Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, has told senior members of his party that he will challenge Senator Mark R. Warner of Virginia and announce his candidacy as early as next week, giving Republicans a first time office seeker foe a candidate in what has become one of the nation’s most competitive swing states.
The bid by Mr. Gillespie, a longtime party operative turned lobbyist with ties to both Republican grass-roots and establishment wings, also underlines the intent of more mainstream Virginia Republicans to retake control of the party from athe Tea Party. The Tea Party backed and ran the candidate that lost the governorship.
Gillespie begins the race as a pronounced underdog. Mr. Warner, a former governor now in his first Senate term, is the most popular politician in Virginia, and has $7.1 million in his campaign account and access to millions from his personal fortune. But Republicans in the state believe that, because of resistance to the new health law and President Obama’s declining popularity that voters will forget the superior job Mark Warner has done for Virginia and vote for the former RNC chairman.
In Mr. Gillespie, Republicans have a viable candidate who can raise the money needed to run in a large state and mount a serious campaign in a contest they had thought to be out of reach. Virginia Republicans, mirroring the party’s national struggle, are suffering from deep ideological rifts between the Tea Party activists, personified by last year’s losing candidate for governor, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, and their traditional, business-oriented wing.
“Ed brings a long record in the conservative movement and a national profile to a party that’s looking for unity and a lot of resources,” said Pete Snyder, who narrowly lost the Republican nomination to run for lieutenant governor last year.
Mr. Gillespie declined to comment.
Even with all his experience in politics, serving as a congressional aide and a counselor to President George W. Bush, Mr. Gillespie has never been a candidate. He will embark on a campaign when, for the first time since 1969, Virginia Republicans hold no statewide office, and voters know far less about him than about Mr. Warner. It is unknown if former president George W. Bush will stump for Mr. Gillespie in Virginia.
And before he can try to unseat the incumbent, Mr. Gillespie first has to overcome any suspicions among conservatives about his long history as a lobbyist, and his stance as an unapologetic supporter of a comprehensive immigration overhaul. There are already two announced, though little-known, Republican candidates running for the nomination, which will be decided in June at a convention in Roanoke.
Mr. Gillespie, who opposes abortion rights and is conservative on most other issues, is running on the belief that he can unite the party in a way that did not happen last year. He has been reaching out to some of Virginia’s conservative activists since Election Day, sounding them out and asking for their support. Mr. Gillespie represents that he can seperate himself from the hard core views of Ken Cuccinelli and appeal to moderate republicans.
Mike Farris, a conservative who once ran for statewide office and is now a top figure at Patrick Henry College and the National Home School Legal Defense Association, said he had talked to Mr. Gillespie “several times” in recent weeks and was open to what he called the former party chairman’s “steep uphill but possibly winnable” candidacy. There are no good candidates so we might as well go with Gillespie, we should not allow Warner to run unopposed. He should at least have to work a bit for his victory.
“Anybody associated with the national Republican hierarchy is a little bit suspect,” Mr. Farris said. “Sometimes that’s fair, it is certainly warented. He’s going to have to prove he’s not the same as the rest of the Washington Republican establishment.” The Tea Party won't accept Mr. Gillespie if he is just another of the Washington Republican establishment. His connections as a advisor to GW Bush doesn't help.
Mr. Gillespie has also sought out Morton Blackwell, Virginia’s longtime national Republican committeeman and conservative movement stalwart. “I have encouraged him to run, and I have told some others that I have encouraged him to run,” said Mr. Blackwell, who has known Mr. Gillespie since the candidate-to-be was an aide to the former House majority leader Dick Armey.
Republicans, both in Virginia and in Washington, partly blame the party’s choice of a hard-liner-dominated nominating convention over a primary last year for the losses by each of their three nominees for statewide office. But in a state where there is no registration by party, the bulk of the state party’s governing board would prefer to stick with conventions to ensure that conservative candidates win. So it was notable when Mr. Gillespie reached out late last year to one conservative activist who sits on the state party’s governing board to make it clear that he would not try to engineer a switch to a primary in 2014.
“That spoke volumes to me, that he would respect the party and not try to get involved,” said the member of the Virginia Republican central committee, who later added, “I really think he is our only shot.” We don't want anybody to change the way we do things in the republican party in Virginia. We may lose another election but at least we stand for something and that's what the Tea Party is all about.
Mr. Gillespie, is a former state party chairman and has begun lining up his team, retaining the ad-maker, pollster and campaign manager from indicted former Governor Bob McDonnell’s campaign.
Mr. Gillespie’s lobbying career, which included representing Enron, the notorious Texas energy company, is his most significant vulnerability. “The likelihood that he will be embarrassed by this race is at least as great as the likelihood that he will run a respectable race,” said Geoff Garin.. Translated if you are on the ballot you have some chance of winning.
Ellen Qualls, a Virginia Democratic strategist who previously worked for Mr. Warner, noted that “Virginians have known Mark Warner since 1996,” when he made the jump from working in politics to candidate by taking on the Republican senator at the time, John Warner. The current Senator Warner did better than he was expected to do that year, setting himself up to run for governor in 2001.
GOP’s electoral vote scheme likely illegal in Virginia
A scheme under consideration in Virginia to rig the Electoral College in Republicans’ favor could well violate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, experts on the law say. But that very provision is itself under challenge by the GOP, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court later this year.
A Republican bill that would allocate Virginia’s electoral votes based on the popular vote in each congressional district cleared its first hurdle in the state legislature Wednesday. Had the bill been in effect in the last election, Mitt Romney would have won 9 of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, despite losing the popular vote in the state to President Obama by nearly 5 percentage points.
Republicans have raised versions of the idea in several other blue states where they currently have state-level control, including Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. If all four states approved the plan, future GOP presidential candidates would get a major—and anti-democratic—leg up.
But in Virginia, where the plan has advanced the furthest, several voting-rights experts told msnbc.com it could be on shaky legal ground. Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires certain states, including Virginia, to clear any voting changes with the U.S. Justice Department. If the Feds find that the change would have a “retrogressive effect” on minority voters, they can block it.
“Does this change make African-American voters worse off than they were before?” asked Daniel Tokaji, a prominent election-law scholar and a professor at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, laying out what he said was the key legal question at issue. “It’s hard to argue it doesn’t.”
“I think there’s a very strong argument to be made that this change has a retrogressive effect on African-American voters in particular and perhaps Latino voters as well,” Tokaji reiterated, adding that the issue had been a subject of online discussion among election-law experts in recent days.
Brenda Wright, a top lawyer at Demos and an expert on voting rights, agreed. “I think there would be strong arguments” that the change harmed minority voters, she said.
And Gerald Hebert, a veteran election lawyer and the former acting head of the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, offered further support for that view. “Any move to reallocate electoral votes on the basis of congressional districts—especially in states with sizeable minority population—raises potential violations of the VRA [Voting Rights Act],” Hebert wrote in an email to msnbc.com.
Because Section 5 only covers states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, it doesn’t apply to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin. Tokaji and Wright both said it might be possible to challenge the efforts there under a different section of the Voting Rights Act, but it would be a much heavier lift, in part because the burden of proof would be on those challenging the law.
By contrast, under Section 5, Virginia would have the burden of proving that the change didn’t hurt minority voters.
On its face, that seems like a difficult argument to make. By switching to a system based on congressional districts, the plan would drastically reduce the power of the state’s African-American voters, who tend to be packed into a small number of districts.
That’s why civil-rights groups are up in arms. The NAACP’s Wade Henderson, on msnbc’s The Melissa Harris-Perry Show Sunday, called it “a diabolical scheme.”
But opponents of the plan won’t want to count on Section 5—because it may not be around much longer. The Supreme Court has said that this session, it will take up a challenge to the provision, being brought by Alabama and other southern states, who argue that the progress they’ve made since the 1960s on civil rights means it’s no longer needed. The Roberts Court hasn’t generally been supportive of voting rights, and many court observers expect Section 5 could be struck down.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Section 5 in June. There could be even more than we thought riding on that decision.
Late Update, 2:25pm: A Virginia Republican on the committee set to consider the Electoral College change, State Sen. Ralph Smith, says he opposes it. Smith’s opposition, along with that of all Democrats, would ensure the bill dies in committee.
Now that Bob and Maureen McDonnell have been indicted, the legal proceedings are just in the early stages.
The McDonnells will be arraigned Friday, which is when they will have to enter a guilty or not guilty plea.
So far, they're maintaining their innocence.
The 43-page indictment details the charges against the McDonnells in the case of the United States of America vs. Robert F. McDonnell and Maureen G McDonnell.
In response, the McDonnells have filed two motions.
One asks prosecutors to release all evidence that could actually show the McDonnells are innocent, while the other, asks for information on the grand jury proceedings.
Both Bob and Maureen McDonnell are both charged and could face separate judgment.
The indictment makes it seem as if Maureen was very involved in a lot of the discussions with Jonnie Williams, but right now, it's not clear if the dots all connect.
"What you see is a pattern of behavior, where there were gifts made, and then soon after that, it appears certain actions were taken, but it's not completely clear those actions were taken in the official capacity of the governor. I think that's what their primary defense will be here," said P. Marshall Yoder, a legal analyst.
That's the quid-pro-quo in the case.
Jonnie Williams is a witness in the case and has been granted immunity, which is why the indictment has so much information.
Possible punishment of several decades in prison and more than a Million dollars in fines but 5 to 7 is probable sentence with a quater Million dollar fine. McDonnell is the first Governor to fail so miserably in service to the state.
Good Luck and God Speed Gov. McAuliffe
Gov. Terry McAuliffe promised fiscal discipline but also a continued push for Medicaid expansion in a speech that capped his first full business day on the job Monday, seeking to strike a bipartisan tone in a divided Capitol.
Appearing before a joint session of the House and Senate two days after he was sworn in as Virginia’s 72nd governor, McAuliffe (D) used his speech to continue the balancing act he will have to pull off to get anything through a GOP-dominated House and a Senate where control is in flux.
Much of his speech stressed his commitment to expanding and diversifying the state’s economy. He announced two already hatched economic development deals and vowed to preserve the state’s sterling bond rating, all easy sells to Republicans.
Yet he also hit upon priorities popular with his liberal base. In addition to expanding Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor, McAuliffe voiced support for gay rights and abortion rights as well as the Dream Act, particularly its provision to allow the children of some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.
“As we launch this new chapter in our history, let us resolve to show the partisans in Washington and across the nation that here in Virginia, in a commonwealth that pioneered government by consensus, there is no challenge too great, no debate too intractable and no idea too ambitious that we cannot come together on common ground to build the future our families deserve,” McAuliffe said.
The governor also announced goals of preserving 400,000 acres of farmland and open space, expanding broadband service to rural communities and taking partisan politics out of the redistricting process.
House Majority Leader M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights) was put off by McAuliffe’s calling for action on Medicaid this session.
“I was disturbed by that,” Cox said. “He threw down the gauntlet.”
The speech was the highest-profile moment of a day that began for McAuliffe at 4 a.m. — with the jolt of an alarm clock set as a prank by his predecessor, former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R), who also positioned a taxidermy bear to greet McAuliffe in the
governor’s office bathroom.
McAuliffe went on from there to hold his first Cabinet meeting at 9 a.m.
“He said, ‘Thank you for the great work on the transition,’ and then it was basically on to business,”said spokesman Brian Coy.
Going around the conference table, each Cabinet secretary discussed whatever was on his or her front burner.
The Cabinet meeting took place in the conference room in McAuliffe’s ceremonial offices in the third floor of the Capitol. The new governor bounced throughout the day between that office and his other office, on the third floor of the Patrick Henry Building, a short walk away on Capitol Square.
About a half-hour before the General Assembly gaveled into session, McAuliffe stopped in at the Capitol to visit with Republican and Democratic legislators in their closed-door caucus meetings. His entrance prompted applause on both sides of the aisle.
He also spent part of the day preparing for the speech, which he used to announce that Carnival cruises would return next year to Norfolk. He also announced that Telos, a cybersecurity company, will invest $5 million in its Loudoun County operations, creating 160 high-tech jobs. And he revealed that he had directed his transportation secretary to develop a plan to revise the tolling schedule for the Midtown Tunnel Project in Hampton Roads.
After delivering the speech in the Capitol, McAuliffe was scheduled to host a reception in the Executive Mansion for all 140 legislators.
Also in the Capitol Monday, Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam (D) gaveled the Senate into session for the first time since his swearing-in on Saturday. A pediatric neurologist from the Eastern Shore, Northam shook the hands of blue-blazered Senate pages on his way up the carpeted steps to the rostrum.
Legislators had red fleece blankets on their desks when they reported to the chambers Monday, each emblazoned with an image of the Capitol and the words “Inauguration of Virginia’s 72nd governor Terry McAuliffe.”
“Is this a trap?” joked Sen. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), referring to the new attention on gift-giving to state officials in the wake of a gifts scandal that consumed McDonnell’s last year in office.
McAuliffe has imposed a $100 limit on gifts to members of the executive branch, and legislators are widely expected to impose limits on themselves before the session is up.
“Please tell me this is not valued at more than $100,” said Sen. Thomas A. Garrett Jr. (R-Louisa), who promptly gave his blanket away to a Senate page.
McAuliffe may be just what Virginia needs following the last four corrupt years of the McDonnell administration. Good Luck and God Speed Terry.
Amherst County Virginia Democratic News
ACVDN
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