With Voting Rights Restored, Former Richmond, Va. Councilman Moves to Run for Mayor

May 22, 2016 

With Voting Rights Restored, Former Richmond, Va. Councilman Moves to Run for Mayor
A confessed drug addict, Richardson's announcement has national implications
By Hazel Trice Edney

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Henry W. "Chuck" Richardson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Former Richmond, Va. City Councilman Henry W. "Chuck" Richardson, who resigned from office after a non-violent drug conviction in 1995, was among the more than 200,000 people with felony records whose voting rights were recently restored by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Richardson, who served for 18 years after his election as a member of the city's first majority Black City Council in 1977, says he is not only elated that his voting rights have been restored, but he is also circulating petitions to possibly run to become the city's next mayor.
"I have now secured my declaration of candidacy form, filled out the necessary papers and I am getting petitions signed in order to qualify my candidacy for the mayorship of Richmond," said Richardson in an interview this week.
Richardson is not unfamiliar with the mayoral candidacy. He was nominated for the position in 1982 by then Councilwoman Caroline C. Wake, who was then one of four White members of the Council. At that time, the mayor was elected by the nine-member city council. However Richardson voted against himself that year; thereby thwarting the nomination. Richardson explained that he declined then because the other four votes would have come from the White members who he said was attempting to divide the five-member Black regime.
Richardson said the position was offered to him again by the Black members of council in 1994, but "the time wasn't right." In the early 90s, Richmond changed its City Charter to create an at large, city-wide elected mayor.
Richardson would enter a crowded non-partisan field of at least 17 other candidates for the position. The filing deadline is June 14. His candidacy has national implications harkening to that of the late Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry who after three terms as mayor, was arrested and served six months in federal prison on a crack cocaine-related charge. Barry rose back to popularity after his release and a stint in drug rehab and won re-election to Council in 1993 and re-election to mayor in 1994.
Barry died suddenly in 2014 at the age of 78. Like Barry, Richardson was tremendously popular among the elderly, the poor, the homeless and Richmond's Black population. Richardson was mentored by his brother-in-law, the late Maynard Jackson, mayor of Atlanta. He was the author of Richmond's 30 percent minority set-aside plan, which was a model for Black economic participation around the country when it was struck down by the U. S. Supreme Court in Croson v. Richmond in 1989.

"I had no intentions of running for the mayorship. But it seems to me that providence has come to bear on my life," Richardson said this week. "In the moment of the mayorship's ripeness, the governor has given me my rights back and, to me, it's a message to say run Chuck run. The events are in the saddle and they ride mankind."
Richardson, 68, said among his most prevalent issues will be running "an open government" with transparency so that citizens will always know what's going on; a citizen-friendly City Hall; creating a city jobs bank and strengthening the city school budget process. He said he will also dispense of "wasteful spending" such as the heavy security detail employed by current Mayor Dwight Jones.
As the historically longest serving member of the Richmond City Council, Richardson said his legacy was always one "to get the job done. I worked hard and I was known to get the job done."
Richardson is aware of an obscure Virginia law that prohibits anyone convicted of a drug offense from running for public office. However, the governor's letter appears to give him explicit rights to run.
The May 12 letter to Richardson from McAuliffe says the governor has "restored his rights to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury and to be a notary public". The restoration was effective April 22, 2016, according to the letter.
Richmond lawyer Vinceretta Taylor Chiles, who assisted Richardson and others in the voting rights restoration process, said while she has not researched the state law as it pertains to Richardson, the law appears to be problematic given the governor's sweeping restorations.
She described the law as "arbitrary and capricious because why single drug offenders out opposed to people who are involved in other morally corrupt activity?" she asked. "You mean you can molest a child or sexually offend a child or get convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and that does not disqualify you from running for public office? My goodness."
Richardson credits his history as a decorated Marine machine gunner for his ability to work hard and remain focused on the tasks required by public service. However, it was also during his tour of Vietnam that he became addicted to heroin; an addiction that followed him on to City Council. Nevertheless, he continued to be re-elected even four times after he was convicted of possession of dangerous drugs - cocaine and heroin - in 1988.
He ultimately resigned in 1995 after delivering a small amount of cocaine to a personal friend, who turned out to be a police informant. When the informant gave him what Richardson said was a simple reimbursement, he was arrested and charged with cocaine dealing.
Twenty-one years later, Richardson says he is completely free of drugs and - with rights restored - is looking forward to the mayoral campaign. He says he doesn't see his past as a stumbling block for a successful race and that he could even be an inspiration to young people.

"Young people should be inspired by my message about never giving up," he said. "You can do a lot of things in life. You can have your falls, your ups and your downs. But, I am a testament to the fact that if you keep the faith and never give up, there is no telling what God has in store for you."
Richardson stressed that despite his past troubles, he was always an extraordinary public servant as indicated by his repeated re-elections. He concludes, "Today, more than any other time in Richmond's history, it needs a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine. It needs Chuck Richardson because I get the job done."