Last week Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was all about writing legislation to reduce the standards involved to get on the Virginia primary ballot. He felt the Virginia standards were too strict and put candidates and voters at a serious disadvantage. In fact, he planned to write legislation for the General Assembly to pass before the primary in March.
That was last week. Today Cuccinelli has flip flopped. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced Sunday night that he has reconsidered and no longer backs emergency legislation that would seek to get additional candidates on the ballot for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary.
“I obviously feel very strongly that Virginia needs to change its ballot-access requirements for our statewide elections,” Cuccinelli said in a statement.
“However, after working through different scenarios with Republican and Democratic leaders to attempt to make changes in time for the 2012 presidential election, my concern grows that we cannot find a way to make such changes fair to the Romney and Paul campaigns that qualified even with Virginia’s burdensome system.
“A further critical factor that I must consider is that changing the rules midstream is inconsistent with respecting and preserving the rule of law — something I am particularly sensitive to as Virginia’s attorney general.”
I am glad Cuccinelli has flip flopped. Regardless of how difficult the Virginia law is, having high standards can’t be all bad. Two candidates met the requirements. To allow others in the race with lower standards simply isn’t fair. Its like the teacher who gives a homework assignment over the weekend, sees that half the class doesn’t have it and gives everyone an extra day, even though serious students had theirs on Monday.
If the Virginia law is too burdensome, and it very well might be, then lawmakers should make the necessary adjustments, to go into effect after this primary. That’s really the only fair thing to do to Romney and Paul who dotted all their i’s and crossed all their T’s ahead of time.
