So, here we are.
Bob McDonnell has been elected Governor. Bill Bolling re-elected as LG. Ken Cuccinelli our new Attorney General.
All campaigned, mainly, on creating jobs and a positive economic climate in the commonwealth.
All good men. All well intentioned. But why in the heck are we talking about protected status for gays and lesbians in the midst of a budget crisis?
Well, of course it’s about jobs! This wouldn’t even be an issue if it weren’t for Maryland trying to lure Northrop Grumman away from the Commonwealth.
But that’s a diversion.
Let’s start at the most logical place: Governor McDonnell.
McDonnell told Bearing Drift in an exclusive interview that he accepts the responsibility that comes with being a decision maker, and, in the case of providing protected status to homosexuals at universities, it was McDonnell, as Attorney General, who advised then Governor Tim Kaine that signing an executive order maintaining protected status for sexual orientation was not under the authority of the executive branch and needed to be codified by the legislature.
Now, as governor, McDonnell has made a similar decision by not renewing that executive order, thus inviting his Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, to advise state universities and colleges on what they should do.
Should we then be surprised by Cuccinelli’s advice? Cuccinelli advised, virtually identical to McDonnell’s as AG: don’t make decisions based on sexual orientation!
According the Attorney General’s office:
“The Attorney General is telling the universities what the law is. The people coming out against this don’t dispute his understanding of the law. The simple fact is that some Virginia Universities are not in line with the law because the General Assembly is the only body in Virginia which can create a ‘special class’ of protected people. If you want a policy change, you need to follow the law and change state policy, not exceed your jurisdiction and establish special classes of individuals.
“The Attorney General is upholding the rule of law.”
I don’t fault Cuccinelli at all. He is on about as solid ground as you can get.
And I certainly don’t fault the governor: He’s been on solid ground since being Attorney General.
No, in reality, the issue lies with the General Assembly – and specifically, the General Laws Committee of the House of Delegates.
Government is about laws – not interpretation.
Warner and Kaine tried to “interpret” what the anti-discrimination “laws” should include…but “laws” are left to the General Assembly – which McDonnell and Cuccinelli have clearly stated.
Under Warner and Kaine, they knew that they couldn’t have a new “protected status” pass the legislature, so they added it as an executive order.
Now, along comes McDonnell who merely upholds the laws as written, along with his diligent Attorney General, and suddenly we live in an era where it’s the executive branch that is supposed to dictate policy?
No.
Last I checked, how a bill becomes a law starts in the legislature.
And three times – HB 1116, HB 1287 and SB 66 – the legislation failed.
But why?
Perhaps the best argument comes from Sen. Mark Obenshain who said that should a bill protecting ‘sexual orientation’ become law the Commonwealth would open itself up for extensive litigation by those who claim they have been discriminated against regardless of their job qualifications.
Perhaps.
But the bottom-line is this: if ‘we the people’ want this law changed, we should elect people who believe in changing it in the right and proper way – through the legislature. We run a very dangerous and slippery slope if we expect the law to be changed by fiat by the executive branch – or at least it we expect the law to be put on hold every year by executive order.
Personally, I think the legislature should add “sexual orientation” to the books as a “protected status”. I also think most, if not all, Universities in the commonwealth are still going to uphold gays and lesbians as protected when it comes to employment and enrollment. But that’s irrelevant.
We live in a system of laws. We should not take the easy way out by having the executive branch interpret the law for us as the Democrats have for the past eight years.
It’s about time we followed Virginia Code again in the commonwealth.
