Once he was inaugurated as governor, it became apparent that the real Youngkin was the one who campaigned in the southern part of the state—the one who used thinly veiled racial appeals and anti-Vaxx and mask sentiment during the campaign. It showed in his appointments. He picked anti-Critical Race Theory firebrand Elizabeth Schultz as assistant superintendent of Public Instruction, along with McKenzie Snow, Betsy DeVos’s policy director, for a major role in the Department of Education, although she subsequently left to work for Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. He appointed a voluble critic of vaccine mandates, Dr. Marty Makary, to his medical advisory team, and Andrew Wheeler, a Trump EPA official and climate change denier, as a senior advisor.
On education, he set up a “tip line for divisive practices,” widely criticized for its politicization, and, taking a page from DeSantis, signed an executive order banning Critical Race Theory from being in the public school curriculum, saying that children should not be taught that they are “inherently biased.” A book-banning bill that passed in the GOP-led House of Delegates died in the Virginia Senate, but Youngkin said that if the bill had passed, he would have signed it.
Youngkin attacked voting rights, bringing back lifetime disenfranchisement for former felons—making Virginia the only state to say that anyone convicted of any felony would be banned for life from voting (think about that: not even Mississippi…). He vetoed a bipartisan bill allowing local governments to go after landlords who fail to address serious housing violations that create safety hazards. And in the runup to the elections next week, his elections team admitted they removed almost 3,400 qualified voters from the rolls.