Because of the gross incompetence of basically the entire GOP field, the Virginia AG is stepping in to save them from themselves (careful, link to Faux News):
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in the Virginia presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned.
Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs.
The failure of other candidates to qualify — notably Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry — led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.
Cuccinelli, who is a Republican, shared the concerns.
“Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient,” he said in a statement. “Virginia owes her citizens a better process. We can do it in time for the March primary if we resolve to do so quickly.”
A half a million people voted in the 2008 GOP primary there, but getting 10k signatures is too stringent? That’s pretty laughable, but, whatever. I’m in favor of more ballot access. Unfortunately, while Cuccinelli thinks millionaire Republicans need a hand, he and McDonnell still preside over one of the most onerous felon disenfranchisement regimes (.pdf), and in 2010 turned an objective process for reinstatement into a subjective mess.
I guess this really is the modern GOP at its core- one set of rules for the rich and the powerful, another set for everyone else.
MikeJ
Republicans demonstrate they’re less competent than noted crackpot Lyndon Larouche.
BGinCHI
Can we get some heads on pikes?
I really think more heads on pikes and bodies hung from gibbets would clear things up.
Mnemosyne
So Wisconsin, a state with 5.7 million residents, can get 100K signatures to recall their governor, but Virginia, a state with 8 million residents, can’t muster up 10K signatures for the Republican candidates?
Almost makes one wonder if the problem is with the candidates and not the process, eh? Nah, couldn’t be.
Paul W.
“I guess this really is the modern GOP at its core- one set of rules for the rich and the powerful, another set for everyone else.”
Bingo. They spent the last century creating this party, and they’ll be damned if some ballot process decides the candidates for them.
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: And of course the GOP immediately, in both cases, run to the courts for remedy.
They act like fucking teenagers who hate their parents until they need money and a car.
martha
@Mnemosyne: Actually, I think we will end up getting 1 million signatures….the deadline is next week. The last time totals were reported, about 3 weeks ago, we had 570k. Whoo hoo!
redshirt
How is this legal? Or is it because the AG is doing it? “I WILL MAKE IT LEGAL!”
MattF
It’s possible that winger politics is involved here. Cuccinelli may be angling for a VP nod from Romney– adding candidates to the VA primary slate makes it easier for Mitt to come out ahead.
Note also that Cuccinelli is a no-kidding winger with the ability to soft-pedal his radicalism when voters are on their way to the polls. Smart and dangerous.
Drum Circles And Weed
I could get ten thousand signatures to legalize gay marriage in any state of the union by myself in a month. These guys have had at least six months to get it together in a must-win state that leans as right as any place I’ve ever been. That they couldn’t even vault over that low bar is not the fault of the process.
I hate him like nothing else, but I’m enjoying watching the goopers shit their collective pants over the prospect of a Paultard victory.
MikeJ
@redshirt: Cooch is proposing ramming legislation through to make it legal.
Sadly, Perry may have actually have precedent on his side. See Buckly v American Constitutional Law Foundation. It was bad precedent, but for now it’s the rules of the game.
Scott Supak
John, I know you’re only next door, but I bet you could get 10K signatures in VA!
Egg Berry
How does an attorney general introduce legislation?
Scott Supak
@MattF – It’s VA Governor Bob McDonnell who is angling to be the VP for Romney. And he’s likely to get it. In fact, if my $100 at Intrade can last through my primary betting, I’ll take the VA guv to be the VP pick. Take VA out of the Obama column.
dmsilev
Something is strange here. The AG can’t propose legislation. He can launch a court challenge of existing law (or, I suppose, join the Perry and Gingrich suits), but he’s not a legislator.
Or is this just shorthand for ‘wingnut state officer issues marching orders to tame lawmakers’?
MikeJ
@dmsilev:
That’s it.
And he’s wingier than the wingiest wingnut.
Scott Supak
@efgoldman – maybe not. Haven’t seen any recent polling. But Rethugs won’t let facts get in the way of a nice story, ie that McDonnell will win VA for them.
DanielX
In other news, grass is green and water is wet.
Redshift
@efgoldman: He is actually pretty popular, because unlike Cuccinelli he’s had the sense to keep his wingnuttery fairly well under wraps since he took office. If he gets the nom, it would make VA more difficult, but it wouldn’t automatically make it a GOP win. It’ll be a battleground regardless.
eemom
@MattF:
Respectfully, that’s ridiculous. Even Cuccinnelli isn’t crazy enough to expect that — McDonnell would be Romney’s pick from this state by ANY measure.
Cuccinelli has his beady little vermin eyes on the Governor’s mansion, for now.
Redshift
Actually, as a result of the backlash against that move, the process in VA is a little better than it was before, from what I’ve been told. (Don’t have a link handy, unfortunately.)
This seems to be a pattern with McDonnell. Most of the good things that have happened during his administration did because he proposed something on the assumption that everyone would agree with the people in his lifelong wingnut bubble, and when there was an outcry, he reversed course, because he actually seems to care more about being popular than accomplishing wingnuttery. (The “Confederate History Month” debacle is another example.)
Unfortunately, he seems to have gotten smarter as he’s gone along, and made fewer boneheaded moves, so as a result there have been fewer backlash-induced good moves.
Anoniminous
@Egg Berry:
@dmsilev:
An Attorney-General can write the Bill and have a member of the legislature introduce it.
Scott Supak
@eemom The guy sure looks like a VP. US Army, Football, anti-choice, blows the racism dog whistle so loud it must send DennisG into fits of ear-bleeding…
Redshift
@MattF:
I don’t see how that would work, since at the moment only Mitt and Ron Paul are on the primary ballot. The primary is apparently winner-take-all by congressional district, plus some statewide delegates that are winner-take-all if a candidate wins a majority, and proportional if not. I doubt there are many (if any) congressional districts where Paul could win, so if it’s just the two of them, Romney probably gets all the marbles, but with more candidates, he might well not come in first in some districts.
Rick Taylor
If you don’t like the result of the rules, change the rules.
It’s fine if they want to change them for the election after this one, but changing the rules after the fact because the candidates you supported on the ballot didn’t make it is corrupt.
dmsilev
@Anoniminous: Thanks for the info.
PeakVT
@martha: That’s awesome, martha. Go (Blue) Badgers Go!
Mnemosyne
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign delivered 15,000 signatures on 12/2.
Mnemosyne
@martha:
See, that just goes to show it’s impossible to get 10K signatures in a more populous state like Virginia.
/snark
Seriously, though, good job to all of you.
Raven
Misery loves company, Illini football and basketball on simultaneously!
AlladinsLamp
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/virginia-gop-will-require-voters-to-sign-loyalty-oath/
MattF
@eemom: You’re probably right, but I wouldn’t underestimate Cuccinelli’s ambition. If he could find a way to rain on McDonnell’s parade, he would.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
15,000 forged ACORN signatures.
/veritas
Rome Again
Link to CBS News if you don’t like Fox. :)
Damned Activist Judges!
Redshift
@MattF: I wouldn’t either, but he’s already planning to rain on McDonnell’s parade by running for governor against his chosen successor Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (and will probably get the nomination, since Bolling is pretty much a nonentity.) Bolling is a Romney man from way back, and I suspect that means McDonnell is too, but finds it more advantageous not to endorse him yet.
Rome Again
@AlladinsLamp:
and what’s the legal ramifications if one chooses to back out of that pledge? LMAO!
Redshift
@AlladinsLamp: Or, as Wonkette put it:
dmsilev
@Rome Again: As long as you have your fingers crossed behind your back when you sign the pledge, it has no legal binding authority.
Amir Khalid
@AlladinsLamp:
WTF? In the two paragraphs after what you block-quoted, a political analyst points out the Republican party has no means of ensuring that voters who sign the oath to vote in their primary will actually vote Republican in November. so why do it?
Canuckistani Tom
Drafting the legislation is one thing, but will it get passed?
Right now the split in Virginia’s lower house is 59R-39D-2I(caucus R’s)
Virginia D’s have no reason to vote for this, so if there are 12 hardcore Romney or Paul supporters on the R side, things will get ‘interesting’
amk
You got to hand it to the rethugs. They have the balls to say ‘screw, you’ to the 99% right at their face.
If only 99% were smarter …
Canuckistani Tom
@Canuckistani Tom:
Oh, and the Virginia senate is split 20-20
PeakVT
@amk: If only 51% of the 99% were smarter.
amk
@PeakVT: yeah, at the minimum. Nearly 40/50 state legis are rethug controlled. Sigh…
Bill Murray
Wasn’t the problem that the signatures had to be gathered by qualified voters in Virginia? That certainly is what Perry sued about, but I don’t see this requirement in state law http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+24.2-545
so it might just be a Republican deal, which would be more evidence of the stupidity of Republicans
eemom
@Redshift:
Ah. I didn’t realize that the Kook was flouting McD by running for governor.
All good, is what I say. Let them devour each other before our very eyes with their petty backstabbing and their blood oaths and their mickey mouse legislation, and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
KCinDC
Doug Mataconis says it’s not going to happen. Among other things, it would require passage with a 4/5 majority for the bill to be allowed to take effect in time.
Villago Delenda Est
@AlladinsLamp:
OK, that’s the sort of shit where you “take the oath” and then right after you do say, loudly, “I’m voting for Obama in November, no matter what you motherfuckers think.”
Amir Khalid
@KCinDC:
One would have expected Virginia’s attorney-general to be aware of the things that Mataconis raises.
KCinDC
@Amir Khalid, one commenter suggests it’s so he can tell Gingrich and Perry supporters that he did all he could, so they’ll think well of him in the 2013 governor’s race.
Beauzeaux
I have participated in many petition drives to get candidates on the ballot. Frankly, 10,000 is chump change. You need a couple of things to do this.
1. A minimal level of organization.
2. Many dedicated petitioners or LOTS of money to hire petitioners.
Then you organize people to go to places with a lot of foot traffic and you ask people to sign to put X on the ballot. Not that the person has to like X but just that they support X’s democratic right to be on the ballot.
Honestly, if I had the budget these bozos have, the whole process shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks. A week to organize, a couple of weekends to gather the signatures and a few days to check and verify the signatures. The fact that so many of them failed to engage in such a simple process just emphasizes what incompetent losers they are.
Amir Khalid
@KCinDC:
So that’s the prawn hiding behind his noodles!
@efgoldman:
There are actually three of me. Amir Khalid #2 and #3 are the result of a successful but highly secret cloning experiment sponsored by a reclusive Malaysian billionaire.
Actually, the reason is that I keep very strange hours, partly because I am medically retired and my time is all my own.
sylvainsylvain
This is truly amazing. Not so much in the “repubs-do-whatever-they-want” kinda way, but in the “shit, nobody cares enough about either of these buffoons”, in Virginia??? I mean, there’s enough true believing Fox News viewers, isn’t there?
SO the question is this: If RW apathy is so high/interest so low, will the superPACs be able to spend enough to get them out to support…who?
KCinDC
Let’s remember that as recently as 2008, the Dennis Kucinich campaign managed to navigate this “deficient” process and get their candidate’s name into the ballot, even though Kucinich didn’t have a huge army of supporters or deep-pocketed backers.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I’ve seen that story a couple of times but I’m glad you (and LGF) are bringing it to attention again. It’s amazing that the MSM hasn’t headlined and highlighted it.
Oh wait. No it’s not.
Platonicspoof
@Beauzeaux:
From an AP story by Libby Quaid appearing in The Oregonian
newspaper on 12-25-11, Gingrich’s campaign director Michael Krull said
But the AP story points out that Virginia law says
This, in the state where Gingrich lives, from his campaign director.
One additional twist: The story also quotes a law professor who says there has to be at least 400 signatures from each of Virginia’s eleven congressional districts to get on the ballot.
Marshall
In Virginia, “emergency legislation” requires a super-majority in both houses, so this will require are least some Democratic support to pass.
Marshall
As I read it, Newt Gingrich shouldn’t vote in the Virginia primary, as he would have to sign the oath saying he will support the Republican candidate, and he has said he wouldn’t vote for Ron Paul.
Glen Tomkins
Some practical points
I’ve only lived in VA for six years, but I’ve campaigned pretty regularly the whole time, s I can provide some perspective on two issues mentioned here.
As for the petitions, they’re a definite hassle, since they’re required for every elected office (the required number is much less for local offices, of course). But I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of any campaign that fell short. People here are used to them and understand that signing them in no way supports the candidate, just lets him or her on the ballot, so most people will sign even for people they would never voter for. You just stand in a high-traffic area that won’t chase you off, and you can collect scores an hour. Plenty of really flake, incompetent candidacies (God knows we don’t lack for such in the Commonwealth) have managed to collect the needed petitions here in VA, and I can’t imagine why so many of the R nominees failed, unless we really are dealing with flake incompetence on a truly unprecedented scale.
As for the “loyalty oath” thing, there’s much less there than meets the eye. VA has open primaries and no registration by party. We also let parties choose their nominees by primary or convention/caucus, their choice, a choice the Rs no infrequently go for. We also, again, Rs more than Ds, tend to not challenge incumbents within the party, and we tend to defer to the choices of the regular party consensus.
The result of all these factors is that primaries in which only one party has a competitive race are the rule, not the exception, and it is quite easy, if your side has no contest going, to just ask for the other side’s ballot on primary day in order to vote for whoever you think will do the most damage to their side.
While there’s nothing at all illegal about this behavior, it is definitely a low-grade dirty trick. The only thing that the parties can do to counteract this dirty trick is to make voters who choose their side’s ballot sign a statement that they actually intend to vote for, and will not campaign against, whoever wins the primary they vote in. Of course this statement cannot be enforced in any way, either as to how you end up voting, or even who you publicly suppport in the general election campaign. But the statement can be produced to shame any prominent figures who do this and then go on to campaign actively for the other party’s candidate. And these statements do serve to make quite clear that a definite act of disloyalty to the party has been committed, a clear dirty trick. Our side uses these statements too, and we use them to vet folks who volunteer for us, or try to join our committee, to make sure that Rs who have proven that they are willing to go for a low-grade dirty trick by voting tactically in our primary, aren’t volunteering for the purpose of commiotting some higher-grade dirty tricks by sabotaging our efforts from within.