Cuccinelli “stumbling forward” on top-to-bottom review of Virginia Code
By Guest Post | Monday, December 19th, 2011 | PolicyGuest post by Rick Sincere
During a recent interview in Richmond with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli , I asked him about progress on a project he proposed as a candidate in 2009.
During that campaign, Cuccinelli often mentioned that one of his goals as Attorney General would be to review the Virginia Code from top to bottom, with the aim of purging it of archaic, counterproductive, and contradictory laws.
I wanted to know, after nearly two years in office, how that task was proceeding.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “It’s so slow and painful. It’s so one thing at a time, one agency at a time. It’s been very difficult to do in an organized fashion, in part because we’re working with the reform effort of the Governor,” which itself received a lot of public attention in 2010 when ABC privatization became its most publicly identifiable issue.
Before being called away to give a speech, Cuccinelli explained that, with regard to reviewing the state’s statutes, “We’re stumbling forward on it but not in an organized fashion.”
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Rick Sincere, twice a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, blogs about politics and culture from Charlottesville. He is the author of two books on U.S. policy toward Africa and has contributed articles to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Examiner, among other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @rick_sincere
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Comments
5 Responses to "Cuccinelli “stumbling forward” on top-to-bottom review of Virginia Code"
Was there a point? I missed it.
May be we should offer our help with the task.
A Wiki type format of discussion and links on the statutory code should do it just fine.
I don’t think the A.G. office has the resources to do it all themselves.
Perhaps the effort should be driven by public interest & comment.
I would have to agree with Russell. Especially now that Cuccinelli is gearing up for a new campaign, it’s pretty unlikely that too much would get done. Wiki’s are a great way of organizing information. I know Waldo Jaquith from Charlottesville has been working on a way to make the Va Code more accesible and navigable (here’s the link to his blog post – http://waldo.jaquith.org/blog/2011/06/state-decoded/). But perhaps a wiki model would work to find ways that rules overlap or contradict each other.
This isn’t a bad idea – crowd source the Virginia code. Love it!
VA Patriot:
I think Rick is trying to make a very subtle statement that Mr. Cuccinelli has not fulfilled all of his 2009 campaign promises and, consequently, perhaps his decision to run for Governor is premature given the unfinished nature of his term as AG.
Furthermore, if Mr. Cuccinelli was this concerned about archaic and contradictory laws then he never should have run for AG. The AG cannot unilaterally “purge” the Virginia Code of any law. Such a purging must originate in the General Assembly with a member introducing bills to repeal (or purge) such laws and then work its way through the legislative process. If Mr. Cuccinelli was so hell bent for leather to purge the Virginia Code of these laws then he should have run for re-election to the Virginia Senate where as a legislator he would have been far better positioned to actually do something about those archaic laws.
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