The government website of Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears highlights that she has “traveled over 28,000 miles across the Commonwealth since coming into office” and “headlined numerous events across the Commonwealth and across the nation.”
That track record is part of the case the Republican is making to voters as she runs for governor, with Election Day less than two weeks away.
But her official lieutenant governor schedule tells a different story.
Unredacted calendar documents obtained this month by NOTUS via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act show large gaps — sometimes weeks, other times months — where Earle-Sears lists no meetings, events or governmental engagements on her official schedule.
Earle-Sears did not respond to several phone and email messages left by NOTUS with her gubernatorial campaign and Virginia lieutenant governor’s office.
Earlier this year, Earle-Sears declined to offer specifics when public broadcaster VPM, which obtained a partial version of her schedule, asked her to describe and detail her role in the Youngkin administration.
“I’m not going to divulge what we talk about. But remember that I’m a former legislator as well, and I understand the legislative process,” Earle-Sears said at the time. “We’ve talked about some things, and I’m just going to leave it at that. I’ve given him advice on certain things … we just have things that we’ve discussed on how to move certain things and how certain things will move.”
Government officials’ schedules “have always been really sensitive and places of combat, but as a citizen, I’d like to know a little bit more of what she’s doing,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the nonpartisan Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
The Earle-Sears calendar documents, which are public records under Virginia law, cover the period between January 2022 and September 2024. Initially, they were packed with activity. Earle-Sears logged 170 different scheduled meetings and events, from legislative hearings and committee meetings to welcoming visitors to the Virginia Capitol, during her first three months in office.
Earle-Sears disclosed 241 official events during 2022 — a sparse spring and summer, followed by a more active autumn, culminating with 53 scheduled calendar items in December 2022. On Dec. 7, Earle-Sears’ schedule included 13 events, several overlapping.
By early 2023, however, Earle-Sears’ schedule grew bare.
Her official schedule contained no engagements from February to July 2023. In August of that year, she listed two events, followed by four in September, three in October, five in November and four in December.
Earle-Sears began 2024 with fewer than a dozen events, including a “Speaker’s Interfaith Devotional” the morning of Jan. 17, and a “Capitol Commission Bible Study” early the morning of Jan. 18.
On Feb. 7, she attended “Aerospace Day at the General Assembly 7:30am - 8am.” And then, nothing: between March 2024 and September 2024, the lieutenant governor listed no items on her official schedule.
Virginia law does not appear to mandate how a lieutenant governor or governor must keep his or her official schedule. A variety of factors, including security concerns in an age marred by political violence, could prompt officials to keep some engagements off their books.
But the Virginia state archivist, citing the Virginia Public Records Act, indicates that the state should maintain a permanent collection of “official appearances, itinerary, and speeches” by any lieutenant governor, including “calendars” and “schedules.”
Official schedules help confirm how government leaders spend their time when entrusted with power by constituents. Taken together, Earle-Sears’ schedules do not indicate whether she sometimes sought to keep her whereabouts as lieutenant governor a secret, or conversely, if she spends long periods not actively working in an official capacity.
A representative for Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who campaigned for Earle-Sears as his successor, did not reply to inquiries from NOTUS about how the lieutenant governor spends her time on the job.
“She brings the fighting spirit of a Marine to the office every single day,” Youngkin previously said of Earle-Sears.
None of the official schedule entries mention any of several notable events at which press accounts place Earle-Sears. These include meetings hosted by the conservative nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council and, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury, an April 2023 trip that involved flying on a private plane of Gary Duncan, “a car dealer and campaign donor whose business is regulated by the state.”
“At the end of the day, they’re working for the people who put them there,” J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said of the state’s elected officials. “The average voter would probably want more transparency.”
Earle-Sears’ official schedule indicates she was to attend a meeting of Virginia’s Freedom of Information Advisory Council from 1 to 2 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2022.
As a member of Congress until earlier this year, Earle-Sears’ opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger — like all other members of Congress — is exempt by the federal Freedom of Information Act from releasing her official schedules. If elected governor, Spanberger would be required to abide by Virginia’s FOIA law.
A spokesperson for the Spanberger campaign, Connor Joseph, declined to address the substance of Earle-Sears’ official schedules but said Spanberger, if elected, “will make sure the governor’s office and her administration is accountable to Virginians.”