Social issues like abortion have become the central theme in the race for Virginia attorney general, as Democrat Steve Shannon seeks to paint his opponent as too extreme to serve as the state’s top lawyer. In a debate on WTOP’s “The Politics Program” on Friday Morning, Shannon charged that Republican Ken Cuccinelli would selectively defend Virginia law as attorney general based on his own socially conservative beliefs. Shannon capitalized on statements Cuccinelli made during the GOP nomination fight to suggest he would abdicate his duty to argue for state statutes in court if called upon to defend abortion rights. “Ken wouldn’t answer that issue as to whether he would defend that law if it were challenged,” Shannon said on a conference call after the debate. “His silence is deafening on this front.” Cuccinelli said he would refuse to defend a statute only “if there is no argument that passes what lawyers would call the ‘straight face test’ for constitutionality.” “And that is a rare, rare, rare, case,” he said during the debate. “If a law isn’t constitutional, your job isn’t to violate what you believe is the constitution after a thorough research of the subject.” Shannon, a delegate whose Fairfax County district overlaps that of Cucinnelli, a state senator, is lagging in polls along with the rest of the statewide Democratic ticket. And like the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Creigh Deeds, he has injected abortion into the race. Both Cuccinelli and Bob McDonnell, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, oppose legalized abortion and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. During a debate prior to the Republican convention in May, Cuccinelli was direct about his position on enforcing statutes he considered outside constitutional bounds: “I will not defend what I, in my judgment, deem to be an unconstitutional law.” Cuccinelli is viewed in high regard by the commonwealth’s most staunchly conservative voters, and held up by the left as a symbol of right-wing zealotry in the legislature. He has spent the bulk of the race seeking to prove he is more competent than Shannon, focusing on legally complex issues like fixing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz ruling that has caused chaos in courtrooms across the state. That decision allowed defense attorneys to subpoena lab technicians in drunken driving cases, overburdening the state’s ability to prosecute those arrests.
