Virginia Tomorrow

1. Burgers with Bill

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling will be eating burgers with a few hundred of his closest friends on June 15th. It’ll be his first gubernatorial fundaiser and tickets can be purchased from $50 to $5,000 dollars. It’s a smart move for Bolling to start the gubernatorial campaign early- he wants to lock down down supporters, build a war chest, and cast an air of inevitability prior to the time that Ken Cuccinelli decides whether he wants to seek the office in 2013.

2. Speaking of Attorney General Cuccinelli

His decision this week not to join 48 other states and file an amicus brief on behalf of  the military families  who have had the funerals of their loved ones fallen in battle picketed by a group proclaiming that their deaths are retribution for America’s tolerance of homosexuality has drawn criticism from veterans’ groups, Democrats and some conservative organizations. It is surely to become an issue in any future Cuccinelli campaign. My sense is that Cuccinelli’s refusal not to join every other state but Maine actually confirms his assertion that political considerations aren’t paramount to his decision-making as AG. There’s not much of an upside here, at least in conventional political terms.

3. Leahy Strikes Again

While the Democrats were pummeling Cuccinelli for his unwillingness to sign the amicus brief and his defense of extremely unpopular (and deliberately provocative) free speech, Norm Leahy at Tertium Quids discovered that Virginia’s two Democratic Senators, Warner and Webb,  had neglected to sign a similar amicus petition circulating in the Senate. The senators’ offices were quick to issue a statement attributing the omission to logistical foul-ups and not principled opposition. But the matter illustrated once again that Leahy’s ingenuity in reframing the state’s political dialogue.

4. July 1 Smackdown

That’s when the U.S. District Court will take up Cuccinelli v. The United States, the health care suit by the AG maintaining that the legislation passed by Congress is unconstitutional. Everyone will be watching to see how the Court begins to respond to the claims about states’ rights advanced by Cuccinelli. Too bad no one’s selling tickets on pay-per-view.

5. Democrats Criticize Hurt for Supporting Tax Increases

The National Democratic Congressional Committee weighed in on the 5th District GOP primary this week, releasing a piece lambasting Robert Hurt for supporting tax increases. The motivation behind the release is relatively transparent: the Dems believe that Hurt will be the strongest candidate against Tom Perriello. They’d like  to prevent him from receiving the GOP nod and, if that’s not possible, begin the campaign against him before he’s even out of the gate. There’s just one problem. The case against Hurt as a tax and spender ultimately rests on his support in 2004 as a member of the House of Delegates for a major tax initiative proposed by then Governor now Senator Mark Warner. Someone at the DNCC in Washington may have thought they were being clever. But the Warner tax package- intended to preserve Virginia’s Triple A bond rating and funnel more dollars to education- is seen by many Democrats as the epitome of their willingness to make tough choices and govern responsibly. Any Democratic criticism of Hurt for his support of Warner’s package is simply a confession by Democrats that they were equally misguided.

6. Virginia Won’t Seek Race to the Top Money

Was a major announcement coming  from the McDonnell administration this week, reversing an earlier decision to compete for funding. Ultimately, the McDonnell administration concluded that the requirement of adopting “national” educational standards couldn’t be justified given the effort that Virginia has made over the last twenty years to become a leader in promoting state-specific standards. You won’t hear a lot of complaining about the decision from Virginia major education organizations, all of which have been lukewarm at best to Obama administration initiatives on merit pay and charter schools.

7. ABC Privatization

The McDonnell continue to indicate that it has no intention of backing away from its commitment here. The Governor has reiterated his belief that the sale of alcohol and liquor is not a core function of state government. Policy advisers in the Governor’s office have been holding meeting with the relevant players. And ABC privatization appears to be a major component of McDonnell’s government reform commission. The forces opposed to privatization have been relatively quiet recently, but don’t expect this to remain the case forever. Successfully executing a privatization initiative will be a genuine test of the administration’s political skill.