Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has already brandished his conservative credentials at home on issues like federal health care reform, gay rights and climate change. But the state’s top lawyer is becoming increasingly active on the national stage, joining other like-minded officials backing Arizona’s tough immigration law, challenging labor unions and pursuing other causes that are extending his reach — and raising his political profile — far beyond the confines of the commonwealth.
When other states asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church from picketing military funerals, Cuccinelli cited the church’s right to free speech, a position ultimately adopted by the court.
Most recently, Cuccinelli joined eight other Republican attorneys general in a fray between the National Labor Relations Board and the Boeing Co. over the company’s shifting of an airliner production line from Washington state to a nonunion facility in South Carolina — an issue that would, on its face, appear to have no direct impact on Virginia.
| Outside the Old Dominion: A snapshot |
| July 2010 — Joins eight states in filing an amicus brief supporting Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law. |
| February 2011 — Asks the U.S. Supreme Court to expedite a ruling in the state’s lawsuit over the federal health care law, but is eventually denied. Testifies before House Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality of the law. |
| March 2011 — Supreme Court sides with Cuccinelli in saying Westboro Baptist Church’s picketing of military funerals is protected free speech. |
| April 2011 — Joins eight states challenging the National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing, alleging unfair labor practices. |
Cuccinelli thinks otherwise. Virginia, like South Carolina, is a right-to-work state in which workers can’t be forced to join unions as a condition of employment.
“If they go down this road, this would gut right-to-work in the 22 right-to-work states,” he said.
Still, critics continue to assail Cuccinelli for using his office to pursue ideological causes.
“He’s continuing to do what he said he would do when he was running for attorney general,” said Del. David Englin, D-Alexandria. “To use the office to pursue a variety of extremist, right-wing ideological hobby horses.”
Cuccinelli begs to differ.
“Absolutely radical — protecting the rule of law and the Constitution is [radical],” he joked. “They think the Constitution is a fine piece of 18th century art, but we don’t.”
In Virginia, Cuccinelli challenged the credibility of climate-change research by pursuing fraud claims against a University of Virginia professor. He attacked gay rights by warning state colleges that they couldn’t include sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies and by fighting regulations that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in the adoption process. He is battling the Justice Department over health care and the Environmental Protection Agency over environmental rules.
Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax, concedes that Cuccinelli’s plate is fuller than that of attorneys general past, but says that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“It’s certainly out of the ordinary, because everybody else who did the job basically did criminal appeals and defended VDOT,” Albo said, citing the state department of transportation. “He’s certainly done more than other AGs, but … the first time I’ve ever heard someone complain that someone’s doing more than they have to at their job is with Ken Cuccinelli.”
Cuccinelli insists he has no immediate aspirations beyond his current office. But Mark Rozell, a public-policy expert at George Mason University, thinks there’s more to his activism.
“There has to be an objective here beyond his current office,” he said.
