Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is ratcheting up the rhetoric in his latest argument against the federal health care law while at the same time expanding his statewide political operations, adding fuel to speculation about his ambitions for higher office.
A recent brief filed by his office in the health care lawsuit calls an argument concerning taxing power advanced by the federal government “truly radical.”
If Congress can “commandeer” the people into commerce in order to regulate them, “the very nature of the relationship between citizen and national government will have been profoundly changed,” the brief reads. “Congress, for all intents and purposes, would have a police power.”
The federal government has maintained that the law is constitutional under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
But such rhetoric has fast made Cuccinelli a hero among conservatives and the Tea Party movement.
“This issue overlaps with the whole Tea Party agenda,” said Dan Palazzolo, a political science professor at the University of Richmond. “You want to ride the crest – it’s a little more red meat.”
Cuccinelli also has assembled a team of more than 100 “campaign coordinators” throughout the state to serve as liaisons to conservative groups and local Republican committees. He plans to assign coordinators to all 134 of Virginia’s counties by year’s end.
“He’s got higher ambitions, no question about that,” said Palazzolo. “The window closes fast in politics. It’s an interesting case study on how an ambitious politician can move in a vacuum, and that’s what I think we’re seeing.”
The attorney general is also lobbying to increase the filing fees for candidates to run for office in statewide conventions.
In 2008, the State Central Committee voted to cap the filing fee for candidates at conventions to 2 percent of the salary of the position they’re running for — the same as for a primary, said Dave Rexrode, executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia. The rate was raised to 4 percent after the 2009 elections.
But Cuccinelli supports filing fees of up to $50,000 for gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, and $25,000 for lieutenant governor and attorney general as a “viable option” for conventions, said Noah Wall, his political director.
“Ken believes very firmly that conventions are the best ways to energize the grass-roots base,” Wall said. “It serves, frankly, as a springboard to the general election campaign.”
Because parties foot the bill for conventions, the move would help ensure they’re financially viable going forward, Wall said.
“This is not something specifically engineered toward a race in particular,” he added. “We’re not running for any office at the moment.”
