Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe has faced an extremely nasty, partisan Republican legislature in Virginia, and now they've taken it to a new level.
RICHMOND — A Virginia Senate panel on Tuesday nominated former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II to the Virginia Supreme Court, a move aimed at handing Gov. Terry McAuliffe a particularly bitter loss in a long-running judicial battle.
McAuliffe (D) narrowly defeated Cuccinelli (R) in the 2013 governor’s race.
Sen. Richard Stuart (R-Stafford) proposed Cuccinelli after the Senate failed to muster the votes needed to elevate Appeals Court Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. to the state Supreme Court. The Senate Courts of Justice Committee promptly certified Cuccinelli for the slot on a party-line vote, a move that sends his name to the full Senate for consideration.
Cuccinelli is as partisan as figure as they could possibly come up with to fill a vacancy created last year, and his nomination is clearly intended as a "fuck you" to the governor. McAuliffe made two interim appointments of Jane Marum Roush to the court, but Republicans have been pushing a different candidate, Rossie Alston, saying that McAuliffe had not properly consulted them in his appointments. While the governor in Virginia has the authority to make interim appointments, the General Assembly elects judges.
This might be a ploy to try to get Democrats to lend support for a candidate like Alston, who has fallen short in the Senate after securing a majority in the House. Cuccinelli says he will "prayerfully review this possibility in light of our family’s needs and whether or not this is the best way for us to contribute to making Virginia a better place to live going forward."