Virginia – Politics, Economy, Society

Constitutional framework

The present revision of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s constitution of 1776 was adopted in 1970 and ratified the following year. In it the state retains the organization of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The only elected administrative officials are the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the attorney general; each serves a four-year term, and the governor is the only one who cannot serve consecutive terms. Virginia’s General Assembly, a bicameral legislature, consists of a Senate of 33–40 members and a House of Delegates of 90–100 members. The Assembly meets annually in Richmond.

Local government includes 95 counties, hundreds of towns, and several dozen chartered cities. The counties and towns are governed by elected boards of supervisors. Cities are separate from county administration and are governed by elected councils employing city managers.

The Democratic Party thoroughly dominated state politics from its revival in 1883 until the Republican Party elected its first Virginia governor in a century, in 1969, and 6 of the state’s 10 U.S. representatives, in 1970. In the following decades, the two parties competed closely for domination of the state’s congressional delegation. Although the General Assembly long remained substantially Democratic, representation of the two parties in both the House of Delegates and the Senate had become more balanced by the early 21st century.

The Virginia judicial system comprises four levels of courts. The seven judges of the Supreme Court of Virginia, the highest state judicial body, are elected to staggered 12-year terms by the General Assembly. The primary work of this court includes hearing criminal and domestic appeals from the Court of Appeals of Virginia and civil appeals from the circuit courts; exercising original jurisdiction over cases of habeas corpus, mandamus, and matters filed by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission; and developing the body of Virginia common law. The primary purpose of the Court of Appeals is to expand judicial capacity to relieve the immense backlog of criminal and domestic cases pending before the Supreme Court. There are 11 judges on this court, elected by the General Assembly to eight-year terms. The 31 judicial circuits are the courts of general jurisdiction in Virginia. Judges of these courts are elected to eight-year terms by the General Assembly. Other courts, with limited jurisdiction, include general district (municipal and county), juvenile, and domestic-relations courts. In addition, all judicial circuits have magistrates who have the authority to issue warrants but lack trial jurisdiction. Counties and cities have a commonwealth’s attorney, whose main job is criminal prosecution.

Education

Virginia’s public school system was established in 1846. In the 21st century the Virginia Board of Education supervises public primary and secondary education, and the State Council of Higher Education coordinates postsecondary public education. Virginia has a strong public community-college system, with branches throughout the state.

Virginia’s four-year colleges and universities are numerous. They include both public institutions, funded by the state, and private ones, many of which were founded by religious denominations. Among the best known are the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, a state institution founded in 1693 and the second oldest college in the country, and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, founded in 1819 largely as the creation of Thomas Jefferson both in its organization and in the design of its buildings and grounds. Virginia Tech, established in Blacksburg in 1872, is a large land-grant college. James Madison University, founded in Harrisonburg in 1908, was previously a state teachers college for women. Also widely recognized are the private Washington and Lee University (1749) and the state-supported Virginia Military Institute (1839), both located in Lexington. Virginia also has a number of historically Black universities. The private Hampton University (1868) is nationally recognized, and Norfolk State University (1935) is Virginia’s largest predominantly Black public postsecondary institution.

Several urban state universities have developed into major institutions since the 1960s. Most of these were once auxiliary campuses of larger institutions. George Mason University (1957), in Fairfax, originally was a northern-Virginia branch of the University of Virginia. Virginia Commonwealth University (1838), in Richmond, has a historical affiliation with the College of William and Mary, as does Old Dominion University (1930), in Norfolk.