The leaders of Virginia's Republican Party have definitely taken some heat in the time since the vast majority of Republican presidential candidates were unable to qualify for the ballot in Virginia's primary. Their inability to help organize a productive ground game in the state, after all, has resulted in Rick Perry and others suing for access to the ballot and Newt Gingrich claiming that someone working for him in the state committed a massive amount of fraud by submitting 1,500 fake signatures. What's driven a lot of the extreme right in the Republican Party crazy is that the failure of the Party's leaders has left them with no credible conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
It was probably the realization that he wouldn't be able to rally behind a extremely conservative candidate that eventually lead AG Ken Cuccinelli to claim he was going to introduce emergency legislation that would put a candidate on the ballot if they qualify for federal matching funds and ask for their name to be listed. In other words, he wanted to change the rules in the middle of the game because none of the candidates he supported were able to put together the ground game needed to collect enough signatures.
Members of both parties, however, quickly called Cuccinelli out on this. Jamie Radtke, for instance, is running in the Republican primary for US Senate who has a tea-party backing and would probably like to see some alternatives to Mitt Romney on the ballot in Virginia. But despite not having the candidates she probably wants on the ballot, she sent out a tweet last night that said "Candidates know ahead of time what's needed to get on the ballot. Build the organization and do the work. Can't change rules in midstream." In other words, she thinks Cuccinelli would be wrong to change the rules just because candidates didn't "build the organization and do the work" needed to get on the ballot.
What makes Cuccinelli's proposal even more ridiculous is that the timing of the General Assembly session compared to when state law requires the ballots to be printed would make it nearly impossible for the legislation to impact this year's primary. As Doug Mataconis pointed out, after all, that the State Board of Elections has already announced that it plans to print the ballots before the GA convenes and the law would require absentee ballots to begin going out just 10 days after legislators arrive in Richmond.
After receiving so much opposition from the public, it looks like Ken Cuccinelli realized he wouldn't be able to manipulate the system to benefit his favorite candidates. As a result, he put out a statement saying that he wanted to see change in the process to get on the ballot but would "not support efforts to apply such changes to the 2012 Presidential election." Considering how Cuccinelli is using his office to lead the political charge against the Affordable Healthcare Act and hasn't shied from other unpopular political battles, his decision to drop his proposal really says a lot about how unlikely we are to see any legislative fixes. When you also consider that a judge already dealt an early blow to Rick Perry's court case, it looks like we probably won't be seeing any change to the ballot through the court system.
You can see Cuccinelli's full statement below "the fold."
“I obviously feel very strongly that Virginia needs to change its ballot access requirements for our statewide elections. However, after working through different scenarios with Republican and Democratic leaders to attempt to make changes in time for the 2012 Presidential election, my concern grows that we cannot find a way to make such changes fair to the Romney and Paul campaigns that qualified even with Virginia’s burdensome system. A further critical factor that I must consider is that changing the rules midstream is inconsistent with respecting and preserving the rule of law – something I am particularly sensitive to as Virginia’s attorney general.
“My intentions have never focused on which candidates would be benefited or harmed, rather I have focused on what is best for Virginia’s citizens, as hundreds of thousands of Virginians who should have been able to make their choices among the full field of presidential primary contenders have had their number of choices reduced significantly.
“My primary responsibility is to the people of Virginia, and how best to fulfill that responsibility in these particular circumstances has been a very difficult question for me. I believe consistency on the part of public officials is an important attribute. And I believe that Virginians are best served by an attorney general who consistently supports the rule of law. That leads to my conclusion that while I will vigorously support efforts to reduce the hurdles to ballot access in Virginia for all candidates, I will not support efforts to apply such changes to the 2012 Presidential election.
“I do not change position on issues of public policy often or lightly. But when convinced that my position is wrong, I think it necessary to concede as much and adjust accordingly.”
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