ABOUT MARK
Attorney General Mark Herring is fighting every day for justice, equality, and opportunity for ALL Virginians.
As your Attorney General, Mark never backs down from a challenge because he believes that your attorney general should have your back. Sometimes that means bringing new tools and fresh ideas to a public safety challenge. Sometimes it means fighting in court to protect your rights. And sometimes, it means standing up to powerful interests, including former President Trump.
Mark Herring was raised by a single mother in Loudoun County, Virginia. She instilled in him that when you see a problem in your community, you have an obligation to try and fix it. He worked construction and other jobs in order to help pay for college, and he’s never forgotten where he came from, which is why he works every single day to make our families and communities safer.
As attorney general, Mark is a leading voice for criminal justice reform in the Commonwealth. He led on decriminalization of cannabis, and is continuing to push for legal, regulated adult use and to resolve past convictions, He is also championing progressive reform measures like cash bail reform, expanding record expungement and reentry programs, diversifying the judiciary, and increasing safety, transparency, and accountability in policing, use of force, and deaths in custody.
Throughout the COVID pandemic Mark has worked to keep Virginians safe and help them get through this health and economic crisis. He has successfully defended Virginia’s COVID safety measures in court more than a dozen times, 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 those who need it.
Mark has gone to court time and again to protect your healthcare. When former President Trump abandoned the defense of Obamacare in court, Mark stepped in to protect coverage for preexisting conditions and to keep healthcare affordable and accessible for Virginians. He has also sued to block efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and limit women’s access to reproductive healthcare.
Even in the NRA’s backyard, Mark has been a proud champion for commonsense gun safety laws, like 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,” and has gone to court to successfully defend Virginia’s new gun violence protection laws from legal attack by the NRA and the gun lobby. He has sued to block untraceable, undetectable 3D guns from hitting the streets, and launched innovative campaigns to reduce violence in Virginia communities.
As attorney general, Mark 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 completely eliminate Virginia’s backlog of untested rape kits. As a result of his work, more than 2,600 kits were tested, Virginia’s backlog has been completely eliminated, and charges are being brought 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 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.
And since the day he was sworn in, Attorney General Herring has worked nonstop to defend the rights of Virginia taxpayers, seniors, veterans, and military families. He 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.
Mark is the first Democrat to serve as Virginia’s attorney general in more than 20 years, and the first attorney general to be reelected in nearly 30 years. Prior to serving as Attorney General, Mark served as a State Senator from Loudoun, a member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and as an attorney in private practice in his hometown of Leesburg.
Mark received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Virginia before attending the University of Richmond School of Law. He and his wife, Laura, have been married for over 30 years. They have two children, daughter Peyton and son Tim.
