Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Privacy protected and other protected information is considered confidential and restricted from public access for 75 years. These records have been sealed and remain in original folders in the collection.

Preferred Citation

Governor Lawrence Douglas Wilder, Records of the Policy Office: Correspondence with Cabinet Secretaries and State Agencies, 1990-1993. Accession 35539, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Accession 35539 was transferred by Gov. Lawrence Douglas Wilder, October 31, 1996.

Processing Information

Original order and folder titles have been retained. Some files may pre-date the administration of Gov. Wilder, but were collected between 1990-1993.

Historical Information

Lawrence Douglas Wilder was born in Richmond, Va., on January 17, 1931. He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1951 and afterwards was drafted into the Army, where he served in the Korean War from 1952-1953 and received a bronze star. He then attended the Howard University School of Law and graduated in 1959. Douglas Wilder was elected to the Virginia Senate in 1969 as the first African American member since Reconstruction and served in the Senate for five terms. In 1985, he was elected to the office of Lieutenant Governor as the first African American to be elected to statewide office in Virginia. L. Douglas Wilder won the election for Governor of Virginia in 1989 and served from January 13, 1990 to January 14, 1994. He was the first African American to be elected as Governor in United States.

During the Wilder Administration, the Policy Office was headed by Walter McFarlane, Executive Assistant for Policy, and four Special Assistants: Richard Taylor (Health and Human Resources, and Education), Robert Blue (Finance and Natural Resources), Jeff Nuechterlein (Economic Development and Transportation), and Lynne Porfiri (Administration and Public Safety). The Policy Office was responsible for review and coordination of all policy matters, including: review of proposed legislation from agencies and Cabinet; formulation of the Governor's legislative initiatives; tracking legislation and serving as legislative liaison; review of General Assembly approved legislation submitted to the Governor for signature, amendment or veto; review of death penalty clemency requests, as well as other pardon and restoration of rights requests; review of legal settlements and other legal matters from the Office of the Attorney General's Office; review of proposed regulations; review of all matters pertaining to the judiciary and writs of habeas corpus; review of proposed executive orders; assistance with speech writing; serving as staff for Governor's special commissions; administrative support for Governor's Fellows program; serving as special interest liaison; acting as in-house counsel; and all correspondence with policy implications or pertaining to sensitive or controversial issues requiring legal overview.

Scope and Content

Policy Office Correspondence with Cabinet Secretaries and State Agencies, 1990-1993, is housed in 105 boxes and is arranged alphabetically by Secretariat, with Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission, Virginia Lottery, and Division of Legislative Services filed at the end of the collection. These records document legislative and policy priorities and issues during the Wilder administration (1990-1994). The files of each secretariat contain general correspondence, topical files, and files for state agencies within each secretariat. These records include correspondence, agendas, background information, briefing books, decision briefs, meeting records, memoranda, notes, speeches, subject files, and reports.

These files document a wide variety of topics, issues, and initiatives during the Wilder administration, including: campaign finance reform and ethics in government; capital construction funding; Cheatham Annex and Pickett Road Tank Farm cleanup; Chesapeake Bay protection; defense conversion/Camp Pendleton; disparity in education; drug policy and drug asset forfeiture; economic opportunity and development; efficiency in state government (Project Streamline); energy conservation (Virginia Energy Plan); environmental enforcement; environmental review of transportation projects; growth management (Commission on Population Growth and Management); medical waste; health care reform; ports and port activity; prison construction; Public Building Authority bonds; rail and public transportation; Redskins Stadium/Potomac Yard development; rural development (Center for Rural Development; Rural Economic Development Corp.); sales and use tax; South African divestiture; state budget and revenue data; substance abuse and violence prevention; trade missions; Transportation Blueprint; veteran care; violent crime (Governor's Task Force on Violent Crime); Virginia Lottery; Virginia Military Advisory Council; and the Virginia Military Institute and the admission of women.

Cabinet Secretaries during the Wilder administration included Ruby Martin, Secretary of Administration; Lawrence H. Framme, III, Secretary of Economic Development; Cate Magennis, Secretary of Commerce and Trade; James W. Dyke, Jr., Secretary of Education; Paul W. Timmreck, Secretary of Finance; Howard M. Cullum, Secretary of Health and Human Resources; Elizabeth M. Haskell, Secretary of Natural Resources; Robert L. Suthard / O. Randoph Rollins, Secretary of Public Safety; and John G. Milliken, Secretary of Transportation.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into the following series: