Gabrielle Union

Bad Boys II (2003). 6.5% of Virginia's population were reported as under 5, 24.6% under 18, and 11.2% were 65 or older. Cradle 2 the Grave (2003). The 5 largest ancestry groups in Virginia are African American (19.6%), German (11.7%), American (11.2%), English (11.1%), Irish (9.8%). Deliver Us From Eva (2003). The racial makeup of the state is:. Breakin' All the Rules (2004). Census Bureau, as of 2003, Virginia's population was estimated at 7,386,330 people.

The Honeymooners (2005). According to the U.S. Virginia is divided into the following 5 regions:. Chesapeake Bay divides the state, with the eastern portion (called 'the Eastern Shore of Virginia'), a part of the Delmarva Peninsula, completely separate (an exclave) from the rest of the state. Virginia is bordered by West Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia (across the Potomac River) to the north, by Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, by North Carolina and Tennessee to the south, and by Kentucky and West Virginia to the west.

See also: List of Virginia counties, List of Virginia rivers, Lost Counties, Cities and Towns of Virginia. There are exceptions, notably Richmond, Virginia, which has a popularly-elected Mayor who serves as chief executive separate from the city council. The 95 counties and the 39 independent cities all have their own governments, usually a county board of supervisors or city council which choose a city manager or county administrator to serve as a professional, non-political chief administrator under the council-manager form of government. The Chief Justice and the Virginia Supreme Court also serve as the administrative body for the entire Virginia court system.

Constitution law or constitutional rights). Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction over decisions by the Virginia Supreme Court involving substantial questions of U.S. The Virginia Supreme Court, composed of the chief justice and six other judges is the highest court in the Commonwealth (although, as with all the states, the U.S. The judicial branch comprehends the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Virginia Court of Appeals, the General District Courts and the Circuit Courts.

The Office of the Governor's Secretaries helps manage the Governor's Cabinet, comprised of the following individuals, all appointed by the Governor:. The Attorney General is second in the line of succession to the Governor. The Attorney General is chief legal advisor to the Governor and the General Assembly, chief prosecutor of the state, and the head of the Department of Law. The Lieutenant Governor serves as President of the Senate of Virginia and is first in the line of succession to the Governor.

State law forbids any Governor from serving consecutive terms. The Governor serves as chief executive officer of the Commonwealth and as Commander-in-Chief of the State Militia. All three officers are separately elected to four-year terms in years following Presidential elections (1997, 2001, 2005, etc). The executive branch comprises the Governor of Virginia, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and the state Attorney General.

The General Assembly also selects the state's Auditor of Public Accounts. Members of the Virginia House of Delegates serve two-year terms, while members of the Virginia Senate serve four-year terms. The legislative branch or state legislature is the Virginia General Assembly, a bicameral body whose 140 members make all state laws. Under the Constitution, the State Government is composed of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.

It is the state's ninth constitution. Virginia currently functions under the 1971 Constitution of Virginia. By the time of the Constitution of 1901, which lasted longer than any other state constitution, the General Assembly continued as the legislature, the Supreme Court of Appeals acted as the judiciary, and the eight elected executive officers were the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of the Commonwealth, State Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigration. The Constitution of 1901 was amended many times, notably in the 1930s and 1950s, before it was abandoned in favour of more modern government, with fewer elected officials, reformed local governments, and a more streamlined judiciary. Like many other states, by the 1850s Virginia featured a state legislature, several executive officers, and an independent judiciary.

Today, the General Assembly is made up of the Senate and the House of Delegates. Founded in 1619, the Virginia General Assembly is still in existence as the oldest legislature in the Western Hemisphere. Later the rules for voting changed, making it necessary for men to own at least fifty acres (200,000 mē) of land in order to vote. Women, indentured servants, and Native Americans could not vote.

It gave Virginians a chance to control their own government for the first time. At first the burgesses were elected by all free men in the colony. The idea of electing burgesses was important and new. The approval of the Burgesses, the Council, and the Governor was needed to pass a law. The Burgesses met to make laws for the colony and set the direction for its future growth; the Council would then review the laws and either approve or disapprove them.

Each county chose two people or burgesses to represent it, while the College of William and Mary and the cities of Norfolk, Williamsburg, and Jamestown each chose one burgess. Members of the House of Burgesses were chosen by all those who could vote in the colony. The Council also served as the General Court of the colony, a colonial equivalent of a Supreme Court. The Governor's Council was composed of 12 men appointed by the British Monarch to advise the Governor.

Together with the Governor's Council, the House of Burgesses made up the General Assembly. In colonial Virginia, the lower house of the legislature was called the House of Burgesses. The Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond was designed by Thomas Jefferson and the cornerstone was laid by Governor Patrick Henry in 1785. Previous capitals included Jamestown (1609-1699) and Williamsburg (1699-1780).

The capital is Richmond: the current Governor is Mark Warner, a Democrat. On January 13, 1990, Douglas Wilder became the first African American to serve as Governor of a US state since Reconstruction when he was elected Governor of Virginia. Virginia formally rejoined the Union on January 26, 1870, after a period of post-war military rule. When it did, some counties were separated as Kanawha (later renamed West Virginia), an act which was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1870.

Virginia is one of the states that seceded from the Union to become the Confederacy during the Civil War. Congress dated July 9, 1846, the area south of the Potomac that had been ceded by Virginia was retroceded to Virginia effective 1847, and is now Arlington County and part of the City of Alexandria. In 1790 both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, but in an Act of the U.S. On June 29, 1776, the convention adopted a constitution that established Virginia as a commonwealth independent of the British Empire.

On June 12, 1776, the Virginia Convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document that influenced the Bill of Rights added later to the United States Constitution. Patrick Henry served as the first Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779, and again from 1784 to 1786. Virginia was given its nickname "The Old Dominion" by King Charles II of England at the time of the Restoration for remaining loyal to the crown during the English Civil War. Its Second Charter was officially ratified on May 23, 1609.

It swiftly financed the first permanent English settlement in the New World which was at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony in 1607. At the end of the 16th century when England began to colonize North America, "Virginia" was the name Queen Elizabeth I of England (who was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married) gave to the whole area explored by the 1584 expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh along the coast of North America, eventually applying to the whole coast from South Carolina to Maine. The London Virginia Company became incorporated as a joint stock company by a royal charter drawn up on April 10, 1606. Among Native American people living in what now is Virginia were the Powhatan, Nottaway, Meherrin, Pohick, Monacan, Saponi, and Cherokee. (Historical footnote: both Harrison and Taylor died while in office.).

William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Zachary Taylor round out the list of American Presidents from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Five of them were re-elected to a second term: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Woodrow Wilson. Presidents (8) were born in this state than in any other. Virginia is known as the "Mother of Presidents", as more U.S.

Kentucky and West Virginia were part of Virginia at the time of the founding of the United States, but the former was admitted to the Union as a separate state in 1792 while the latter broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. Its official name is the Commonwealth of Virginia; it is one of four states which use the name commonwealth. Virginia is one of the original 13 states of the United States that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution and is generally classified as part of the South. State song: none; the former state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," was retired in 1997 because some found its lyrics to be racially offensive.

State insect: Tiger swallowtail. State tree: Dogwood. State flower: Dogwood. State dog: American Foxhound.

State bird: Cardinal. State motto: "Sic semper tyrannis." (Thus always to tyrants.). Hampton Roads Piranhas. Northern Virginia Majestics.

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