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Kaine’s Parting Gift To Gays Denied
By Greg L | 1 February 2010 | Virginia Politics | 4 Comments
The final effort by the Kaine Administration to enact special, taxpayer-subsidized protections for “domestic partners” is now dead. Ken Cuccinelli reports in the latest issue of “The Cuccinelli Compass” that this below-the-radar effort by DNC Chairman and part-time Governor Kaine to extend employee health benefits to the homosexual partners of state employees has been pulled on the advise of the Attorney General. If you ever need an example of whether blogs can make a difference in our political system, here’s another one as the story broke here.
In week two we were confronted with Gov. Kaine’s executive order 107, which changed the process of propounding a regulation to Kaine could avoid the AG office’s role in the process. Why do that? Because they wanted to issue a regulation allowing for a renamed ‘domestic partners’ healthcare coverage for state workers. Such a policy, as we determined in my office, would have violated Virginia law.
Needless to say, a Governor cannot put in place a regulation that flies in the face of Virginia law. Also, a Governor cannot ignore the requirements of law for the issuing of regulations.
Kaine did (or tried to do) both.
We advised the Governor of the situation and they pulled the proposed regulation pursuant to our advice.
When Democrats can’t get the votes to enact their legislative agenda, they try to enact what couldn’t be passed in a legislature through executive fiat. When they lose elections, they delay swearing in the victors so their guy can illegally cast votes on important initiatives. When they don’t have the majority needed in a legislative body necessary to deliver the outcomes they want, they strip committee memberships from minority members in order to stack committees in a truly unrepresentative manner. For Democrats, the word “democracy” all too often has nothing in common with how they actually behave.
We the citizens have to be the watchdogs on this, as there’s no way we can depend on the mainstream media to shine the light on government actions they’re happy to see cloaked in secrecy, only to be sprung upon us later as a fait accomplis. Stay vigilant.
Speaking of which, the Attorney General also informs us that Kaine’s attempted release of double-murderer Jens Soering has been thwarted. Well done, Ken.
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Kudos to Governor McDonnell for stuffing this one.
I’ll bet Kaine wasn’t expecting anyone to notice this was going through and figured since so much of the staff would be held over they’d lose this one during the transition. Then McDonnell would get surprised by it when it got published, but find that the process of un-doing something after it’s already done might be too difficult.
Nice job of heading off this train wreck before it happened. I noted that the day after you mentioned this that’s when the mainstream media started running articles on it.
We have all seen examples from both parties of the behavior cited above. As for the domestic partners benefits, this was the right move on the part of Mr. Cuccinelli, since it would have been counter to existing law and would have been struck down by the courts if challenged.
As for sending the murderer back to Germany, I think that was a mistake to keep him here. If we could transfer all of the prisoners from other nations back to their home nation, that would be that many fewer people that Virginians need to pay to house and feed. Repatriation of the German would save about $40,000 per year.
It would be nice to be able to close a few prisons, rather than continue to build more. Perhaps the McDonnell Administration could look at pursuing the repatriation of convicts to their home of origin on a much greater scale.
On a purely practical scale, Virginians need to set aside our thirst for vengeance and examine the cost-benefits of repatriating all prisoners from foreign countries back to their native countries, with an agreement that they be banned from returning to America.
Since Soering would have qualified for parole in two years if released to Germany, and we have no way to control what Germany does once they get a guy like this, it is quite likely that this convicted double murderer would have gone free before his domestic accomplice that was sentenced to a ninety year prison term.
You do the crime here, you do the time here.
I’ve heard the same argument raised for illegal aliens who commit murders, that we should release them back to their home countries to serve their sentences. We found that in too many cases these folks were being released and would slip right back across the border. Much better to keep them where we can keep an eye on them.
I’d hate to see foreign nationals effectively get more lenient treatment for crimes they commit here than what is handed down to our own citizens.
Here is yet more evidence of the growing influence of the international courts on our legal system.
“Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey says the transfer was approved under the terms of an international treaty- and that one condition of the transfer was that Soering not be eligible for parole for two years.”
It was due to the impact of international treaties and courts which led to the fight to get this murder back to the U.S. from the U.K. in the first place. Many foreign countries have adopted anti capital punishment policies and consider it a human rights violation.
Here is evidence of the problem we have here.
“The Department of Justice has to approve the request. Hickey says Soering has been eligible for parole now in the United States since November 2003.”
This murderer was convicted and sentenced to two life terms and becomes eligible for parole after only 13 years? It was part of the agreement he not face the death penalty which influenced his extradition.
The dead parents of his girlfriend are still dead and will continue to be dead. If they are interested in changing the game at this point I suggest we send Jens Soering’s soul up for final judgment before we send his body off to Germany.
http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0110/696481.html