Delegate Lee Ware ... a Biography ...  

Lee Ware is serving his sixth term in the House of Delegates from the 65 th District. The 65 th House District encompasses all of Powhatan County and thirteen precincts in western and northwestern Chesterfield.

Ware strives to bring reflective deliberation to what he describes as “the challenge to balance all interests” on every major policy issue that comes before the House of Delegates. For example, during the stock-market boom days of the late 1990s, Ware was one of the few legislators who warned that state spending was dangerously outstripping the private economy’s ability to sustain a mushrooming governmental budget. During the past decade, he points out, spending by state government grew by an average of almost eight percent per year, far outstripping growth in personal or personal income. These concerns, arising from Ware’s Jeffersonian conviction “that that government is best which governs least,” prompted him to cast a series of dissenting votes against major budget bills. Ware is quick to emphasize, however, that he is by no means an “anti-tax legislator. More accurately, I strive to be ‘anti-waste.’ More accurately still, I strive to be ‘pro-efficiency’ in the use of taxpayers’ hard-earned monies, which are of course the source of all governmental spending.”

Ware’s attempt to balance all interests on major issues that come before the legislature is reflected in his thesis that increases in funding requested by any one constituency must be balanced against the hard realities of the well-being of the private-sector economy, hence the individual or corporate taxpayer’s ability to assume a larger contribution to the public good through increased taxes. Fulfilling the state’s responsibilities to public education is one of what Ware describes as the “three core responsibilities of our state government,” the other two being public safety and transportation. “Accomplishing these objectives is difficult enough in times of robust economic growth; during the current period of volatility in economic conditions, the challenge to achieve a balance among competing interests is all the more demanding—and necessary,” he believes.

The balance that Ware brings to economic and environmental issues is reflected in his being named “A Hero of Conservation” by the Virginia League of Conservation Voters following the 2002 General Assembly. Both the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Family Foundation of Virginia accorded Ware a similar rating for his voting record during the 2003 General Assembly.

Another indication of Ware’s commitment to the proper balance among interests is his support of a revenue-neutral reform of Virginia’s structure of taxation. The reform is necessary, he believes, to reflect the Commonwealth’s gradual shift from an agrarian to an industrial and now to a services-oriented economy.

Ware serves on three major committees in the House of Delegates, including Finance; Commerce and Labor; and Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources; and Militia, of which he is vice chairman. He also serves, by appointment, on the Special Advisory Commission on Mandated Health Benefits, of which he is chairman; and on commissions on the Future of Virginia’s Environment, Coal & Energy, and Unemployment Compensation.

Delegate Ware, who is 55, is a teacher of History and Government in Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot Academy in Powhatan. Previously, for fifteen years he was a teacher of History and Government in Powhatan High School.

The recipient of numerous civic and professional awards, he has been named Outstanding Virginia Teacher of the Constitution by the John Marshall Foundation. He is also a former award-winning editor of newspapers in both Virginia and New Hampshire.

He is a graduate of Wheaton College with a double major in History and Literature, and has undertaken graduate studies at Harvard University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Longwood College.

Delegate Ware served two terms on the Board of Supervisors of Powhatan County and served one year as the board’s chairman. In 1994 he became the first public school teacher to serve on the State Board of Education, by appointment of Governor George Allen.

Ware and his wife, Kathy, who is a certified public accountant, are parents of four children, each of whom was graduated from local public schools. He is a member of St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church of Powhatan, and the Wares also attend Sycamore Presbyterian Church in Midlothian.

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