Moe Lane

Interesting; and a pretty strong reversal from Saturday’s statement.

“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.”

(more…)

[FURTHER UPDATE] Drudge is not reporting that Perry/Gringrich are on the ballot; but Bachmann, Gingrich, Huntsman, and Santorum have joined Perry’s lawsuit.

The Attorney General of Virginia “plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their names on the ballot;” as everyone reading this already knows, the recent Virginia primary ratification process ended up with only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul getting on the ballot. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry had too many of their signatures invalidated by the process; the other candidates didn’t even try. As I understand the situation, emergency legislation will require a super-majority in the state (well, Commonwealth) legislature; but the fact that Cuccinelli is already getting bipartisan backup (and the reported support of the Governor) suggests that such a thing may be actually achievable.
(more…)

This just keeps getting better and better for the Virginia GOP, doesn’t it? Via Ballot Access News, first we get the Attorney General for Virginia pointing out that the requirements for ballot access are far too restrictive:

I would throw out for consideration that we should lower our requirements to 100 legitimate signatures per congressional district.

Let’s face it, absent a serious write-in challenge from some other candidate, Virginia won’t be nearly as ‘fought over’ as it should be in the midst of such a wide open nomination contest. Our own laws have reduced our relevance. Sad.

…and suggesting that a write-in ballot is possible. Which, as a lot of people with perhaps vested interests in there not being any more candidates on the ballot would tell you, is: a, impossible; and b, so mind-bogglingly obviously impossible that anybody who suggests that such a thing would be possible would be as dumb as Newt Gingrich.  Of course, some of the people who are most pushing the ‘dumb as Newt Gingrich’ bit are perhaps not entirely clear about Gingrich’s actual position:

“And we hope to launch a write-in campaign. We’re getting an amazing number of people who … believe Virginians ought to have the right to choose and shouldn’t be restricted to two people.”

When a reporter noted that state law prohibits write-in votes in Virginia primaries, Gingrich said: “There’s time for them to change it. If something’s wrong, they ought to fix it.”

(more…)

Elections have consequences for the other guy, too.

Could be, could be:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is invoking a state anti-fraud law to demand the University of Virginia turn over years worth of documents related to climate scientist Michael Mann, targeting about $500,000 in grants that funded Mann’s studies.

Cuccinelli, a Republican who is separately suing the federal government over regulation of carbon emissions, issued the school a civil subpoena late last month probing “possible violations” of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by the former U.Va. professor. Mann, now a professor at Penn State, is famous for creating the controversial “hockey stick” graph charting a spike in global temperatures.

(more…)