He said as was the custom he and Anne both clerked for judges their first year. He worked for US Court
of Appeals Judge R. Lanier Anderson III in Macon, Georgia, and Anne for Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr.in Richmond. “I enjoyed a lot of things about Richmond,” he said, “so that worked out. We moved here, got married, and started new jobs all within a month in September 1984.

It might surprise many to hear that the man who has become our Governor, and who married into a gubernatorial and political dynasty, grew
up in a nonpolitical household. “My family is extremely nonpolitical,” he said. “It was very unusual to get to know Anne’s family because there were so connected in politics. By the time I got to know Lin [Gov. Holton] he was not in office, but the family dinner table conversations were all about politics. That was very different for me.

“I never thought of myself running for office until about ten years after I’d been in Richmond. I just got mad at Richmond City Council, and decided to run for city council.”

So what got him so angry that he ran for office? It was simple, he said. “I didn’t like on issues of controversy, that the city council would divide along racial lines, which wouldn’t happen every week, but it just seemed like on controversial issues that would be pretty normal there would be white council members would vote one way, and African American members voted the other way and I just thought that sent a bad signal to the city.