AMERICA One-Man Legal Brigade
Virginia’s activist attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, battles to restrain the federal government and keep a wary eye on the “schoolyard bully across the Potomac.”
By John Mercurio Y
OU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF Ken Cuccinelli. But you will. Ever since he took offi ce as Virginia’s attorney general in 2009, in a statewide election widely seen as the fi rst major rebuke of President Barack Obama’s agenda, Cuccinelli has become a one-man legal brigade fi ghting what he calls the “schoolyard bully” across the Potomac.
“The Obama administration had their people in place [in late 2009],
16 NEWSMAX / SEPTEMBER 2011
and they were rolling. Unfortunately, part of what they were rolling was the rule of law and the Constitution,” he tells Newsmax.
“Attorneys general are the last line of defense, when there are no prin- ciple protectors of the Constitution in Washington. We’ve been called on from a federalist posture . . . to step up on behalf of our states, to restrain the federal government and keep it within its enumerated powers. And we’ve been doing that.”
The list of the Virginia attorney
general’s hot-button legal battles is as lengthy as it is controversial. He opposed the federal govern- ment’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s immigration enforcement statute. He told the University of Virginia that it cannot ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. He challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that green- house gases threaten public health. He increased regulation of Virginia’s 21 abortion clinics.
He said police can search stu-
F33/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM
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