Mary Sue Terry
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Mary Sue Terry is a Democratic politician from Virginia. She was the Attorney General of Virginia from 1986 until 1993, when she resigned to run for Governor of Virginia against Republican George Allen. Allen won the November 1993 election despite Terry's early and significant lead, in part because of a whisper campaign about her sexual orientation. Following her defeat, Terry taught as a visiting professor at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies. She served on the Board of Trustees at the University of Richmond from 1983-91.
First elected as Attorney General in 1985, she was re-elected in 1989, becoming the first elected official in Virginia to receive more than one million votes in a single election. She was the first woman to serve as Attorney General of Virginia and the second woman to serve as Attorney General of any U.S. state. In 1989, she considered running for Governor, but deferred to her fellow Democrat, then-Lieutenant Governor of Virginia L. Douglas Wilder, who became the first African-American Governor of any U.S. state. When she ran in 1993, then-Lieutenant Governor Don Beyer deferred to her. Beyer, a Democrat, would go on to run for Governor in 1997, losing to the Republican candidate, then-Attorney General James S. Gilmore III.
Prior to serving as Attorney General, Terry was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1978-1986 and before that served as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney (assistant to a local prosecutor). While working as a lawyer, Terry successfully argued eight cases in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition she successfully negotiated a nationwide recall of 13,000 defective Ford ambulances and led a triumphant investigative and prosecutorial initiative against individuals and corporations associated with Lyndon LaRouche. From 1990-1991 Terry functioned as President of the National Association of Attorneys General and in 1992 she received the Wyman Award, which is the Association’s highest honor.
Terry received her BA from the University of Richmond in 1969 and received her masters and law degrees from the University of Virginia.
