One Virginia For All

“During the era when eugenics enjoyed cachet, skeptical voices raised questions. Critics were brushed aside or ignored or treated as mugwumps and cranks. Nevertheless, despite their commitment to the eugenics agenda, the practitioners did much of their dirty work out of sight. Surreptitiousness can be a revealing trait. The activity was conducted under the auspices, and by the agents, of the state. It is proper that the state’s highest officer acknowledge the violations made on its behalf. The original wrong cannot be undone, but Mark Warner is doing the right thing. In this instance he truly speaks for Virginia.”

Richmond Times-Dispatch, 5/8/02

When he was inaugurated as governor, Mark Warner pledged to build an administration that would draw on Virginia’s increasing diversity as a source of strength. To that end, he created the most open and diverse administration in the history of the Commonwealth. He reached out as never before to the growing number of new Americans who call Virginia home. He worked to ensure that all Virginians were treated fairly by their government and received full protection under the law. And in historic fashion, Governor Warner took important steps to help rectify some of the regrettable chapters in the Commonwealth’s otherwise rich history.

From issuing an apology for the shameful use of eugenics by state government in the last century, to advocating scholarships for the children of Prince Edward County deprived of a public education during Massive Resistance, Governor Warner demonstrated a commitment to including all Virginians in the work of building a stronger Commonwealth.

Fighting Discrimination in Housing and Employment

Throughout his term, Governor Warner demonstrated his commitment to fighting discrimination in Virginia in all forms. In 2002, he led the effort to eliminate the Family Rule, which had prevented thousands of unrelated borrowers (those unrelated by blood, marriage, or adoption) from accessing low-interest VHDA loans to become homeowners.

In 2003, the Warner Administration launched Project Genesis – a faith-based, community education initiative designed to increase homeownership opportunities for African-Americans. The program enrolled 1,700 participants in the Richmond area alone.

The Governor also oversaw creation of the Virginia Fair Housing Board to help reduce housing discrimination and unfair housing practices in Virginia. Remarkably, Virginia had prosecuted no fair housing cases for several years prior to Governor Warner taking office. With the new Fair Housing Board in place, meaningful enforcement of fair housing laws resumed in Virginia.

In 2005, Governor Warner supported and signed legislation to allow insurers and businesses to provide health insurance coverage to the life partners of unmarried employees. Governor Warner also added sexual orientation to the state government’s existing prohibitions on employment discrimination.

Recognizing Past Mistakes

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Prince Edward County closed its public schools for five years rather than integrate its classrooms, denying an education to hundreds of students. In 2004, with Governor Warner’s support, the General Assembly created and funded a scholarship program for those who were denied educational opportunities in Prince Edward County as a result of that decision. In 2005, 48 Virginians were awarded scholarships totaling $128,000 from the fund.

To further recognize the achievement and sacrifices of Virginians who shaped the civil rights movement, Governor Warner took two other symbolic important steps.

First, Governor Warner and First Lady Lisa Collis spearheaded an effort to place a Civil Rights Memorial on the grounds of the State Capitol in Richmond. The memorial will be the only one within the bounds of Capitol Square to honor the contributions of Virginians during the civil rights struggle.

And in 2005, Governor Warner renamed a renovated state office building adjacent to the Capitol to honor civil rights hero and Brown v. Board attorney Oliver Hill. At the rededication ceremony, Governor Warner said, “Given an opportunity to rededicate this building for the 21st century, I could think of no more fitting honoree than a man whose whole life has been about the work of bringing down the barriers of racism.”

In 1924, as part of the misguided eugenics movement that pushed for “perfection of the human gene pool,” Virginia passed a law permitting involuntary sterilization of patients in state mental health facilities. In 1927, Carrie Buck was the first person sterilized by the Commonwealth under this law, and Virginia’s action ultimately was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, with the majority opinion stating that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Virginia ultimately sterilized 8,000 people.

Within months of taking office, Governor Warner offered Virginia’s “Å“sincere apology for the Commonwealth’s role in the eugenics movement,” making him the first Governor in the nation’s history to apologize for the profound injustice inflicted by the government upon its own citizens. Since then, governors in several other states have followed Governor Warner’s lead, issuing their own apologies on behalf of their citizens.

Strengthening Outreach to Virginia’s Latino/Asian Population

In 2002, Governor Warner held the first statewide outreach conference for Virginia’s Latino community. The conference focused on the unique challenges facing the community, as well as how the Commonwealth could more effectively deliver educational and social services to this growing population.

Governor Warner appointed a liaison to the Latino community as part of his constituent service staff and created a first-ever Latino Advisory Council that met periodically to advise the Governor and his cabinet on issues of concern.

Assisting Small, Women-Owned and Minority-Owned Businesses

Early in his term, Governor Warner recognized that small businesses and those owned by women and minorities were not receiving a fair share of state government spending on goods and services. The numbers were shocking. When Governor Warner took office, minority and women-owned businesses combined accounted for a mere 1.27 percent of state contracts, even though minority companies constituted 15 percent of all Virginia private businesses.

As a businessman and a strong believer in the need for an inclusive, broad-based economy, Governor Warner believed it was fundamentally unfair that some businesses did not have a fair chance to compete for state contracts. He placed a new emphasis on procurement by small, women- and minority-owned (SWAM) businesses, authorizing the state’s first comprehensive study of disparity in state contracting and imposing new requirements for agencies to reach out to SWAM vendors. At the same time, he continually rejected attempts by the General Assembly to weaken minority procurement, twice vetoing legislative language to eliminate Virginia’s Department of Minority Business Enterprise, the state agency established to help minority and women-owned businesses.

As a result of these efforts during the Warner Administration, the Commonwealth’s procurement from women-owned and minority businesses nearly quadrupled.

Making Better Use of DNA Testing

During the Warner administration, new DNA testing techniques resulted in the exoneration of two men serving life prison sentences for crimes they did not commit. After it was discovered that the state’s crime labs possessed previously unknown DNA evidence from criminal cases, he took the unprecedented step of ordering Virginia’s crime lab to review a random sample of its files from cases that pre-dated sophisticated DNA testing, and test any relevant evidence retained in them. No other state in the country had ever undertaken such a review.

The results were remarkable. Of 31 cases chosen at random, two men convicted of rape were cleared, and one sample triggered a “cold hit” in the state’s DNA data bank, allowing the true rapist to be brought to justice. Governor Warner quickly granted pardons to the two men and ordered testing in all suitable cases.

Because of Governor Warner’s actions, DNA is being used in an unprecedented manner in Virginia to convict the guilty and free the innocent.

Protecting the Innocent

When Governor Warner took office, Virginia continued to apply the outdated and restrictive “21-day rule,” which barred any person convicted of a crime from presenting evidence of actual innocence to a court more than 21 days after being sentenced. No other state in the nation applied such a tight time limit on claims of innocence.

In his State of the Commonwealth address in 2003, the Governor called upon the General Assembly to change the rule and provide a common sense remedy to any innocent person mistakenly convicted of a crime. After more than a year of study and debate, the General Assembly agreed, passing legislation giving those convicted of felonies unlimited time to present evidence of innocence that was not available at trial.