Attorney General Mark Herring
Throughout the COVID pandemic Mark has worked to keep Virginians safe, successfully defending Virginia’s COVID safety measures in court more than a dozen times. He also secured the first moratorium on utility disconnections, has helped address evictions during the pandemic, and has worked to stop price gouging and to get more PPE into the hands of medical staff and others who need it. When Trump abandoned the defense of Obamacare in court, Mark worked to protect coverage for preexisting conditions and to keep healthcare affordable for Virginians. He has also sued to block efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and limit women’s access to reproductive healthcare. A leading voice for criminal justice reform, Mark has worked to decriminalize cannabis, and is continuing to push for legal, regulated adult use and to resolve past convictions.
He also is championing progressive measures like cash-bail reform; expanding criminal record expungement and reentry programs; diversifying the judiciary; and increasing safety, transparency, and accountability in policing, use of force, and deaths in custody. A proud champion for commonsense gun-safety laws, Mark supports universal background checks, bans on high capacity magazines and bump stocks, reinstatement of Virginia’s one-handgun-a-month law, and a “red flag law.” He successfully defended Virginia’s new gun- violence protection laws from legal attack by the NRA and gun lobby. He has sued to block untraceable, undetectable 3D guns from hitting the streets. He also has assembled an elite team of prosecutors to crack down on heroin and fentanyl traffickers, illegal guns, human trafficking, and those who attempt to exploit our children online.
Mark led a multimillion dollar, multiyear project completed in July 2020 to eliminate Virginia’s backlog of more than 2,600 untested rape kits and bringing charges against suspects. He also chaired Virginia’s Task Force on Campus Sexual Violence and is pushing for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Mark was the first state attorney general to successfully argue that its state's ban on marriage for same-sex couples should be struck down as unconstitutional. Mark has won huge victories in court for LGBT Virginians, for DREAMers, immigrants, and new Virginians, and for the right of all Virginians to live, worship, and raise their families free from hate and discrimination.
He has fought for clean air and clean water, securing the largest environmental settlement in Virginia history, suing the Trump EPA to protect the Chesapeake Bay, and suing to block Trump’s efforts to rollback pollution reduction measures. Finally, AG Herring has secured more than $300 million in restitution for Virginia families and payments from companies who ripped off consumers, and his best-in-the-nation Medicaid Fraud Unit has recovered more than $1 billion for taxpayers.
