Wonders never cease to amaze us. Even a broken koo koo clock is right twice a day. It seems that Elena and Moon agree this one and only one time with AG Ken Cuccinelli. Over what, you might ask, knowing that the earth has not begun to rotate backwards and that something must be up.
It seems that the Office of the Attorney General has created a side by side response to Corey Stewart’s Virginia Rule of Law Campaign. The gods must not be happy because Corey got spanked– big time spanked.
There must be an internal war going on in the Virginian Republican Party, or perhaps, Cuccinelli just wants Corey Stewart out of his way since Corey has been making ‘higher office’ noises. The AG could have quietly gone to the state Republican higher ups and told them to kill Corey’s proposal before it ever got into the General Assembly. He could have easily told them that the governor didn’t like it, especially since Governor McDonnell has been rather stand-offish over the entire immigration issue.
But Cuccinelli didn’t let Corey Stewart’s baby bill die a quiet death. He did a public smack down and apparently the OAG released the comparison.
Obviously the AG sees the Virginia Rule of Law Campaign for exactly what it is: a cheap political ploy created to get Corey Stewart’s name in lights and usher him on in to higher state or national office. Corey should know he can’t ride that horse into town again and he is no Jan Brewer. Even the AG has limits on how many times he wants the state of Virginia to be sued.
Opinion from the Office of the Attorney General. Click to download the side by side comparison.
[Note: the matrix showing side by side comparison was not issued by the OAG. That arrangement was made for comparison purposes.]
It appears that the AG sends a strong message implying that the Virginia Rule of Law Campaign verbage is simply a sloppily crafted piece of legislation. Stewart either violates the Virginia or U.S. Constitution or adds new laws we can’t afford at every turn. Cuccinelli points out each legal oversight, point by point.
So what caused Cucinelli to turn on Corey Stewart? Why would he shoot holes in Corey’s great claim to fame? Is this a case of clothes-lining (or in this case, piano-wiring) one’s politicial rival? Is this a rift in the Virginia Republican Party or is this just a general shake down? Will there be turf wars in Prince William County? Is Corey sufficiently embarrassed? Will he call on old friends to help him regain his political dignity?
http://9500liberty.com/blog/virginia-stunner/
and
Hot Diggity Dawg. Can we get our tax dollars back??!!
Didn’t those that understood the law and the issue try and try to tell this to S&S.
There’s an open microphone somewhere and Corey is mysteriously silent. What’s up?
And yet another thing to be thankful for today. What a holiday!
I will re-post what I said on the 9500Liberty blog.
I actually never thought Ken Cuccinelli was really that radical when it came to illegal immigration. He seemed to focus on employers and criminals, which is logical. So while I am surprised one party member would seemingly turn on another (I had wrongly assumed all Republicans in this state love Stewart), I am NOT surprised that it was Ken Cuccinelli who did it. Clearly, what Stewart has done in the past and is proposing now is, on some level, illegal. Ken Cuccinelli was elected to make sure policies are legal, and he is doing the job he was elected to do…which is more than we can say for Stewart.
When I watched the BOCS mtg it appeared to me that the County Atty was reading his document for the first time. You just can’t make this stuff up. McDonnell has bigger plans and they probably don’t include Corey.
Outside of the underhanded critique of our AG that I feel was unnecessary I don’t see this as a major news story. Our AG is very clear that he’ll follow the Constitutions of the US and Virginia. His analysis shows that he holds true to that Oath.
It’s not about ‘disagreeing’ with his own party, trying to undercut a rival or anything outside of understanding that when you ask for an AG opinion you may not get an answer you like.
If you look at 09-071 for example; you’ll see that the AG is consistent on this topic.
@Marin,
Oh I wasn’t being underhanded. I have never made it a secret how I feel about the AG. And I am entitled to my opinions, especially on my own blog.
It isn’t a major news story yet. Operative word here is YET. Corey Stewart got knee capped. Does that make me like Cuccinelli or believe he is a good AG? Now. He is one of the most political AG’s I have ever witnessed and let’s face it, truth is in the eyes of the beholder.
Pinko,
The secret is both probably want the same office. Don’t let your dislike of Corey Stewart politics lull you into a false sense of security with Cuccinelli. He is an uber-conservative any way you cut it. However, he does have to obey the law and he is in the line up for ‘other offices’ along with Bob Marshall, Corey Stewart, and George Allen. Rumor has it that all would like to run for Jim Webb’s seat in the U.S. Senate.
Recent legal clarifications make Stewart’s proposals really unacceptable and an easy target. The Virginia Rule of Law really is low-hanging fruit.
Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s official legal opinion has officially obliterated Corey Stewart’s latest “look-at-me” campaign (more specifically, the legislation he is standing on hoping to legitimize it). But make no mistake, Cuccinelli is also aiming at Corey Stewart. This is why the opinion is worded in such a cruel way, belittling Stewart’s grasp of Constitution law, and implying that he isn’t even familiar with Virginia law. Even more interesting is Cuccinelli’s decision to leak this to the press, and make the humiliation public
@Moon-howler
Well, as AG, Cuccinelli is doing a good job. The bit about ex-naying the second day pill is undrealistic, as was the idea of covering the naked logo. I don’t think things like that would ever be passed in Congress, though.
And you are right–it was easy to pick apart Stewart’s “rule of law” considering most of us could do it without being lawyers.
If push came to shove and I had to choose between Stewart and Cullinelli, you know whom I would choose. At least our AG has sense enough to keep his mouth shut as opposed to grandstanding and sucking up to backwards states like AZ.
Curious, though, MH–why else don’t you like the AG?
@Pinko,
I don’t care one way or the other about him personally. I do not like his political policies. I don’t like making a big deal out of Lady Victory on the state seal. I dont like suing UVA for information about a researcher. That was pure uber conservative agenda. I don’t like his ruling on abortion clinics. It was unnecessary also. Same reason. I don’t like that he removed state protection regarding gays and lesbians. Is that enough? there are probably thousands of other things.
He is very far right. If it came down to voting for him or Corey, I simply would not vote.
Cuccinelli has appeared to spend more time on the social issues. I’m having a running conversation with a pal about Barry Goldwater – he had quite a few strong comments regarding government involvement in social issues – he felt government should stick to governing! Boring things like, transportation, security and commerce…
I have a self-imposed a moratorium on considering listening to any politician that spends more time on social issues than on governing….
There seems to me to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the ‘Rule of Law’ crowd to confuse what Prince William County has done and what Corey proposed for his statewide campaign.
@Alanna,
The ‘Rule of Law crowd’ has operated on the theory of confuse and obfuscate. It has worked for them. I have no idea what was actually sent in the the state attached to that legislative package.
You are right!!!
Not to mention the confusion and misrepresentation of the actual outcomes…..anyone catch the editorial in the Post earlier in the week?
My sources tell me that Corey Stewart wants to cut and run from Prince William County and move up to the U.S. Senate. Cuccinelli’s public spanking is an inside politics way of saying “not so fast.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/24/AR2010112406335.html
A costly, useless crackdown in Prince William
By Don Whittaker, Woodbridge
Regarding the Nov. 21 Metro article “County asks localities across Virginia to follow it on immigration”:
Here are some quotes from the University of Virginia’s report on Prince William County’s crackdown on illegal immigrants:
“A number of local and national studies have concluded that growth in the immigrant population does not increase crime and may in fact reduce it”;
“The policy has arguably diverted [Prince William County Police Department] resources from other crime-fighting efforts”;
“The recent downturn in [the county’s] economy, particularly in the housing sector, is believed to have driven many immigrants away”;
“There are no historical data on crimes committed by illegal immigrants in [the county]. How much crime in [the county] was committed by illegal immigrants prior to the immigration policy is unknown. [The police department] did not begin collecting data on arrests of illegal immigrants until [March 2008].”
Undocumented immigrants made up only about 6 percent of those arrested for serious crimes in the county in 2009. The report’s authors said there was no noticeable impact on crime from the immigration enforcement policy and that social service spending remained about the same. Implementing and maintaining the policy cost the county about $3 million.
Why, exactly, should other localities follow Prince William’s lead on this issue?
Horace – I’ve heard state senate….
@Moon-howler
I don’t like that he didn’t make that thingy against Westboro Baptist (what is that called again?) and I don’t like his stance on the GLBT community. What I am saying, though, is that Stewart is more dangerous because he shoots his mouth off, makes “resolutions” based on anecdotal evidence, promotes bigotry via supporting bigoted groups, etc.
Wendy,
The polling call I got a couple of weeks was testing the waters for Republicans for US Senate. The list of names they asked for opinions on was as follows:
George Allen
Ken Cuccinelli
Corey Stewart
Bob Marshall
Corey has two choices here Alicia. He either goes on the defense and attacks the Cooch or he runs with his tail between his legs. Which one will he choose? Will he go “tea party” and buck the GOP machine or lick his wounds and return to a life of simply being a the Chair of PWC.
@Elena
Will he try to revise and resubmit?
“or lick his wounds and return to a life of simply being a the Chair of PWC”
NOOOOO!!!!
Elena, my bet is that he’ll go Tea Party and try to beat the GOP machine’s candidate. Didn’t he start his local career by jumping ahead of the chosen candidate for the Occoquan district? I seem to remember a few people in the party not being very happy with his run for that seat.
Bob Marshall may go rogue as well.
It may be safe to assume that Corey will go rogue but “going rogue” is one of the last things I would ascribe to Del. Bob.
I had hoped it would be mainstream Republicans that would put Corey Stewart in his place on this issue; but Ken Cuccinelli will do.
Here is the delimma for us in PWC. A Corey Stewart with his “tail between the legs” is better for Virginia, but that would be so much worse for PWC.
MoM, I don’t know….I always have considered Side Show Bob to have gone rogue. When has he ever fit in the main stream? SSB used to work for Rep. Bob Dornan if I am not mistaken.
Perhaps in the eyes of “establishment” GOPers Bob may have gone a little rogue, but in the view of fiscal conservatives and constructionists I think you will find a much different view.
PWC Chair to US Senate is a huge leap. Not to mention all that BVBL baggage which is probably why the Post referred to Stewart as a Nativist. That was a very strong position for them to takes. and that’s just a taste of what will come. I don’t think it’s going to work at the state level much less at the national level. Which could mean he’ll be here forever.
Marshall is so tied up with social issues, I can’t believe you would defend him as having any interest in governing.
And if he were a fiscal conservative he could have started by not inserting himself into the county’s budget discussion on Adult Day care which could have been outsourced providing the same level of care. But because his mother in law used it he marched into the BOCS chambers and made a spectacle. Oh yeah….
If you believe that Del. Bob is all-consumed with social issues (many of his social positions/initiatives I have to agree to disagree with him on, or simply don’t care) then you really aren’t paying attention to what he’s actually doing.
Wendy is right – his stand on social issues is SSB’s Achille’s heel. All of us will die some day. It doesn’t get any more personal than that. I doubt many folks want SSB at their bedside…or in their boudoir.
Mom, SSB has pulled off a couple constitutional coups when least expected, but you can’t ignore the social issues – they’re more personal to most people, particularly women.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this matter. I can tell you however that whenever and every time I call he answers the phone personally, affords me the time I need and delivers a response, regardless whether I like the answer or not. I can afford to ignore the social issues as in my view the impact of social legislative initiative at the state level are almost always negated, trumped or diluted by the judiciary or the Feds, so why really sweat them. An impolitic position perhaps, but one based in reality.
When I think of Marshall I think of the Marshall/Newman bill, a vote of no confidence in the VA legislature, nasty comments about disabled children, abortion abortion abortion (although the story his he booted his kid out when she became pregnant), supporting Tancredo and chastising PWC Republicans for supporting Gilmore AND continuing to receive PWC Tax support for his mother in law.
Enlighten me.
You won’t win me over to the arguement that the Adult Day care could have been outsourced providing the same level of care at the same cost. I’m just a little too close to the issue and the expense. Does the fact that he is a delegate somehow disqualify him from taking advantage of county programs, if so, does that mean that if he had school age children you would object to him receiving PWC Tax support for their education, like every other resident of the county. I don’t approach the discussion of Del. Bob with blinders on, I merely accept him, warts and all, as I believe the positives outweigh the negatives.
Mom – I’m a tad close to the fiscal impact analysis of the Adult Day program care myself. What wouldn’t have worked? I questions local tax dollars subsidizing it. But then again I’m sort of a fiscal conservative. No, he has the same right as others, however, he has gone on record as saying that women should stay at home and care for their families – why then would he need the tax supported program to car for his relatives?
I guess I don’t see what he has contributed to PWC/Virginia once you remove his social issues positions and acts. In my mind that’s what he is all about. I don’t see that as governing. Commerce, security, transportation – that’s governing.
To me, its all about the process and my experience with Bob indicates he is not at all different in his approach. With regard to fiscal conservatism, I’d bet there aren’t many (including yourself) who are more fiscally conservative. That being said, I find it hard to justify cuts to the adult day care program, senior bus service, etc. (programs that have at least in part been subsidized by those using the programs for decades) in the name of saving a few grand here and ther while still sending greater sums to the Hylton Center or allowing the Supervisors to dole out equivalent sums from their magisterial funds, what has become in essence tax supported vote buying and PR for the individual supervisors. At least with the senior services, the funding mechanism is transparent and subject to public input during the budget cycle. The same can not be said about the Supervisors’ expenditures, particularly Wally’s. Again, its all about the process and transparency.
At the state level, Bob serves as a sort of overseer to ensure that the legislative, appropriaton and allocation processes are similarly transparent and constitutional. Does that occasionally put him in the crosshairs of his peers, it certainly does but if he asked, I would gladly don the target and take the bullets, someone has to do it.
We can agree on the BOS discretionary accounts. And I am not against programs for seniors, I am not willing to support duplication of services with tax dollars. I guess I can’t get past his style and approach on just about everything –
Wp – Editorial:
“A number of local and national studies have concluded that growth in the immigrant population does not increase crime and may in fact reduce it.”
“The policy has arguably diverted resources from other crime fighting efforts.”
Utter nonsense — also falsely using the code word “immigration” instead of “illegal immigration.” You study Sterling Park from 2002-2009 and you will find that, if you use the honest wording, just the opposite of that statement was true. No ethnic generalization here; but, when reality hits you in the face, you have to take note of it. This Don Whittaker guy ought to get out more often. In Loudoun a principal answer to the problem was to GET OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT DIVERTED in that direction! It was this increase in crime in the midst of a major influx of illegal immigrants which got our full-service Sheriff’s Office substation off the long-time drawing board and finally built.
Wolverine, the PWC immigration sideshow did indeed divert resources, attention, and man-hours away from crime fighting efforts. Higher levels of immigration corrspond to lower levels of crime, across the entire country. It was a tremendous waste of taxpayer money that got us nothing but a bad reputation in return. This, and the fact that immigration politicking has not paid dividends at the polls, is why Cuccenelli bitch-slapped Stewart.
Why not cope with the facts?
And stop with this myth that the focus was on legal STATUS and not race. We pretended it was about immigration STATUS to give the whole thing some political viability. The fact was we didn’t know anyone’s status. Status is invisible. We only knew there were more brown-skinned people, and a lot of them were speaking Spanish. That doesn’t say jack about status. Corey Stewart started a panic based on demographic shift. That’s why he is considered a wingnut even by conservatives widely considered to be wingnuts.
And for the record, I prefer Marshall to Stewart. Marshall really is an extremist, while Stewart just panders to them. Sincerity counts for something. Stewart is a fraud, on this issue and countless others.
Blake, you are new here and probably don’t know that Wolverine is from Loudoun County. He was one of the founding fathers of his neighborhood watch group. While Wolverine and I sometimes disagree, I would certainly give him credit for being where the rubber meets the road over in Loudoun. Their situation was not the same as our.
@Blake Rilke
I agree that Corey is horrid for PWC. But we can keep an eye on him here and make sure someone is calling him on his bad behavior. Do we deal with Corey here or export him to the entire state, or G-d forbid country? I say keep him here, at least he only adversly effects 400 thousand people.
Mom, you can afford to ignore the social issues because you are not a woman and not poor.
I would agree that Bob Marshall is dependable in his views, we all know where he is coming from and he cannot be bought, except of course, his unyeilding fear of G-d and obeying what he believes are immovable religious laws. Bob is great on land use and the environment, of that, I will not argue.
Blake — To say that higher levels of “illegal immigration” correspond to lower levels of crime across the country is a plain and simple generalization that does not hold water. I cannot speak for PWC, but I have lived in the same house in Sterling Park since 1979 with some time out for service overseas. For the first two decades of that period, the only time I ever met a local cop was once when the rear lights on my vehicle went out. That changed drastically when the illegal immigrants started flowing in here, pushed not only by a crackdown in Herndon but also by a quantum jump in development and landscaping jobs. I now know the police substation commmander and many of his deputies on a first name basis. With the illegal immigrants came a most definite rise in the level of street crime and blatant vice — enough that I left personal retirement and got involved almost daily in Neighborhood Watch patrols. Like I really needed that. After spending a part of my professional career training police officers and detectives and working with them on the street and on some tough cases, all I needed was to take up NW as a retirement hobby. Without that very evident increase in crime corresponding to the dramatic demographic changes, including the hitherto unheard appearance of gangbangers in our community, I wouldn’t have felt it necessary to go out onto the streets again.
I believe that the same thing has happened in quite a few places across this country, where crime used to be at low levels and picked up seriously with the change in demographics. And let me tell you that “cards” of any kind, including the race card in your post, are not deliverable at this address. In Loudoun we went largely the route of changing police focus and tactics against crime itself. And it looks like it is working for now. That was NOT a harmful diversion of police resources from other crime. It was a redirecting of some of those resources to places where the citizens and legal immigrants were suffering the most from the effects of increased crime. In Eastern Loudoun that was by popular demand.
You can stop kidding yourself. Had the exact same demographic changes occurred in Eastern Loudoun without the crime, there would have been no change in police strategy, no new substation, and no sudden blanketing of Eastern Loudoun with Neighborhood Watch organizations such as we have seen in the past couple of years. And Wolverine would not be about to go out on street patrol again tonight. This is not racial. It is just a fact around here that the influx of legals brought the “bad” along with the “good” and that we have had to face the problems of dealing with the “bad.” A fear of street crime was something very, very new for the established residents of this community regardless of their ethnicity.
This opinion by Cuccinelli is amazing! If law enforcement was already able to check the immigration status based on probable cause, it makes one wonder if the ROL of 2008 was necessary. If not, then this reflects very badly on Chief Deane and the PWC police department. Chief Deane should have been able to defuse this controversy by advising the BOCS before the vote on the ROL.
Yeah, he should have mentioned that this was already being done by the jails after being placed into custody. Good idea.
Yeah, he should have mentioned that this was already being done by the jails after being placed into custody. Good idea.
Kelly,
Where have you been for the last three years????????
Wolverine,
I don’t know anything about Loudon County Police crime stats so I can only speak to PWC. There was this narrative falslely created by Greg L, John S, and Corey that there was rampant crime and “lawlessness” but in reality the opposite was true, overall crime was decreasing. Neighborhoods looked different and there were many issues about quality of living that effected very specific areas in PWC, but rising crime rates was not one of them. Our resources woudl have been better spent dealing with these very specific neighborhood issues.
The lesson of PWC is that a huge demographic change did NOT result in more crime from that particular group.
Cuccinelli had not issued HIS opinion. Is the Chief now expected to be clairvoyant?
He did advise the BOCS. They didn’t listen.
I don’t know what the ultimate answer is, Elena — if there is any. We got a real increase in street crime, to the point where people were even afraid to walk the dog after dark. We also got an increase in prostitution and drugs. One of the reasons I went out there was because I had worked some mean streets in the younger days of my own career and knew what to look for and how to approach it. For me it was just a matter of strapping the gear on again and getting the rust out of the investigative techniques. Mrs. W and I became, in effect, the patrol on point. Others around here were scared shitless to do such a thing and watched from behind their blinds or curtains or, at best, would be active only in their own short block or on the way in and out of the community. We did not blame them at all for that, so long as they did watch and did report, which many did. And some of our best reporters were not WASP’s by a long shot.
At one point, we had the rape of a 50-year-old Hispanic woman about a block away in one direction and the vicious beating, cutting, and raping of a 70+ White woman about two blocks in the other direction. Turns out to have been the same young Hispanic male — an illegal whose picture was plastered all over the community in the form of a police request for help. Turns out that the SOB had already been in custody here and elsewhere twice for lesser crimes and had been let go. It was known at that time that he was an illegal immigrant. I can tell you that these rape cases, along with two deadly shootings in front of the Safeway and the Big Lots in our principal shopping center, a couple of drive-by shootings, the jump in street muggings, and aggravated assaults did come mighty close to turning this thing into a racial deal resulting from extreme fear and anger and from seeing Hispanic male faces on the “Wanted” posters. There were more than a few who were calling for our BOS to consult with Stewart on how to handle this mess, but we ultimately went with the revised policing and NW approach.
Why would PWC and Loudoun, neighboring counties with some pretty much similar social and demographic milieux, have such different experiences as claimed here? It almost seems like apples and oranges without any rationale behind it. Well, I think you have to get away from the broader assessment of crime stats. At the time when Eastern Loudoun was at the height of our problems, there was very little crime in Western Loudoun once you got outside the city limits of Leesburg. People out there were never quite sure what we “Easterners” were hollaring about. Perhaps we should get away from making broad county vs county assessments and focus on more realistic micro-comparisons, like Sterling Park or Sugarland up against Manassas Park or the City of Manassas.
Looks like Cuccinelli’s plan is working. It’s not just on the web that people are ripping Corey Stewart to shreds over this. It reminds me of the way Karl Rove went after Christine O’Donnell, only O’Donnell has a slightly better grasp of the Constitution.
What Cuccinelli has done is forced us to take a closer look at a policy proposal most considered to be too remote and too absurd to bother with. We all had assumed Stewart’s ROL thing would be all grandstanding and no substance. We had assumed it would be shoddy legal work, but we wouldn’t have guessed just how shoddy, not in a million years. But this power play by Cuccinelli peaked my interest, I read the document, and now my opinion of Corey Stewart has sunk to a depth I didn’t expect it to go.