McDonnell Could Scrap Privatization Bid for Ports

McDonnell Meets with Appalachian’s Top Brass

For McDonnell, Rights Directive is a Balancing Act

McDonnell’s Directive Carries Force of Office, Not Law

McEachin Urges McDonnell to Protect Gays In Law

Delegates Credit McDonnell with Small Step on Bias

Attorneys Seek Clemency, Ask McDonnell to Step Aside

Lawmakers Pass Car Titlte Lending Reform

Congressman Moran Pens Letter  on Offshore Drilling Royalties to Governor “McDonald”

Lawmakers May Agree on Budget Friday

Budget Talks Could Force Overtime

Protestors Oppose NOVA Imam Who Gave House Opening Prayer

Lawmakers Pay Immune from Budget Cuts

Church Serves as Lobbyists’ HQ

SCC Approves Dominion Settlemenet that Will Save Consumer $726 Million

T.C. Williams Called “Poor Performer”

Pick of Bush Administration Official for Fairfax Election Board Riles Democrats

Fairfax, Falls Church Pose Real Estate Tax Hikes

Henrico School Board Approves Budget with $22 Million Cut

Isle of Wight Speakers Oppose School Closure, Gifted Cuts

Some Layoffs Likely for Amherst Schools

Staffing Level Cuts Set for Bedford Schools

Gloucester Vehicle Owners Could See Bigger Tax Bills

Uranium Debate Hits Richmond

More Crime, Less Money a Challenge for Sheriffs

Regardless of whether the Attorney General is right or not on the law (and focusing only on authority derived from the legislature, he is probably right), it was inevitable that his personal views on homosexuality would taint the public reaction to “The Letter.”

And it is likely that the tone and content of The Letter would have been less offensive if those views were different.  For example, he could have reminded the universities of the prohibitions in both the Virginia and United States Constitutions.  The impact was obviously exacerbated by the actions of the House GOP in not attempting to counter its effect legislatively.

The combination was lethal for Republicans.  Obviously not to some of their base and maybe not in the short term due to the abiding hostility to the national Democratic agenda and the hemorrhaging of our financial credibility through spending and deficits that are mind-numbing.

But in the longer term with independents, younger voters and others, such apparent willingness to relegate gays and lesbians to second class back-of-the-bus citizenship will tarnish the problem-solving image of the GOP that the Governor and others labor to build.

At our core Americans by and large are decent, fair-minded individuals.  Like every nation we have our historical darkness and cruelty.  But I believe in our basic goodness.

From everything I know Attorney General Cuccinelli is a good, decent and caring man, and unlike some, I attribute no malice to him.  But his stated views on homosexuality must inevitably influence his policy decisions at some level and the effect is most assuredly hurtful to our fellow human beings.

Discrimination because of one’s sexual preferences offends notions of fundamental fairness that lie at the core of who we are and over time those who fail to recognize that will not be chosen to lead Virginia or the nation.

To his credit, Governor McDonnell’s decency and fairness have shown through and Virginia should be grateful.  Kudos too to Senator Norment for his efforts in the Senate, and to Delegates Plum and McEachin in the House.  

The entire House should follow the Governor’s lead if another chance to do so surfaces before Saturday’s adjournment, as well it might.

 It is clearly the right thing to do.

Governor Issues Directive Against Discrimination

UVA Grateful for McDonnell Move

Kaine’s Office Had Role in Quashing Findings About State Children’s Hospital

Virginia First State to Approve Bill to Bar Health Insurance Mandate

McDonnell Signs Offshore Energy Bills

Boycott Urged for Muslim Imam’s Prayer in House

State Budget Negotiators Making Progress

Senate Panel Votes to Add Non-Discrimination to Northrop Grumman Bill

Bill Benching Student Athletes With Concussions Okayed

Governors Propose Common School Standards, Virginia is Cautious

Yogis Will Not Be SCHEV Regulated

City Council Says All Norfolk Schools Need to Be Investigated

ODU Hopes Norfolk Groundbreaking is Just a Start

Hampton Residents Says Emergency Workers More Important than Arts and Museums

York Supervisors Continue Scrutiny of Upcoming Budget

Newport News School Board Member Proposes Pay Cuts

Montgomery County Residents Criticize Proposed Tax Increases

Appomattox Town Manager Placed on Unpaid Leave

Albemarle Okays University Plan for Research Park

Fredericksburg Budget Includes Cuts

Proposed Tax Increase Fails in Front Royal

Here’s what I think that McDonnell is trying to accomplish.

1. Reasserting Gubernatorial Priorities

In a very significant way, politics  is about establishing priorities that people can understand and embrace. Bob McDonnell was elected Governor on a conservative platform that highlighted pragmatic measures such as job creation, economic development, and opposition to tax increases.

Virginia has made national news numerous times over the last three weeks, each time for reasons that have nothing to do with the major themes of the campaign. If one was simply reading these reports, you might have thought that the Virginia election was about limiting gay rights, repealing one gun a month, and suing the federal government over climate control.

In essence, Cuccinelli’s agenda seemed to be more prominent than McDonnell’s. Today’s statement is an effort by the Governor to reassert his primacy in shaping the political agenda of Virginia and the state Republican Party. 

2. Extricating Himself from the Pelosi Maneuver

Invented by the national GOP, the Pelosi Maneuver occurs whenever a political figure is attacked by linking her or him to a less popular member of their own party. In 2010, all Republicans will  be certain to label their opponent a Pelosi Democrat.

In Virginia, however, the Democrats are trying to turn the tables on the GOP and have been relentless in criticizing the GOP, linking McDonnell to Cuccinelli at every turn. Donald McEachin has reemerged as a statewide figure and go-to person for the media, claiming that “Cuccinelli is implementing the thesis.”

Today’s statement is McDonnell’s effort to extricate himself from the Democrats’ version of the Pelosi Maneuver.

3. Controlling the Virginia Model

The explosion of hot-button, Virginia-based items onto the national media scene had threatened to transform McDonnell’s “Virginia Model” (which commentators widely cited as a template for GOP candidates in 2010) into something quite different.

We already saw in the past few weeks requests that companies thinking of relocating to Virginia such as Northrop Grumman consider the lack of protection for gays and lesbians in state policy as a factor in their decision-making.

It was only a matter of time before national Democrats started pointing to a presumably “benighted Virginia” asking that “if you want to know how the GOP will govern if it regains power, look at Virginia.”

McDonnell’s Executive Order places the highest office in Virginia on record as noting that discrimination based on sexual orientation is inherently protected by the U.S. Constitution and, by implication, suggests that the Governor has reconsidered his own previous statement that “Cuccinelli’s legal reasoning” was accurate.

Even more importantly, it is a message to both the broader business and political communities that Virginia remains a forward-looking state that can be a model of where conservatism is moving.

How will this play out?

In the short term, it will surely defuse both the visibility and some of the anger that accompanied The Letter, though the Democrats will certainly try to argue that McDonnell is not blameless.

It also makes sure that McDonnell’s economic development initiatives will not have to occur in a context of a culture war  in which Virginia’s stance toward gays and lesbians is highlighted every time a major business recruitment in underway.

But it will also be fascinating to see how this plays out inside the Republican Party where Ken Cuccinelli has a large base.

In addition, I do not believe that the Attorney General will shy away from other controversial matters where his office believes that major principles are at stake.

The evolution of the McDonnell-Cuccinelli relationship will remain one of the key factors in understanding Virginia politics over the next 46 (yes 46) months.

Bolling Enters Debate Against Fee Increases

McDonnell Pledges Not to Discriminate, Backs Cuccinelli’s Legal Reasoning on Gays

McDonnell 2007 Letter to CNU on Protections for Gays

W&M’s Reveley Letter on Cuccinelli

VCU Speakers Assail Cuccinelli

Gay Community Awaits UVA Response

McDonnell Wants VITA-NG Deal By End of Month

Senate Passes McDonnell Education Bills

Senate Delays Ethics Bills for Amendments

Sheriffs Support Senate’s Public Safety Fee Hikes

Senate Trims Fees Slightly in Budget Overture

Putney Speaks Up as House Okays Soering Resolution

Chesapeake’s Stimulus Money Created 2 Jobs

Fairfax to Propose Higher Residential Property Taxes

“Surreal” Arrests Disrupt Family, Muslim Community

Isle of Wight Worries that Surry Coal Plant Would Hurt Economic Development Efforts

Roanoke School Board Considers Legal Action Over State Funding

Localities Use New Technology to Get Feedback on Budget Cuts

York Supervisors Consider Spending Reserve Fund on Computer Upgrade

Bill to Protect Gays Apparently Dead for Session

Cuccinelli’s Position Praised and Panned

Students Irate at Cuccinelli

VCU to Hold Forums On Cuccinelli Opinion

McDonnell’s School Reforms Pass Despite Spruill’s Objection

Bills to Expand Death Penalty Pass Senate Committee

House Approves Fee to Combat Internet Crime Predators

Efforts to Revive Gun Bills Fails

Tea Party Targets Budget, Democrats’ Gun Bills

Dems Select Dave Mills as Executive Director

Speaker’s Crown Cork Relief Bill Killed

Byron’s Tax Filing Bill Passes Senate Test

Lobbyists Stop Anti-Loophole Bill on Hotel Taxes

Hurt Slows Congressional Campaign But Not Fundraising

Loupassi Lines Up Behind Richmond Charter and Asks Cuccinelli for Ruling

Norfolk, Portsmouth Pre-School at Risk in State Budget

Newport News City Center Still Stirs Debate

Are School Sports Worth Saving

Albemarle May Ax Library Cut

Kaine Relishes Single Role as DNC Chair

House, Senate Budget Negotiators Make Little Progress

Gay Rights Group Ask McDonnell to Counter Cuccinelli

McDonnell’s Schedule Omission Draw Complaints

Gobco Turns Gob Into Cash

Lawsuits Pit Convicts Against State Parole Board

More State Job Cuts Loom

School Funding Amounts Vary in State Budget Plans

Colonial Beach School in Lowest 5%, Superintendent Takes Issue

Votes of Hampton Roads Members of Congress

Norfolk Schools Wield Heavy Budget Ax

W&M Discusses Increasing Size of Freshman Class

Supreme Court Invalidates Zoning Change that Impeded Development

Virginia Health Rankings Show Shenandoah Valley in Top Half

Has in less than two months become the most visible Attorney General in our lifetime. During the campaign, Bob McDonnell successfully reframed conservatism as a problem-solving, job-creating, economic recovery vehicle for Virginia. Not all that sexy (Norm Leahy keeps pushing him for “bigger” ideas), but very effective politically.  In the last two weeks, however, most of of the political oxygen in Virginia has been consumed by Ken Cuccinelli, Bob Marshall and the battle over guns in the General Assembly. Cuccinelli, in particular, is taking the feds to court over climate change. And this week he released a letter to Virginia’s colleges and universities that instructs them to remove sexual orientation as an explicit category in its non-discrimination policies.

2. Cuccinelli v. the Colleges

The dynamic emerging here may be far worse than the initial reports have captured. It is clear that the Attorney General’s office believes that it is a relatively open and shut issue: unversities have adopted policies about discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation when they have no authority to do so under Virginia law. They must heed the AG’s advice and rescind these policies. Yet I can’t imagine a single Virginia university doing this. It would be counter to the prevailing opinion on every campus that has adopted these policies.  At the moment, the members of all university boards were appointed by Tim Kaine, who himself had issued an executive order applying non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to all of state government. In addition, it is simply inevitable that the academic community across the country will be expressing its outrage next week over Cuccinelli’s letter. So, you have a situation where the colleges and universities will be actively resisting the instructions of the Attorney General. At the same time, the colleges and universities are also clients of the Attorney General and rely on his office for advice in dealing with their own complex legal affairs. What a recipe for trouble.

3. The Re-Emergence of Donald McEachin

Senator Donald McEachin ran for Attorney General against Jerry Kilgore in 2001 and lost in a landslide. A little less than 10 years later, McEachin is re-emerging as a significant  voice for Senate Democrats and as a media go-to person for the Democratic response to Cuccinelli’s actions and other issues related to how discrimination is handled in Virginia. As his party searches for new leaders in the wake of last year’s debacle, McEachin has clearly indicated that he intends to take a more prominent role. He has also been an important player in the Senate Democrats’ internal dicussions on the budget and a host of other matters.

4. How Do McDonnell and Bolling Respond to Cuccinelli?

This has become the political junkies’ favorite parlor game this week. Make no mistake. Ken Cuccinelli has a real base inside the Virginia GOP. Moreover, his references to “constitutionalism” and “first principles” fit well with the emergent idas expressed by many tea party activists. It’s not easy for a Republican with ambitions to take him on directly in today’s environment. At the same time, it does not serve either McDonell’s or Bolling’s interest to have the Attorney General consume so much of the political oxygen in the state. Watch for reporters to be insistent in exploring the nuances of the relationships between the GOP statewide officeholders this week.

5. Virginia Out of Sweet Sixteen

In Race to the Top Funding.  The Obama administration announced the finalists for hundreds of millions in education dollars and Virginia’s application was rejected. States moving more aggressively toward charters, implementing merit for teachers, and expressing willingness to adopt federal education guidelines were far more likely to be selected. Virginia’s relative success in building a high performing school system was not a major criteria in the process. The Race to the Top denial came on the heels of  the rejection of Virginia’s application for high speed rail dollars. It’s obvious that there was no Commonwealth Kickback or Dominion Purchase involved in the decision by Tim Kaine to accept the job as Chair of the DNC.

6. McDonnell Wins Charter Vote in Senate

A compromise that the Governor reached with the major education associations intended to promote more charters without removing local school district approval received support in a key Senate committee. The Governor hopes that movement in this direction will make the state more competitive in the next round of Race to the Top Funding and is a step toward his goal of putting Virginia in the “vanguard of the charter school movement.”

7. Senate Sets Up Special Subcommittee to Kill Gun Bills

Dick Saslaw and Henry Marsh set up a special subcommiteee to kill much of the GOP sponsored Second Amendment legislation that was heading to the Senate. Worried that rural Democrats might join their GOP colleagues in a full committee vote, Saslaw and Marsh stacked the committee with urban and NOVA Democrats who eagerly killed the House legislation, including an effort to repeal the landmark one gun a month bill. Saslaw-Marsh only wish they had come up with the idea two weeks ago, prior to the time that their colleagues approved a House bill to allow individuals with concealed carry permits to bring guns into bars and restaurants so long as they don’t consume alcohol. The GOP cried foul, but Saslaw insisted that he just adapted a tactic invented by the House.

Cuccinelli Says Public Colleges Can’t Protect Gays

Cuccinelli to Colleges: End Gay Protections

McDonnell, Democrats Respond To Cuccinelli Letter

Cuccinelli’s Letter Could be Test for McDonnell

Will McDonnell Approve Phone Fee that’s Really a Tax

House Budget Team Offers Concessions

Legislative Black Caucus Concerned about State Budget

Ethics Bill Squeaks Through: Final Fate in Doubt

Armstrong Looks to Statewide Run

Key Appointment Puts Jones Back in Game

Cantor Says Pelosi Lacks Health Care Votes

Boucher’s $140,000 Franked Mail Tab was 7th Highest in House

Nye Donates $14,000 from Rangel

Norfolk Students Were Shown Answers during Tests

Prosecutorial Misconduct Against York-Poquoson Commonwealth Attorney Moves Forward

Gloucester Supervisors Deny 25% Real estate Tax

Disputed Funds Could Come Early to Albemarle

It’s hard to believe, but the

Cuccinelli Letter

May dwarf everything next week.

The AG’s missive directing universities to rescind policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation

Puts Virginia on the front lines of the culture war,

Thrusts Cuccinelli into national visibility, and

Will shape the debate about conservatism means in Virginia.

Cuccinelli argues that the General Assembly has this week declined to extend protected class status on the basis of sexual orientation.

He maintains that previous Attorney Generals,

Including Jerry Baliles and Bill Broaddus, 

Have argued that sub-divisions of the Commonwealth do not have the authority to extend protected class status to groups not recognized as such by the Assembly.

His letter asserts that university boards that have adopted policies that include sexual orientation as a protected class or college presidents who have implemented such policies administratively have acted

Without “proper authority” and should take

“Appropriate action to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policies of Virginia.”

The AG is unlikely to stand down from the position that he has taken. 

At the same time, it’s doubtful that Virginia’s colleges and universities will easily acquiesce to the Attorney General’s request.

At the moment, the entire Board of Visitors of every Virginia university has been appointed by Tim Kaine who, as Governor,

Extended an executive order prohibiting discrmination on the basis of sexual orientation in Virginia state government.

The active internal constituencies at the vast majority of colleges and universities support the extension of non-discrimination policies to sexual orientation and the LBGT community.

In addition, the dominant opinion in American academic circles will be almost unformly opposed to Cuccinelli’s stance.

It’ll make it very difficult for any university president who backs away from a non-discrimination policy without a fight to maintain their national standing in the academic community.

During the campaign, Bob Mcdonnell had focused his higher ed policy on how Virginia could become one of the coutry’s “smartest states” and create an additional 100,000 neew college graduates over the next fifteen years.

The Democrats made it clear yesterday that their new line of attack against McDonnell will be to link him to Cuccinelli.

Donald McEachin, for example, said that Cuccinelli’s Attorney Generalship is putting McDonnell’s “thesis into practice.”

The Governor may have to find a way to settle the war between the AG and the Colleges in order to get the focus back on his campaign priority.