Jim and his wife Julia reside in Southbridge, Va. with their daughter Jacqueline. The Rileys have lived in Southbridge since Sept. 2001 when they moved from Alexandria. Since that time, Jim was appointed by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to sit on the 2002 Local Road Bond Citizen Committee that successfully campaigned for the passage of a bond referendum that provided $84 million to improve roads in Prince William County without raising taxes.
In 2003, Jim was elected to the Southbridge Homeowners Association’s Board of Directors for a three-year term in this community of over 1,500 homes and more than 5,000 residents. In 2004, Jim was elected by his peers on the Board to serve as President. He was reelected in 2006 to a second three-year term and is currently in his fifth consecutive year as Board President. Also in 2004, Jim was elected as a statewide alternate delegate from Virginia to the Republican National Convention in New York City.
Jim was appointed in 2005 by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to the Cherry Hill Community Development Authority and the Harbor Station (now Potomac Harbor) Town Center Design Review Committee. These two bodies oversee the development of the historic Cherry Hill peninsula along the Potomac River in Prince William County and are charged with handling the private financing of the infrastructure improvements and ensuring that the town center meets all regulatory requirements.
An attorney and the Director of Government Affairs for a major national trade association based in Northern Virginia, Jim brought his professional skills to work for Southbridge as a member of the ad hoc committee formed by residents to deal with the planned Wal-Mart on Route 1 at the entrance to the community. The committee worked with the company and Prince William County officials to insure that their concerns ranging from traffic patterns and congestion, to public safety and noise levels, to the aesthetics of the building and its grounds were addressed in the store’s final plans. As president of the Southbridge Board of Directors, Jim is now working to ensure that Wal-Mart’s planned expansion of the site into a Super Center goes smoothly from the perspective of nearby residents.
Prior to his current position, Jim was Senior Analyst for Civil Justice Reform & Insurance with Citizens for a Sound Economy in Washington, D.C. where he was published in a number of major newspapers including The Washington Times and The Providence Journal. He authored a chapter on reforming our runaway legal system for Tort Reform In The 21st Century, a book edited by former United States Attorney General Ed Meese and published by The Hoover Institution at Standford University in California.
Jim previously worked in the field of election and campaign finance law, having served as the National Deputy General Counsel for Steve Forbes’ 1996 presidential campaign as well as having worked and volunteered on numerous other political campaigns. He is currently a member of Virginia’s 1st Congressional District Republican Committee representing Prince William County. Jim sat on the Republican Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee from 2003 until 2005 and was the Young Republican Federation of Virginia State Vice Chairman from 2001 until 2003. In July 1997, Jim served as an international elections observer for the Mexican federal elections through the International Republican Institute.
A native of Albany, N.Y., Jim is a 1991 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and English with a Concentration in History. He was elected a member of the English National Honor Society’s Sigma Tau Delta, Nu Chi chapter. Jim received his Juris Doctorate in 1994 from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, DC. He is a member of the District of Columbia, New York, Massachusetts and the U.S. Supreme Court bars. His wife Julia is a kindergarten teacher for the Prince William County Public School system. The Rileys are members of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in Triangle, Virginia, Supporters of Ducks Unlimited and Friends of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
