How Long Before Cuccinelli Sues Governor McDonnell?

By Paul Goldman

As Governor McD struggles with the transportation issue, he needs to keep his road options open, because a quick trip to the courthouse will eventually be necessary to defend himself or his Administration against a Kenny Cuccinelli law suit. Right now, the Virginia Attorney General is practicing the federal judicial equivalent of ice-skating’s triple axel, getting Federal District Judges, appellate jurists and Supreme Court Justices to be considering his briefs, motions and appeals all at the same time on different issue. It is KC and his Sunshine Band of lawyers 24/7 in the federal legal world. But once KC lands the triple, his fans are going want to see him stick the quad jump.

So naturally, with the New Year soon to be here, an analyst has to ask: How long before our “Have brief, will travel” AG figures he needs to add that other loop to his legal athletics and perform what the crowd really wants to see: Kenny boy suing Governor Bob McDonnell. Get me a front row seat for that one. McDonnell and his team know it is going to happen, after all the AG has sued just about everyone else.

We know the AG believes those guys hanging around Philly in the summer of 1787 were sent there by the states to fix the Articles of Confederation – which Kenny prefers since it effectively gave Virginia the right to refuse to do what the other states had agreed needed to be done – but instead went hog wild and drafted instead a totally new Constitution of the United States. So the Constitution itself is kinda of illegal in Kenny’s view.

 

Forget Will Smith and Martin Lawrence: Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and of course General George, just sitting there letting it all happen, were your original bad boys. Then later, to make it worse, the majority of delegates coming to Richmond to attend the Virginia Ratification Convention were against such ratification of the Constitution, and this was clear to the people who had elected them. But Madison – who let’s face it had a personal stake in the matter – and a few others outfoxed Patrick Henry, and got the darn thing approved with a promise to tack on a Bill of Rights. There were actually 12 original such amendments, including what is now formally the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, reserving to the states the rights they didn’t give to Uncle Sugar. As we know, KC doesn’t find a whole lot that the state’s gave up. So he thinks Madison pulled a fast one since the Supreme Court has taken a different view for two centuries on the 10th Amendment. For Kenny is the real consumer fraud, the ultimate bait and switch.  

Cuccinelli is still mad over the situation, and frankly he wants the GA to reverse the state’s ratification. But it isn’t easy to  reverse several centuries of American jurisprudence in just one year as AG even for him.  

As I understand Mr. Cuccinelli’s lawsuit against what he called Obamacare, he was fighting to preserve the “liberty” of us citizens. He says it ain’t right to force a Virginian to pay for  a deficit-producing health plan, this compulsion being in the form of being required to pay money to the treasury if you refuse to do what Uncle Sam wanted. Under the Articles of Confederation, a Virginian could have told the President and the Democratic Congress to keep that stuff on their side of the Potomac River.

So Kenny’s attention has been elsewhere for now. However he will eventually come to realize that the McDonnell Administration is enforcing any number of federal demands, driving up the cost of government according to Mr. Cuccinelli’s briefs and motions, so much so that His Excellency is being forced to borrow more money than any other chief executive in the history of the Commonwealth. Indeed, he finds plastic so fantastic that he wants to do a Happy Gilmore: and change the rules to borrow more money than  any other Governor would have dared, going former Governor “Deficit” Jim Gilmore one better, or worse, depending on your point of view.

So you can bet your next invite to a Tea Party on this: Sooner or later, Mr. Cuccinelli is going to conclude that a Governor who enforces federal stuff this way is allowing Washington to do indirectly what the AG is fighting to stop them from doing directly. Eventually, KC is going to see Governor McD as part of the problem, not  the solution. I figure about next July 4th, but it could be later.

Cuccinelli vs. McDonnell is a law suit that is going to happen. I won’t be surprised if Kenny boy will soon be seen at the new ice rink in Richmond practicing that quad jump. One thing about KC: Once he sets his mind to do it, there is nothing McDonnell will be able to say to stop him.