Justin's Political Corner
The anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List made headlines in Virginia last week when it released the first paid advertisement in the gubernatorial battle between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The problem is that the centerpiece of the ad, the first in what SBA List promises will be a $1.5 million campaign to support Cuccinelli, is a blatant lie.
The SBA List ad discusses new “TRAP” regulations passed by the Virginia Department of Health and aggressively pushed by Cuccinelli, which burden abortion clinics with unneccessary restrictions in order to shut them down. The ad claims that McAuliffe, by opposing the new regulations, “refuses to require women’s health clinics to provide the same sanitary environment we expect of dental offices and hospitals.”
Politifact Virginia discovers that not only is this claim blatantly false, but Susan B. Anthony List doesn’t even try to back it up with evidence.Not that this is a huge surprise coming from the Susan B. Anthony list, which has never bothered itself too much with the truth. After all, even the organization’s name is based on a gross distortion of American history.
The Virginia Board of Health voted 11-2on Friday “to require abortion clinics to meet strict, hospital-style building codes” that many women’s health advocates say will put abortion providers out of business and prevent women from accessing essential medical services.
Pending final review by conservative state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) — which is almost definite — Virginia is now one step closer to joining other GOP-led states such as North Dakota, Mississippi, and Alabama in imposing stringent regulations meant to arbitrarily shut down abortion clinics.
Friday’s vote represents the latest skirmish in an ongoing conservative war on abortion clinics. In the past three months, states have proposed an astonishing 694 provisions restricting or rolling back women’s reproductive rights. Efforts to shutter local abortion clinics disproportionately impact low-income women and significantly increase the incidence unintended pregnancies.
The Dramatic Spread of Legalized Medical Marijuana In America
Looking at the recent spread of liberalized marijuana laws across the United States, it’s hard not to think we’re entering some kind of Weed Spring. The latest state to act is Maryland, where on Monday the state senate approved a bill legalizing medical marijuana by 42 to 4, sending it to Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is expected to sign it into law. Several state legislatures are considering relaxing their restrictions on marijuana. A majority of Americans now favor legalizing marijuana, and 65 percent of young people support legalizing it, suggesting support will grow. The Justice Department still won’t say how it will deal with marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington — it’s still banned by the federal government — but officials in both states say they’re going ahead. “We intend to move forward with supporting the will of the people,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson told Talking Points Memo.
That’s doesn’t mean there haven’t been setbacks for the pro-weed crowd in recent years. California voters rejected a legalization initiative in 2010, and Oregon voters did the same in 2012. Bills to legalize weed have died in Hawaii and New Hampshire this year. But as our map GIF above shows, the trajectory is unmistakably toward legalization. Here are four state legislatures debating whether to follow Maryland in 2013:
Oregon. The state House is considering a bill that would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana, USA Today reported last week. House Speaker Tina Kotek says passing the bill this session would be a “heavy lift.” Voters rejected a ballot initiative to legalize it last fall.
Maine. Medical marijuana is so well-established in Maine that workers at a major pot dispensary protested last week because they said owners were blocking their efforts to unionize. A bill to legalize marijuana has 35 co-sponsors. ”There’s a momentum building and it’s clear it’s coming to the Northeast and to Maine,” state Rep. Diane Russell, who introduced the bill, said Sunday. “I would rather see us get ahead of the curve and be ready. The train is coming and if we bury our heads in the sand, we’re going to get hit.”
Illinois. The state House is working on a medical marijuana bill that would allow patients with certain diseases — like cancer, HIV/ AIDS, and multiple sclerosis — to use the drug if their doctor prescribed it and the Department of Health approved. Last week, two state representatives wrote an op-ed saying Illinois’ bill “can serve as a national model.”
Vermont. A state House judiciary committee held hearings last week on a marijuana decriminalization bill. Originally supporters wanted to decriminalize possession of 2 ounces, but that has been lowered to 1 ounce. The bill is expected to be voted out of committee next week.
Elsewhere: Alabama rejected medical marijuana in February, but in April, a state legislator introduced a bill to legalize 1 ounce for recreational use. Several states have pending medical marijuana legislation. Kentucky’s legalization of hemp will become law.
(Weed map GIF by Philip Bump.)
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Confirmed: Not the Onion.
More from Mother Jones:
Last month, three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deemed a Virginia anti-sodomy law unconstitutional. The provision, part of the state’s “Crimes Against Nature” law, has been moot since the 2003 US Supreme Court decision overruled state laws barring consensual gay sex, but Virginia has kept the prohibition on the books.
Now Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is asking the full 4th Circuit to reconsider the case. Cuccinelli wants the court to revive the prohibition on consensual anal and oral sex, for both gay and straight people. (The case at hand involves consensual, heterosexual oral sex.)
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) announced his support for gay marriage on Monday. Via his Facebook page:
I support marriage equality because it is the fair and right thing to do. Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone. I was proud to be the first Virginia governor to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT state workers. In 2010, I supported an end to the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, and earlier this month I signed an amicus brief urging the repeal of DOMA. I believe we should continue working to expand equal rights and opportunities for all Americans.
Warner is up for re-election in 2014.
h/t: TPM Livewire
Hmmm
Vogel, a former Republican National Committee election lawyer, said she saw no problem with the bill’s legality, but objected to the image it creates for her party so soon after Obama’s victory last fall.
“It’s the timing of it,” she said. “It’s just an awful impression it makes.”
Riiiiiight. By “awful,” of course, she means “an accurate assessment of what our party is all about.”
(via pop-rocks-blowjob)
(via How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election, In Six Pictures | ThinkProgress)
Yesterday, Virginia Republicans took the first step to move a GOP plan to rig the Electoral College forward in that state. Similar plans are under consideration in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
The Republican election rigging plan targets blue states that President Obama won in 2008 and 2012, and changes the way they allocate electoral votes to give many of these votes away for free to the Republican candidate for president. Under the Republican Plan, most electoral votes will be allocated to the winner of individual Congressional districts, rather than to the winner of the state as a whole. Because the Republican Plan would be implemented in states that are heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the resulting maps would all but guarantee that the Republican would win a majority of each state’s electoral votes, even if the Democratic candidate wins the state as a whole.
Virginia Democrats are raising hell after Republicans unexpectedly rammed a controversial redistricting bill through the state Senate on Monday, capitalizing on the absence of a Democratic lawmaker and civil rights leader who was in Washington for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
The Virginia Senate is currently split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, each occupying 20 seats in the legislative body. Democratic State Sen. Harry Marsh’s absence paved the way for passage of the previously unannounced legislation by a count of 20 votes to 19.
“The new redistricting map revises the districts created under the 2011 map,” writes Talking Points Memo’s Evan McMorris-Santoro, “and would take effect before the next state Senate elections in Virginia and would redraw district lines to maximize the number of safe GOP seats.”
Link.
Virginia chooses a new governor this November, and Democrats are already firing with both barrels at state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the likely Republican nominee to replace Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
Cuccinelli makes a very easy target, especially when — like he did once again Monday — he compares his fight against the contraception coverage mandate found in ‘Obamacare’ to the non-violent civil rights struggle led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
On Monday, MLK Day, Cuccinelli again made the comparison between his fight against the federal requirement that birth control be offered with no copay by insurance plans to King’s fight for equal rights for African Americans. Cuccinelli earned some headlines earlier this month when he told an Iowa show that opponents of the mandate need to be prepared to “go to jail” in protest of the law. (He later tried to walk that back a bit.)
Cuccinelli was asked Monday about the controversy on The John Fredericks Show, a conservative talk show in Virginia. He was shocked Democrats would raise the issue, casting the battle as a struggle for rights rather than an attack on contraception.
“Whenever I talk about religious liberty, you know they turn it around. All they talk about -they don’t talk about denying religious liberty. They talk about contraception. And I’m not talking about contraception. Government doesn’t have a role in contraception,” Cuccinelli told the radio show. “Government does have a role in protecting your civil rights especially today on MLK Day. The man who really came up with the American non-violent protest theory of civil disobedience. It’s pretty egregious that they can’t get any higher than contraception when we’re talking about protecting people’s religious liberty.”
It’s not the first time Cuccinelli has compared the fight over the contraception mandate to King’s fight for civil rights. From the Virginian-Pilot last week:
Last year, he shared the anecdote about his chat with the bishop [who he said should be prepared to go to jail] at an event for a prison ministry group and obliquely invoked Martin Luther King Jr. for emphasis, asking the crowd “Ever read a little item called Letter from Birmingham jail?”Democrats leapt on Monday’s remarks, seeing a fresh vulnerability for the conservative Cuccinelli, who is best known nationally as a tea party rockstar. The state Democratic Party sent over a blistering statement from former Delegate Ferguson Reid (D), the first African American legislator elected in Virginia in the 20th century. Reid was a leader during Virginia’s civil rights struggle, and a founder of the state’s Crusade For Voters in the 1950s.
VA KKK claims enrollment will triple in Obama’s second term (via Raw Story )
Residents in Richmond, Virginia have reported seeing more recruitment flyers from the Ku Klux Klan, in part of what one Klan member told WTVR-TV is a push for a membership surge fueled by opposition to President Barack Obama. “Since Obama’s first term our numbers have doubled,” said the hooded man, who identified himself as a “Grand Dragon,” a leader of the state network. “And now that we’re headed to a second term it’s going to triple, this is going to be the biggest resurgence of the Klan since 1915.”
Union workers who were protesting the passage of so-called “right-to-work” laws outside the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan are “terrorists,” according to a former high-ranking official in the Republican Party of Virginia who now serves in a county-level elected office.
Shawn Kenney, who formerly served as the communications director for the state GOP and is now the chairman of the Fluvanna Co. Board of Supervisors, posted an entry on his blog titled, “We Don’t Negotiate With (Union) Terrorists.” The post features a video of a brief fight that occurred outside the Michigan state capitol. Before the video, Kenney writes: “…and these people are terrorists.”
The video, the subject of numerous Fox News segments aimed at ginning up anti-union sentiment among the conservative base, shows an isolated fight between union protesters and Steven Crowder, a Fox News contributor who was punched during the dispute. A state employee (who is represented by a union) who witnessed Crowder’s earlier interactions with the crowd while passing by told the Huffington Post that Crowder appeared to be provoking the workers and there is evidence showing that the video may have been selectively edited to portray union members in a negative light.
While it is unfortunate that any violence occurred, local media reports and police painted a picture of the protests that didn’t quite resemble “terrorism.” The protests, which included at least 10,000 workers, were “mostly peaceful” according to media reports, and the Michigan State Police said just three arrests were made.
Another former Republican Party of Virginia official wrote on the same blog this week that by passing “right-to-work,” Michigan had “finally unshackle[d] itself from slavery.”
Virginia State Senator Charles “Bill” Carrico Sr. (R) has become the latest swing state-Republican to propose a scheme to rig presidential elections for future Republican candidates. Blue Virginia reportshis proposed SB 723 would award the state’s electors based on which candidate gets the majority of votes in each gerrymandered Congressional district — rather than based on who gets the most votes statewide.
The Carrico bill would award one of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes in each of the Commonwealth’s 11 Congressional Districts. The remaining two electors would go to the candidate who won the majority of Congressional Districts. With aRepublican-controlled redistricting passed earlier this year, Virginia Democrats were heavily packed into three districts. Under these maps, Obama won Virginia by almost a 4 point margin, yet he carried just four Virginia Congressional Districts. Were Carrico’s scheme in place, Mitt Romney would have received seven of Virginia’s 11 electoral votes despite receiving just 47.28% of the vote statewide.
Had the Carrico plan been instituted for the 2012 elections in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin, it is quite likely Mitt Romney would be the president-elect despite President Obama’s 51-47 majority.
Virginia’s Republican Party appears poised to nominate state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to be its candidate for governor in 2013 — embracing a man whose extreme political views bear striking resemblance to those of unsuccessful 2012 Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO).
With his fervent anti-science, anti-choice, and anti-LGBT, anti-federal government activism, Akin’s extreme positions were well known long before his infamous August pronouncement that victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant helped derail his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign. Cuccinelli’s views closely mirror Akin’s in all of those areas.
Over seven-and-a-half years as a Virginia state senator and three years as the commonwealth’s attorney general, Republican Ken Cuccinelli II has been, in the words of the Washington Post’s editorial board, “the most overtly partisan attorney general in Virginia’s history.” Though he claims he is “best known for his efforts to preserve liberty and defend the US Constitution,” it is his opposition to liberty for women and LGBT Americans and his frequent court losses based on his flawed constitutional theories that have defined his political career to date.
While perhaps not as careless as Akin with his rhetoric, Cuccinelli has embraced many of the same extreme positions:
1. He wants an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. His 2002 campaign website laid out Cuccinelli’s abortion views clearly: “Ken believes that human life begins at conception, and that human beings should be respected and protected from conception to natural death,” it said. “Ken would seek to require sonograms to be part of a 24-hour waiting period with an informed consent requirement. Ken opposes abortions that are not for the purpose of saving the mother’s life.” Over his political career, he has pushed to defund Planned Parenthood and embryonic stem cell research. He pushed for a ban on third trimester abortions — making no exception for serious health risks on the woman — and for “safety” regulations for abortion providers designed to force clinics to close. He has also highlighted his opposition to RU-486 and his support for a “conscience” law protecting the “right of professionals to refuse to perform an action that is inconsistent with their moral convictions” — such as providing emergency contraception — “without losing their job.” Cuccinelli frequently attacks Planned Parenthood and has suggested that the fact that abortion clinics in Virginia are in urban areas with large African American populations is an example of white racism. His “ultimate goal,” he has said, is to “make abortion disappear in America.”
2. He does not believe LGBT people deserve legal protections. Cuccinelli has made it clear that he believes same-sex relationships are immoral. In 2009, he told a Virginia newspaper, “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.” After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case that such bans were unconstitutional, he still voted against repealing a state law making consensual sodomy a felony. He has actively pushed for state and federal constitutional amendments to prevent any legal recognition of what he terms “what they’d like to refer to as ‘homosexual families,’”authoring a resolution calling for a federal amendment to invalidate any same-sex marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, or “other relationship analogous to marriage.” He has opined that “giving public sanction to homosexual marriage ends up redefining marriage and it’s certain to harm children.” He even opposed a state bill that allowed private companies to voluntarily provide health insurance benefits to employees’ domestic partners, warning it might “encourage this type of behavior.” His advisory opinion that Virginia’s public colleges and universities should rescind their non-discrimination policies was called “reprehensible” by a former Republican state legislator.
3. He is a climate-change denier. As part of his efforts to cast doubt on climate-change science, he used his position to launch an inquisition against a former University of Virginia climate scientist. Citing possible “fraud against taxpayers,” Cuccinelli demanded the university provide him with a wide range of records relating Dr. Michael E. Mann’s grant applications. A circuit judge and then the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the Attorney General was incorrect in believing he had the legal authority to undertake such a fishing expedition. He blasted the ruling, newspapers blasted him for wasting Virginia tax dollars. He also failed in his federal lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas — a unanimous appeals court upheld the agency’s regulations as based on an “unambiguously correct” reading of the law. Since his legal efforts for climate-change denial failed, he often relies on mockery, asking audiences to exhale carbon dioxide in unison, during his speeches, to annoy the EPA.
4. He suggested President Obama stole the 2012 election. In a radio interview, Cuccinelli told the host he completely agreed with her assertion that investigations are needed to determine why President Obama lost “every one” of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election. Though studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud, he told the host she was “preaching to the choir” with her unfounded theory.
5. He wants Arizona-style anti-immigrant policies and self-deportation. On his 2007 campaign website, he explained that since the federal government “has been negligent in its responsibility to secure our borders,” he was “committed to passing legislation that removes the economic incentives that fuel illegal immigration.” To do this, he opposed in-state tuition for undocumented students, embraced limits on the number of people who can live in a house, and supported civil litigation so competitors could sue when a rival “employer knowingly hires illegal aliens.” He opposed bipartisan immigration reform efforts as “amnesty” for the “illegal aliens in the job market” who are “depressing wages and reducing American’s standard of living.” In 2010, he wrote in an opinion that “Virginia law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested.” And Cuccinelli joined an amicus brief defending key provisions of Arizona’s immigration reform law which were later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
6. He is a “tenther.” Cuccinelli has embraced a radical interpretation of the constitution that the federal government should cede much more power to the states under the 10th Amendment. At a 2010 Tenth Amendment rally in Richmond, he told supporters of the view that “what we can do, where we live, is advocate again to bring back to life the 10th amendment, to bring back to life those boundaries in our constitutional system that were supposed to be the critical checks in the checks and balances system. Without them, we lose – gradually, we lose our liberty.” In one of his briefs challenging health reform, Cuccinelli suggested that Congress is allowed to regulate “commerce on one hand” but not “manufacturing or agriculture.” This is exactly the same discredited vision of the Constitution the Supreme Court implemented in the late 19th and early 20th century, and it would strike down child labor laws, the minimum wage, the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters, and countless other cherished laws.
On top of all of this, he also opposed a 2004 bill to require members of the clergy to report child abuse — a bill supported by almost every religious group in the state — and was the lone vote against another bill aimed as strengthening domestic violence protections.
In the first major GOP primary fight after the 2012 race, it seems the right wing of the Republican Party has prevailed once again.
As their party wrestles nationally with how to appeal to a broader electorate, Virginia Republicans are all-but-guaranteed to see one of the most divisive conservatives in the nation as their gubernatorial nominee in 2013.
Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling — who had the backing of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) — dropped out of the governor’s race Wednesday, clearing the way for Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli is a tea party super star, known for drawing large crowds at national conservative events. As Virginia’s top lawyer, he was the first to sue the feds over ‘Obamacare’ and he’s taken on climate science and abortion access in controversial public fights.
The Republican’s public persona hews toward the far-right. Just this week, Cuccinelli drew criticism when he appeared to agree with fringe conservatives who say President Obama won on Nov. 6 thanks to voter fraud.
Bolling’s decision to leave the race follows polling showing him well behind Cuccinelli among Republicans as well as a move by the state party to shift the statewide nomination process from a primary to a state convention, putting more power in the hands of conservative activists more likely to support Cuccinelli.
Democrats say the rise of Cuccinelli is proof the GOP hasn’t learned the lessons of 2012.
“Ken Cuccinelli would be the most extreme major party nominee for governor in Virginia’s history,” Kate Hansen, spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement. “He has spent the last four years launching anti-science, anti-equality, and fringe partisan crusades at the expense of doing the people’s business.”
Most expect the Democratic nominee to be former DNC chair and Clinton family ally Terry McAuliffe. (Other Democratic names have been mentioned, such as former Rep. Tom Perriello, but McAuliffe is currently a declared candidate and is building a campaign infrastructure.) The Republican take is that despite Cuccinelli’s divisive reputation, a race with McAulliffe as the Democrat still favors the GOP.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told a radio host he completely agreed with her assertion that investigations are needed to determine why President Obama lost “every one” of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election. Cuccinelli, who has lost most of the major legal cases he has brought since taking office in 2010, told the host she was “preaching to the choir.”
Studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. Cuccinelli endorsed the idea of such investigations, but noted that he lacks the statutory authority to do launch an investigation.
Cuccinelli backed Jacobus on her conspiracy theories:
JACOBUS: There needs to be a way for people to be able to report this stuff and have it looked into. I mean, just across the country, we’re hearing so many stories. And people can talk about it, but nothing seems to be done. And, in fact in these states where voter ID is required to vote…
WILSON: Photo ID.
JACOBUS: Photo ID. Voter photo ID. Obama lost every one of those states. He can’t win a state where photo ID is required. So clearly there’s something going on out there and until there’s a way to have something done about it where when you report it, you know it’s going to be looked into, the other side just says “Oh, well, you’re just poor losers,” and that sort of thing.
CUCCINELLI: Your tone suggests you’re a little upset with me. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m with you completely.
Of course, real voter fraud can be reported to local police authorities for investigation. And while just four states had strict photo ID laws in effect in the 2012 election — deep red Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, and Tennessee — seven more had some photo ID laws in effect. Of those, Obama did carry four (Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, and New Hampshire).
Cuccinelli announced in December that he will run for governor in November 2013.
