RICHMOND — Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II urged Gov. Robert F. McDonnell on Monday to call a special General Assembly session to repair “severe holes” in the state’s ethics laws.
With McDonnell embroiled in a gifts scandal over luxury items, five-figure monetary gifts and $120,000 in loans from a Virginia businessman, the Republican candidate to succeed him said Virginia cannot wait until the legislature reconvenes in January to tighten the state’s lax disclosure requirements.
“Trust is something that is easy to lose and hard to recover,” Cuccinelli said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I think the longer we let this go, the more difficult it is for Virginians to achieve the level of faith in their government that I think they’re accustomed to. And I think that’s something we can achieve if we move quickly.”
Cuccinelli’s chief deputy asked the governor to call the session in a face-to-face meeting Monday.
The move puts more space between the attorney general, who has been touched by the scandal, and the governor, who has been consumed by it.
McDonnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Cuccinelli’s request.
The governor said last week that he was working on plans to tighten Virginia’s disclosure laws, which allow office-holders to accept gifts of unlimited value as long as they report any worth more than $50. Gifts to immediately family do not have to be disclosed. But McDonnell also said at that time that he does not plan to call a special session of the legislature to take up the issue before January, when he leaves office.
Translation: Cuccinelli wants McDonnell to do something quick so it looks like neither one of them have been slimy which they have been.
Why do people need laws to tell them to do the right thing? Both men have done things that are ethically questionable. The entire call to arms seems disingenuous to me. I think McDonnell would look like a fool if he called a special session to say” quick guys, make some laws to keep me from being a bad boy.”
The GA needs to take this issue up as soon as they come back in January. That is enough time. The damage has been done now.
Cuccinelli is all of a sudden interested in ethics law reform? Where the hell has he been the last 3.5 years? He’s the State AG for crying out loud!
Time to clean house, folk. This is the most corrupt administration in the commonwealth’s history.
Clean up with what? A guy who founded and led a company now under investigation by the SEC?
Too Funny – Cooch could not even follow the current ethics laws of the Commonwealth – and he wants the laws strengthened. It is very convenient for him that the only gift items he forgot to report were from Johnnie Williams. Cooch also did not see any problems with the ethics laws when he was a VA State Senator.