored Senate Bill 1406, which Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law, making Virginia the first southern state to legalize marijuana.
“Let’s talk about pot,” she wrote on X in 2022. “Yes, we legalized it and I even opened the Cannabis Outlet after we did! But the job isn’t done. People are still in jail for something that is legal today.”
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Lucas has also supported bills allowing medicinal use of marijuana oil, supporting creating of a retail marijuana market and modifying sentences for marijuana-related offenses.
Lucas’ dancing has gone viral
Lucas’ vivacious dancing has gone viral on social media, whether in response to political wins or community events. In June 2023, during an intensely competitive state Democratic primary in her redrawn district, she posted a reel on her Facebook page with the caption “Dancing all the way to June 20th Election Day!” After her victory, news cameras captured her sashaying in blue while pumping her arms in jubilation.
According to Norfolk State, Lucas became an assistant professor at the school in 1994, managing research efforts and procuring federal aid for retraining programs to offset military and defense industry downsizing in the region.
In June 2020, Lucas was arrested for obstruction of justice during a racial justice rally in her hometown.
