Mason Adams

(L to R, foreground) Virginia Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin and Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears led a red wave in the November 2021 elections that saw the GOP regain control of the House of Delegates. Photo by Associated Press/Steve Helber

The great divide

Will split legislature lead to gridlock or compromise?

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Virginia’s business community faces a strangely familiar and yet uncertain state government headed into the 2022 General Assembly session, which begins Jan. 12. Republicans rolled to victories across the board in the November 2021 election as Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin led a GOP sweep of all three statewide offices, and Republicans also won a narrow 52-48…

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin retired as co-CEO of Washington, D.C., private equity company The Carlyle Group in 2020, just months before launching his successful gubernatorial campaign — his first run for public office. Photo by Stephen Gosling

The outsider

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin talks 2022 priorities

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A former CEO who has never held political office, Glenn Youngkin will take the reins as Virginia’s next governor, having harnessed political tailwinds to a Republican sweep of statewide offices and GOP control of the House of Delegates. The electoral success ended eight years of Democratic victories, but Virginia’s 74th governor will have to contend…

L to R: Brothers Talbot, Tanner, Jake and Abner Johnson started Elkton-based Pure Shenandoah, a hemp processing and CBD products manufacturing company, in 2018. Photo by Scott Elmquist

The color of money

Virginia prepares for commercial marijuana market

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A dusty floor, lumber piles and strewn tools mark the signs of active construction in the future showroom of Pure Shenandoah LLC. CEO Tanner Johnson stands in the front room of the historic, renovated Casey Jones building in Elkton and describes the experience of a future customer. “You’ll come in right here to a cool…

Tale of the tape

Virginia's gubernatorial candidates make their cases

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As Virginians decide whether to go with the known — Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe — or the unknown — first-time candidate Glenn Youngkin, a Republican — Virginia Business checks in with the two major contenders to be the commonwealth’s 74th governor. In exclusive interviews, the candidates lay out their plans to create more jobs,…

Enter the candidates

The 2021 governor's race is on, with power hanging in the balance

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With early voting starting the next day, Virginia gubernatorial candidates Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin came out swinging in their Sept. 16 first debate, sniping over issues ranging from coronavirus vaccine mandates to abortion in what The Washington Post described as a “bare-knuckled” sparring match at the Appalachian School of Law. Democratic former Gov. McAuliffe…

Photo Illustration by Mark Jeffries

The Powell Memo

Did this document put big business in the political driver’s seat?

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The Powell Memorandum has been praised and vilified, denounced as a blueprint for business to seize control of American life, and embraced as a way to protect liberty and free enterprise. Whether because of its lasting influence or alarming prescience, the Powell Memorandum has become one of the most important single documents in understanding the…

Retired Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin is running as a pro-business candidate, campaigning on jobs, education and public safety. Photos by AP

Back to the future

McAuliffe seeks second term vs. newcomer Youngkin

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The candidates running for governor in November face the convergence of two Virginia political trends. The first is the commonwealth’s tendency to vote for governors of the opposing party from the present White House occupant. Beginning in 1977, Virginia has voted against the party holding the White House in every election except for 2013, when…

The Virginia Senate held a socially distanced session at the Science Museum of Virginia this year, while the House of Delegates met virtually Photo by Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP.

Seismic session

Short legislative session brings big changes for businesses, society

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With short legislative sessions and state elections looming in the fall, odd-numbered years have developed an often-unfair reputation for being a slack time for the General Assembly. Observers of the Virginia legislature’s 2021 session, however, would hardly have come away with that impression. In the second year of Democratic control of the legislature, lawmakers passed…

“The existing constitution was antiquated and not suited for the time,” says A.E. Dick Howard, who directed the commission that rewrote Virginia’s constitution in the late 1960s. Photo by Caroline Martin

Virginia’s latest constitution turns 50

Voters replaced ‘racist document’ in 1971

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The latest Virginia Constitution went into effect 50 years ago this month, but in today’s world of polarized politics, it feels like it might as well have been 1787. Virginia’s first constitution was passed in 1776, the year the United States declared independence. The state’s present constitution is the seventh incarnation of the commonwealth’s governing…

Heavy hitters

The 2021 list of business leaders shaping Virginia

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Just as Zoom conferences and cloud computing have transformed our pandemic-era work lives, so too is technology changing the nature of influence. That evolution is perhaps best evidenced by the addition of Reston-based MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor to Virginia Business’ 2021 list of the 50 most influential Virginians. Saylor may not spend his time huddled…