The Party

Mark Warner
U.S. Senate

Mark Warner served as governor of Virginia from 2002 until January 2006. His administration inherited $6 billion in budget shortfalls, and ended with a surplus that allowed the largest single investment in K-12 education in Virginia history, a reinvestment in one of the nation's premier public college and university systems, and a record investment in cleanup of the nation's largest estuary: the Chesapeake Bay.

Governor Warner did this by cutting budgets, finding efficiencies and making business-like reforms to state government and public schools, and eventually taking on a modernization of Virginia's entire tax code to promote fairness, long-term fiscal integrity, and the preservation of core services. He put a focus on economic development in areas hard hit by job losses - turning around jobless rates in those regions.

Along the way, he chaired the National Governors Association, leading a national high school reform effort to meet the challenges of a global economy. He was named among Governing Magazine's "Public Officials of the Year" in 2004, TIME Magazine's "America's 5 Best Governors" in 2005, and Newsweek's "Who's Next" issue in 2006.

While he was governor, Virginia was named "the best managed state in the nation" by Governing Magazine, and the "runaway winner" in the new "Best State For Business" ranking done by Forbes, based on the tax structure, education system, and bipartisan fiscal management the Warner administration had put in place. Education Week Magazine named Virginia as the best place for a child to be born in terms of educational opportunity.

He's a former high tech business person, who co-founded the company that became Nextel, as well as the largest technology-based venture capital fund in the mid-Atlantic. As a private citizen, he launched a health care foundation that's helped over 500,000 uninsured and medically underserved Virginians obtain access to primary health care.

Governor Warner has been praised for his bi-partisan approach to politics. The Richmond Times-Dispatch said his specialty was "finding common ground" and "seizing chances from setbacks." The Daily Press wrote in 2005 that Governor Warner brought a "pragmatic, results-driven, business-oriented approach to government resonates across the spectrum of Virginia politics."

He and his wife, Lisa Collis, and their three daughters, Madison, Gillian, and Eliza, reside in Alexandria.

www.MarkWarner2008.com 

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