Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is at odds with fellow Republicans over whether victims of the state’s involuntary sterilization program 50 years ago can sue the state for compensation.
The state’s top lawyer released a legal opinion recently that said the state can’t be sued in its own courts and therefore “it is unlikely that a claimant could successfully bring an action against the commonwealth for having been sterilized.”
That runs afoul of Republican lawmakers, who were pushing legislation earlier this year that would give $50,000 to each of the victims of a state eugenics program — at a total cost of $15.5 million. But lawmakers killed the bill, saying eugenics victims can sue the state so there’s no need to offer them payments. Cuccinelli’s opinion that they can’t sue revived prospects for the bill.
