Ken Cuccinelli (the “Cooch”) has withdrawn from consideration for nomination to the Va. Supreme Court.
The Cooch, former Virginia Attorney General (who then went on to lose a race for Governor against Terry McAuliffe) is an right wing extremist, tea-party hero, known for such antics such as:
- supporting the transvaginal ultrasound (aka state-sanctioned forced-rape) bill
-
initiating a fraud investigation against Univ. of Virginia and noted climate scientist Michael Mann (i.e., the Cooch didn’t like Mann’s results)
- Sued the EPA to challenge standards for motor vehicle fuel efficiency specified in the Clean Air Act
- As AG, issue the following advisory opinion: "It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.” (i.e., he wanted to stop colleges from adopting a policy of non-discrimination)
Background:
Virginia is a state where the governor has no say in nominating Supreme Court justices, except for a recess appointment. During the last recess, Gov McAuliffe appointed Jane Marum Roush. When her term expired, the Virginia Senate (with a 21-19 GOP majority), nominated Appeals Court Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. (For reasons that I haven’t learned yet, one of the GOPers (freshman Sen. Glen Sturtevant) wouldn’t go along with it. And so, yesterday, the GOPers announced they would nominated the Cooch — who apparently hadn’t solicited it, and was a bit surprised. Sturtevant was fine with the Cooch (leading me to believe that he was against Alston because he wasn’t right wing enough).
Dems freaked out at the thought of Cooch on the Court, and mobilized quickly. Protests, mail campaigns, etc. Frankly, I’m not sure it played a part in the Cooch’s decision to withdraw. Even yesterday, the Wash. Post had suggested “Some legislators wondered if Cuccinelli’s nomination was merely a ploy to prompt Democrats to get behind a more moderate Republican-backed candidate instead of holding out for McAuliffe’s pick.”
Cooch’s replacement: State Senator Ryan McDougle said Judge Stephen McCullough would likely be appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday morning.
I don’t know anything about McCullough, but, at least, the Cooch is out. Thankfully. It’s hard to imagine that McCullough could be as bad as the Cooch.
Even more importantly, Dems need to take back the Va. Senate. Unfortunately, state elections are in off-years which depresses voter turnout, and favors the GOP.