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Ken Cuccinelli
Terry McAuliffe
The only important election that will likely be truly contested this year is the Virgina gubernatorial race and it is shaping up to be a close one. A new Quinnipiac poll found Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe tied with each other, currently getting 38 percent of the vote in a two person race. This is basically unchanged since last month when Quinnipiac previously polled.
Quinnipiac also asked what would happen if Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling decided to run as an Independent. Bolling is a Republican but has been completely screwed over by Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli’s allies in the Republican Party changed the nomination process in Virginia from a statewide primary to a convention, effectively denying Bolling any chance of even trying to win the nod. This underhanded tactic did not sit well with Bolling.
If Bolling did enter the race as an Independent, he would start off with 13 percent of the vote. In this scenario Cuccinelli’s support would drop to 31 percent but McAuliffe’s support would drop only to 34 percent. Not surprisingly, having two Republicans in the race would end up benefiting the only Democrat.
This is of course why in most states parties use a primary election to pick nominees. It discourages multiple candidates from the same party from taking their fight to the general election where they can split the vote. It would be poetic justice if Cuccinelli’s own scheming cost him the race.
13 Comments
Great stuff, thanks Jon.
Do the democrats use the same degree of political tricks as republicans? I ask for a numerical evaluation, not opinion.
Two sleazebags. Here’s hoping they tie for last place.
I grieve for the people of Virginia.
It sounds scary enough, JW, since Cuccinelli is as reactionary as they come. (I find the implication of Donald B. @ 3 that it doesn’t matter who wins unpersuasive.) Still, Virginia has pretty clearly been a “purple” state lately, and it would really be surprising if he prevailed.
Cuccinelli is so flaming a wingnut that he might manage a feat previously thought impossible: generating a sympathy vote for Terry McAwful.
You’re 100% correct about that. And McAwful is the best VA Democrats can do? Ugh!!
Installment number 647 since 1992 in the never-ending series “Vote for the Democrat, he’s the lesser of two evils.”
Insanity yada yadda same thing yadda different results.
I would usually agree with your sentiment, RT, but the poor women of color in the depressed neighborhoods of Richmond and the Tidewater region whose reproductive rights Cuccinelli would utterly destroy if he had the chance might beg to differ.
No hope of a primary challenger for MacAuliffe?
Can you be more specific, please?
I may not be clear on what you mean by specific, ncbb, but for example, last fall he tried to strong-arm the state Board of Health into agreeing with his interpretation of regulations governing abortion, threatening them in his capacity as the state’s Attorney General with denial of state legal counsel in lawsuits against Board members, according to the Virginian-Pilot. That’s how ruthless he is in imposing his hard-core anti-abortion stance.
Yes, that is very much more specific. Thank you.
However, I read the article and the letter from AG Cucinelli; and I have a dramatically different view of both of them than you do.
First, part of the job of a state AG is to uphold all state laws and regulations, unless they clearly violate either the state or federal constitution.
Second, a Board of Health, indeed no one in the Executive Branch, even the Governor, has the power to override or repeal state law. Only the legislative branch has legal power and authority to do that.
With those very relevant things in mind, these are the facts, as I understood them from the article and letter at your link:
A state statute had originally required hospitals and nursing homes to meet certain standards. That law had previously exempted abortion clinics and cosmetic surgery clinics from meeting those same standards.
In 2011, the Virginia state legislature enacted an amendment to that statute. The amendment required all clinics in which over 5 abortions a month are performed to meet the same building standards as hospital and nursing homes.
Put another way, the legislature outlawed exempting abortion clinics from meeting the same standard as hospitals and nursing homes. Clinics in which plastic surgery was performed continued to be exempted.
I see discrimination in the statute in favor of cosmetic surgery clinics, but i do not see unconstitutional discrimination. So, the AG has the duty to make sure abortion clinics meet the same standards as hospitals and nursing homes.
The 2011 amendment also gave newly-covered clinics were time to bring themselves into compliance. The state has 20 abortion clinics. Eleven or more of them were, as of 2012, already in compliance with same requirements as apply to hospitals and nursing homes. Some of their owners said that coming into compliance required only minor changes (no major expense or trouble0.
In June 2012, the Board of Health set new requirements for hospitals and nursing homes, but exempted abortion clinics from the new requirements.
The June 2012 exemption of abortion clinic by the Board of Health is in direct contravention of the 2011 amendment. The Board of Health has no legal power or authority to, in effect, repeal a law by enacting a regulation.
Probably, the Board of Health submitted its proposed regulations to the state AG’s office to make sure the regulations do not violate the federal or state constitutions or any state laws.
Whether or not that how the AG got his hands on the regulations, the state AG’s office did learn of the exemption. The AG’s office also did in fact tell the Board that the exemption in the Board’s new regulations was outside the legal power of the Board.
Some members of the Board of Health were content to take the AG’s word for it. Others, however, wanted a second legal opinion from a private law firm. However, they also did not want to pay for it themselves. They wanted the State to pay, even though the state already pays the AG’s office.
So the Board asked the AG’s office if the state would pay for private lawyers, even if it turned out that the AG was correct in stating that the exemption was outside the legal power of the Board of Health.
Another state law specifies three conditions under which the state will pay for lawyers outside the AG’s office. The AG responded to the Board’s question by quoting the state statute in his letter, in full and verbatim.
Of the three conditions in the statute, two involve the AG’s office being unwilling or unable to provide advice. Since the AG already did provide the advice, those two conditions clearly do not apply.
The third condition is that the AG cannot possibly give an unbiased legal advice because the AG has a conflict of interest in the matter.
Apparently, the Board was implying that an AG who is anti-abortion cannot give possibly give an unbiased opinion about whether a state regulation exempting abortion clinics conflicts with state law saying abortion clinic cannot be exempted: Only someone who is pro-choice can give an unbiased opinion about that.
That, of course, is ludicrous. Nothing says that someone who has the same personal biases as you do is objective. Judges and lawyers have all kinds of personal opinions.
No one has a right to demand a judge who or a state AG whose private biases agree with their own private biases. We do have a right to an unbiased legal determination, though. And that is exactly what the Board got both times it asked for the legal opinion of the AG.
Assuming there is not a lot more to this than the Virginia Pilot article contains, I do not see how a pro-choice Democratic AG could have decided any differently, given what the state law says about not exempting abortion clinics and about paying outside legal fees.
There may be a lot more to this than the material at your link suggests. Based only on your link, however, I cannot agree with your characterization of Cucinelli’s conduct in this particular instance.
BTW, the clinic owners, the dissenting Board of Health individuals and the pro-choice groups could chip in and pay for an outside lawyer to give a second opinion, tho’ I don’t see how an outside lawyer could disagree with the AG).
As far as poor women, this incident really has nothing to do with poor women wanting an abortion versus rich women wanting an abortion. If anything, this law is making sure all women wanting an abortion in Virginia get a cleaner, safer clinic. Rather, this seems to about less than half of the clinics in Virginia not wanting to spend the money to make minor changes to make their clinics cleaner and safer.
And frankly, the violations cited in the article did seem disgusting i don’t know why any group, besides cheap clinic owners, would oppose the law. But, that is irrelevant.
Point is, the Board of Health clearly had no legal right to violate the law; and it had no legal right to legal fees and the Attorney General had no legal right to do anything different from what he did.