Office files, 1968-1982, of Herbert H. Bateman, Virginia Republican State Senator from Newport News. Includes correspondence with constituents and state officials; bills and legislative materials; memorandum; reports; pamphlets; and publications arranged according to subject. The collection contains background information and committee working papers showing Virginia's responses to the energy crisis of the late 1970's and to Ronald Reagan's "New Federalism" programs as well as the state's policies on education, transportation, and welfare funding, and the activities of state regulatory agencies.

There are materials concerning Bateman's sponsorship of coastal zone land management bills, bills for execution by lethal injection, bills for mandatory sentencing by judges in criminal cases and his activities on behalf of the port of Newport News, the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company and the Virginia seafood industry. The largest body of material concerns Bateman's 1975-1977 efforts as paid counsel and as senator to minimize the economic impact of the poisoning of the James River by kepone on the Virginia seafood industry.

Prominent correspondents include Linwood Holton, Mills Godwin, John Dalton, Charles Robb, Harry F. Byrd, Jr., William Spong, Thomas Downing, William Scott and Paul Trible, other General Assembly members and state agency commissioners.