C. TODD GILBERT
HOUSE MINORITY LEADER,
VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES, SHENANDOAH
A member of the Virginia House of Delegates since 2006, Gilbert is the body’s current minority leader and former majority leader. Te pro-business Republican conservative and
former prosecutor has received numerous awards during his legislative tenure for his work on social and public safety issues. He was named a Defender of Liberty by the American Conservative Union and 2013 legislator of the year by the Family Foundation. Te Virginia Chamber of Commerce bestowed the same honor upon him in 2017. Gilbert has an A-plus rating from the National
Rifle Association and has received the Virginia Asso- ciation of Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ “Champion of Justice Award.” His statehouse work also has been recognized by the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Virginia State Police Association. For his work with the Model General Assembly in Richmond, Gilbert also won the Virginia YMCA’s Service to Youth Award. Gilbert most recently was in the news for his
objection to Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 directive making mask-wearing mandatory indoors, and, in late May, Gilbert said that the possibility of taking legal action about the measure was under consideration.
JANET D. HOWELL
CHAIR, SENATE FINANCE AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, SENATE OF VIRGINIA, RESTON
“Numerous significant bills that have failed under Republican majorities will pass this session,” said Howell, who in January assumed chairmanship of one of the most powerful committees in the legis- lature after Democrats took control of the General Assembly. Perhaps needless to say, her predictions have come to pass. Laws enacted by the new Democratic-majority
legislature include ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and measures to improve gun safety and protect the environment. Voter protections were beefed up, abortion restrictions were eased and a state holiday honoring Gens. Tomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee was abolished, while Election Day was designated a state holiday. Te minimum wage, raised from $7.25 to $9.50, was slated to rise in January, but concerns about the economic effects of COVID-19 led to the increase being pushed back to May 2021. “I think it should go into effect now,” Howell said at the time. Before her 1991 election to the Virginia State
Senate (where she represents Fairfax County), she served as a legislative assistant in the Senate from 1989 to 1991. She also previously served as chair of the State Board of Social Services.
CHARNIELE L. HERRING
HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER, VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES, ALEXANDRIA
Herring had an early start in politics. At age 13, when Ronald Reagan was president, she testified before a government commission about health care coverage for military dependent children. After earning her juris doctorate from Te Catholic University of America, former Gov. Tim Kaine appointed her to the state’s Council on the Status of Women. Ever since, she has been a champion of social justice and police reform. In 2016, Herring was a main sponsor of legisla-
tion requiring police officer-involved shootings to be listed in a yearly crime report. “I don’t think we should have police officers
investigating themselves,” Herring said in an inter- view with the Virginia Mercury. “I think getting it out of police officers’ hands will help because I think it will help ensure that the data is collected.” Herring also supported Gov. Ralph Northam’s
efforts to make Juneteenth a state holiday. In 2009, Herring became the first Black woman
elected to represent Northern Virginia in Richmond, and in 2012, she became the first African American to chair the Democratic Party of Virginia. She has been the House Democratic Caucus chair since 2015.
MARK
HERRING
ATTORNEY GENERAL, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Herring, a Democrat, has lived in Loudoun County since he was 12. He practiced law in Leesburg and represented the area as a state senator. Te two-term Virginia attorney general, who’s
eyeing a 2021 gubernatorial bid, vowed this summer to do what it takes to give Gov. Ralph Northam the right to remove the state-owned Robert E. Lee monument from its prominent pedestal on Rich- mond’s Monument Avenue, writing that the governor “has both the authority and the moral obligation to remove this badge of white supremacy from its place of exaltation.” Such positions, which he’s applied to other mon-
uments in Virginia, might be hard to reconcile for people who felt betrayed when he apologized in 2019 for donning blackface at a party in 1980 while he was a University of Virginia student.
WHAT WOULD A COMPETITOR SAY ABOUT YOU? “He is relentless. He just will not give up.”
HOBBY/PASSION: Gardening
FIRST JOB: When I was 14, I bought 36 hens and I sold the eggs to my neighbors. That was my first entrepreneurial venture.
TIM
KAINE
SENATOR, UNITED STATES SENATE, RICHMOND
A household name in Virginia, Kaine married into the political life. His wife, former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton, spent her early teen years in Virginia’s Executive Mansion while her father, A. Linwood Holton Jr., served as governor. A lawyer specializing in housing discrimination,
Kaine won election to Richmond City Council in 1994 at age 36, becoming mayor in 1998. He became lieutenant governor in 2002, served as governor from 2006 to 2010, and then was elected Virginia’s junior U.S. senator in 2012. But it was a call from Hillary Clinton that
catapulted Kaine onto the national stage. As Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential running mate, Kaine criss- crossed the country pushing her agenda, highlighting his Spanish-speaking skills and rallying voters. Te election may not have gone his way, but his
profile in the Senate was considerably elevated. He serves on the Armed Services Committee and has been a highly visible critic of the Trump administra- tion on 24-hour news channels and in national media. Recently, he was one of 133 co-sponsors of the
Justice in Policing Act of 2020, an attempt to address police brutality concerns in the wake of George Floyd’s death. “Te right way to deal with this,” Kaine said, “is accountability in the discipline of systems in police departments.”
TERRY McAULIFFE
FORMER GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA; GLOBAL STRATEGY ADVISER, HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP, MCLEAN
A Clinton family confidant, former Virginia Gov. McAuliffe was nearly three-fourths of the way through his term when Hillary Clinton lost her 2016 bid for president — upending any hopes he may have harbored about joining her administration. But McAuliffe wasn’t about to ride off into the
sunset after his term ended in January 2018. Amid speculation that he’d run against President
Donald Trump in 2020, McAuliffe took the idea off the table in April 2019. In July 2019, he published his second book, “Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand Against White Nationalism,” and later in 2019 took a job as global strategy adviser for the Centre for Infor- mation Policy Leadership, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank run by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. McAuliffe also spent much of 2019 campaigning
for Virginia Democrats, who secured a statehouse majority for the first time in 26 years. But McAuliffe may also have been laying his own
foundation as Virginia’s once and future governor. Eyeing a 2021 gubernatorial run, he raised $1.7 million in May and June via his political action com- mittee, Common Good VA. McAuliffe served as chair of the Democratic
National Committee from 2001 to 2005. Before his political career, McAuliffe co-founded the Federal City National Bank, becoming its chairman at age 30.
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