Cuccinelli Throws Tantrum Over McAuliffe’s Promise To Keep Women’s Clinics Open

By Jean Ann Esselink on January 8, 2014

 

Virginia gets a new governor Saturday as Democrat Terry McAuliffe is inaugurated in what promises to be a heck of a party. Bill and Hillary Clinton will be attending, and the coal industry, perhaps hoping to gain leverage with the new environmentalist governor who owns an electric car company, is picking up the tab.
Who’s not in a party mood? The outgoing Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who lost the election to McAuliffe. Cuccinelli has accepted a new job as legal advisor to Rand Paul, who is suing the Obama administration over the National Security Administration’s surveillance practices. But accordig to Watchdog.org, in one of his last acts as attorney general, Cuccinelli sent this six page tantrum to Republican state representative Robert Marshall, explaining why he thinks Governor McAuliffe does not have the power to do what he has promised the women of Virginia he would: keep women’s health clinics open.
Governor-elect McAuliffe promised on the campaign trail last September, that if he were to be elected, he would issue what he called a “guidance opinion” grandfathering in Virginia’s eighteen existing clinics. Such a move would exempt these facilities from the new restrictions enacted to circumvent Roe v Wade, and force any clinic performing more than five abortions a month to close their doors. He has recently confirmed his intention to have the “guidance opinion” in place by March.
Representative Marshall (left) was immediately alarmed by McAuliffe’s announcement, and asked the current attorney general if the new governor had the power to circumvent congress and save the clinics.

“To me, he’s trying to amend the law,” Marshall complained. “And he doesn’t have legislative powers. It’s just like what Obama does. He thinks he can tell HHS (Health and Human Services) to suspend a portion of the law.”

Not surprisingly, Attorney General Cuccinelli insists the “guidance document” isn’t a workable solution, saying in a footnote, that “properly understood” a guidance document, “only may explain or amplify the relevant regulation or statute. Definitionally, suspending the operation of a regulation would neither explain nor amplify the regulation, but rather, only subvert it.”
The outgoing attorney general concluded:

“It is my opinion that, while the governor has a significant role to play in the formulation of regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies, the Virginia Constitution prohibits the governor from unilaterally suspending the operation of regulations that have the force of law behind them, regardless of the subject matter — including the new clinic regulations

Representative Marshall was ecstatic with Cuccinelli’s opinion.

“He (McAuliffe) doesn’t have the authority to suspend that law,” Marshall gloated. “End of discussion.”

Or not. The incoming administration is in no way bound by the outgoing attorney general’s opinion, and Cuccinelli is hardly a neutral party to the attempt to close women’s clinics. Democrat Mark Herring (right) will assume the office of attorney general on Saturday, and all the Cuccinelli foot stomping in the world can’t change that cold hard fact.
A representative for Attorney General-Elect Herring’s transition team responded to Mr. Cuccinelli’s letter, saying:
“The outgoing attorney general’s opinion is not surprising. But Attorney General-elect Herring will review what powers the attorney general and governor have to correct a policy that limits women’s access to health care.”
Something tells me Mr. Cuccinelli is not going to like Attorney General Herring’s opinion.