Profile: Robert Sarvis, Candidate for the 35th District State Senate

At A Glance

• Born: Fairfax, VA
• Education: Master of Advanced Studies in mathematics, Cambridge University; J.D. at New York University
• Family: Wife, Astrid and son Harlan. Expecting a daughter in Nov.
• Occupation: Co-founder of Wertago, LLC.

Annandale resident Robert Sarvis thinks it’s time for change to come to the Northern Virginia area. That’s why he’s challenging incumbent and Senate Majority Leader for the 35th District Senate seat.

“I’ve been fairly frustrated with politics and the quality of the candidates from both parties and a lot of the policies that come out of the various levels of government. Both the democratic and republican parties are guilty of bad policy making. I want to represent my constituents and give them effective representation in Richmond against the special interests who have owned Richmond for a long time,” said Sarvis of his reasons for running for political office.

Sarvis, who was born in Fairfax and grew up in Springfield, may not have the political tenure his opponent does, but he said he’s always had an interest in law, economics, and public policy.

“At some point you get so frustrated with both parties and the candidates that they put up for elections. In this case, a lot of the state legislators go unchallenged. So at some point you think ‘why not try running.’ You can only watch candidates and politicians for so long, making errors and approaching things from a standpoint of the people who are funding the campaigns and not their constituents,” Sarvis said.

The 34-year-old isn’t relying on fundraising to get his name out to voters. Instead, Sarvis said he wants to connect with voters and show them that he’s a Republican they can vote for.

“[People] are looking for candidates who believe in representative government and who believe in freedom and the rule of law and who aren’t going to vote on policies based on how much tax revenue they bring in. I want to work for increasing freedom, opportunity, rule of law, and good government,” said Sarvis. 

Of the issues affecting the 35th senate district, which includes parts of Annandale, Fairfax, Falls Church, Springfield, and the City of Alexandria, Sarvis said traffic and education are two of his platform’s biggest issues, as he wants to help ensure the longtime effectiveness of the education system. A graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Sarvis spent the majority of his academic career majoring in mathematics. He attended Harvard University where he majored in math while also studying economics and computer science. After graduating in 1998, he studied at Cambridge University in England for a year and then went on to pursue his Ph.D at the University of Berkeley in California. Sarvis left Berkeley to live in San Francisco as a software developer for the now-defunct startup Bang Networks. In 2002, he returned to school and studied law at New York University.

Sarvis received his J.D. in 2005, served as a law clerk to the Honorable E. Grady Jolly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Mississippi. He later served as a law clerk at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s in Washington, D.C. While in Mississippi, he met his wife, Astrid, who is a pediatric resident at Inova Fairfax Hospital. The two have a one-year-old son, Harlan and are expecting a daughter next month.

Now, Sarvis splits his time between his family and working on his company, Wertago LLC, which he created in 2008 after he and three others won a Google application development competition. They used the money to form the company and launch the application and have released a number of applications since.

Returning control to the local governments instead of the state is also a priority for Sarvis, who wants to give Richmond back to the voters. One issue he’s passionate about is term limits, which Sarvis feels would prevent incumbents from coasting through elections.

He’s also equally passionate about non-partisan redistricting and believes redevelopment of places like Annandale and Bailey’s Crossroads should be an issue for local governments and that state governments shouldn’t be footing the bill. “We should send people down to Richmond to ensure that our tax money isn’t being send to efforts across the state,” Sarvis said.

“There’s so much verbiage and so little connecting with voters and trying to actually spell out what the problems are with our taxing and spending. There’s a lot of talking in really big terms, but when you get down to it, and you start showing voters how much money we waste on giving special interests and subsides tax deductions and spending, it becomes clearer,” said Sarvis.

To learn more about Sarvis, visit his website.