• Top Va. Republican urges court to keep anti-sodomy law on the books

    By Domenico Montanaro, Deputy Political Editor, NBC News

    Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) is urging a federal appeals court to overturn a three-judge panel's decision to declare an anti-sodomy law unconstitutional.

    The Washington Blade reports that Cuccinelli filed a formal "petition with the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond asking the full 15-judge court to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel last month that overturned the state's sodomy law. The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 on March 12 that a section of Virginia's 'Crimes Against Nature' statute that outlaws sodomy between consenting adults, gay or straight, is unconstitutional based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2003 known as Lawrence v. Texas."

    Steve Helber / Steve Helber / AP file photo

    Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli speaks at a press conference Thursday, June 28, 2012.

    Cuccinelli will be formally nominated as the Republican nominee in this year's governor's race by the state party at its convention May 18.

    The move could potentially have repercussions for his gubernatorial bid in a state Barack Obama won in both 2008 and 2012. It also comes just as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering two cases dealing with gay rights, after the national party has urged Republicans to accept gays and lesbians, and as Senate Republicans like Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk of Illinois have announced their support for same-sex marriage.

    Cuccinelli will be running against likely Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and major Bill and Hillary Clinton fundraiser, in what is sure to be one of the most closely watched races this year.

    More background from the Blade:

    "The March 12 ruling of the appeals court's three-judge panel overturned a lower court decision upholding the conviction of a 37-year-old man charged in 2005 with soliciting a 17-year-old woman to engage in oral sex. The Attorney General's office argued that the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision didn't apply to cases involving minors. But 4th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Robert King, who wrote the majority opinion, said the Lawrence decision rendered the Virginia sodomy statue 'facially' or completely unconstitutional. He stated other laws could be used to prosecute an adult for engaging in sex with a minor and that the Virginia General Assembly would likely have authority under the Lawrence decision to pass a new law specifically outlawing sodomy between an adult and a minor."

  • Virginia governor opposes Electoral College change

    By Kasie Hunt and Mark Murray, NBC News

    A spokesman for Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says the governor opposes the GOP legislation that would award the state's electoral votes in presidential elections by congressional district -- instead of the current winner-take-all system.

    Related: GOP looks to change the rules, not their party

    "The governor does not support this legislation. He believes Virginia's existing system works just fine as it is. He does not  believe there is any need for a change," said spokesman Tucker Martin.

    This opposition by McDonnell essentially kills the chances that the Electoral College change would become law in the state. In addition, another Republican state senator in Virginia today said he also was against the change.

    The way we elect the president is being challenged in key states by Republicans who want to award electoral votes by congressional district instead of a winner-take-all to the candidate who carries the state. Had this process been in place during the 2012 election, Mitt Romney would have won. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

  • FACT CHECK: Dem Super PAC quotes Allen out of context

    By NBC’s Domenico Montanaro

     

    A Super PAC supporting Democrats, Majority PAC, went up with an ad in Virginia hitting Republican Senate candidate George Allen.

    “He called programs like Medicare and Social Security a waste,” an announcer says, before almost goading fact checkers. “It’s true. George Allen said: ‘Whatever the government program is -- no matter how essential it is -- it’s a waste.’”

    The ad, which a Majority PAC press release says began running Tuesday night, shows Allen making those exact comments and adds, “And that’s exactly the plan George Allen will take to Washington. Slashing Medicare. Cutting Social Security. Eliminating 700,000 jobs. All to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. Why would we send George Allen back to Washington?

    But Majority PAC takes Allen out of context.

    The clip is taken from a five-minute segment from FOX in 2009. The segment is about waste at the Postal Service and health care. Medicare and Social Security never come up in the conversation.

    Allen does make what seems to be a sweeping statement that applies to all federal programs, but the ad draws a direct line to Medicare and Social Security when no discussion in the referenced clip was to either program.

    Here’s the video, which is on Allen’s YouTube channel, and a transcript of the first two-and-a-half minutes from the Dec. 22, 2009 show with guest host Charles Payne:

    PAYNE: “Well, it’s billions in the red, but still spending your green. US Postal Service caught springing for parties, movies, even booze on taxpayer money. Government watchdog identifying nearly $800,000 in “imprudent spending.” My next guest is concerned that this is just a preview of coming attractions if the government takes over health care. George Allen, former Republican governor of Virginia, joins us now. Wow! This is a—I mean, listen, the post office is losing a lot of money to begin with and yet they can spring for stuff like this?

    ALLEN: Yeah, Charles, you know, most Americans recognize that whatever the government program is, no matter how essential it is, it’s a waste. There’s constant waste in it and you know, here they are eating all sort of things – expensive meals and all the rest and here, folks that are working for a living and their money is confiscated in taxes to pay for these sort of things, it’s just galling. In fact, they found they’re having crab cakes and beef wellington, meanwhile we’re all eating cupcakes and beef jerky.

    PAYNE: Gollee, I can tell you, I’ve never--, George, I can tell you, I’ve never even had beef wellington before! But tell us, though, now how do you make the connection? Do you think they’re going to do the same thing with this health care?--

    ALLEN: Sure—

    PAYNE: --it’ll be just one giant pot of money for parties.

    ALLEN: Well, I’m not saying they’re going to have parties—

    PAYNE: I know—

    ALLEN: --they’ll have waste in it. But what are we getting, Charles? Those of us in it. What we’re getting hit with is higher taxes; we’re getting higher premium costs; you’re seeing for the states they have unfunded mandates to it; you’re going to have generally speaking a lower standard of health care while the social engineers and these elites in Washington are imposing this on the American people. It’s something that’s going to be harmful to small business, job growth, and on top of it all of it’s an experiment, health care experiment that’s going to cost $1 trillion that we don’t have and the last thing we need is more debt for these sort of experiments. The people of America need personal responsibility and freedom, not dependency on the government.

  • Biden on 'chains' comment: I'm using Republicans' own words

    While stumping in Ohio, Romney preached to a receptive audience. In Iowa, President Obama focused on energy issues, praising wind power. And VP contender Paul Ryan began polishing his stump speech, laced with attacks on Obama's leadership. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By NBC's Carrie Dann

     

     

    WYTHEVILLE, Va. – Vice President Joe Biden sought Tuesday evening to clarify language he used earlier in the day, saying his charge that the Republican ticket's banking policies would "put you all back in chains" was merely a reference to the GOP's own rhetoric about the "unshackling" of economic forces.

    Biden made the comment, which sparked immediate controversy, in the southern Virginia town of Danville Tuesday morning.

    Biden tells audience GOP, banks would put them ‘back in chains’

    Noting that both Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential pick, and John Boehner, speaker of the House, have both proposed “unshackling” the American economy, Biden said those were the type of proposals that led to the financial crisis. 

    "The last time these guys unshackled the economy, to use their term, they put the middle class in shackles," Biden told his audience in Wytheville, Va.  "That’s how we got where we are."

    Later conceding that he used the more charged verb "unchain" rather than "unshackle" in his earlier remarks – particularly because his audience in Danville, Va. included hundreds of African Americans --  Biden still took aim at Romney aides who called his statement "outrageous."

    Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement earlier today that Biden's reference to GOP financial policies that would put Americans "in chains" was one that "reached a new low."

    But Biden said in Wytheville that the metaphor belonged to the Ryan-Romney faction of the GOP itself. 

    "I’m using their own words!" Biden protested.

    "I got a message for them," he added. "If you want to know want to know what’s outrageous, it’s their policies, and the effects of their policies on middle class America. That’s what’s outrageous."

  • Virginia Senate debate: Kaine, Allen argue over taxes, spending, who is most partisan

    By NBC News and wire services

    Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen opened the fall debate season in Virginia's Senate race Saturday with a dispute over tax and spending policy that soon digressed into a partisan squabble over which candidate has been the most partisan.

    The two former governors in a marquee campaign that could determine partisan control of the Senate clashed in a 75-minute exchange before several hundred lawyers at the posh Homestead resort for the annual Virginia Bar Association's summer retreat.

    Allen, running to reclaim the Senate seat he lost to Democrat Jim Webb in 2006, hit Kaine on his support for federal spending cuts that could be ordered under a compromise the White House and House Republicans reached last summer for raising the limit on federal borrowing. 

    See the report at NBCWashington.com

    National defense could suffer $500 billion in cuts, and Virginia, home to the Pentagon and the world's largest Navy base in Norfolk, would suffer more than 200,000 job losses, Allen said.

    "The result? Disproportionate defense cuts that would be disproportionate to Virginia's economy and our military,'' he said, pressing Kaine to defend the compromise -- a deal that also had the blessing of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

    Kaine struck back, calling Allen a profligate spender during his term as governor from 1994 to 1998, when the state's budget grew by 45 percent, and in a GOP-ruled Congress that quickly converted former President Bill Clinton's budget surpluses into trillions in federal deficits. "

    He voted for two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) without any concern about how we would pay for it. He voted for expensive tax cuts, not caring how we would pay for it,'' Kaine said. Turning toward Allen, he added, "You talk like a fiscal conservative, but you never governed like one.''

    Allen countered that by the time he left the Senate after 2006, the government was "on a trajectory toward a balanced budget.'' He said he was in a minority of 15 senators who opposed Alaska's "bridge to nowhere,'' one of the most infamous federal earmarks to win congressional approval during Allen's Senate tenure.

    Early in the debate, Allen and Kaine sketched a few clear policy distinctions. Kaine said he favored a blend of cuts and revenue for reducing federal deficits -- $3 in spending reductions for every $1 of new taxes. Allen, prodded by debate moderator Candy Crowley of CNN, rejected any additional taxes, not even at a ratio of $10 in cuts for every $1 of higher taxes.

    Kaine said he would allow tax cuts that President George W. Bush put in place to expire on those who earn $500,000 or more a year, double the threshold Obama set. Allen called it a massive tax increase and called for keeping the cuts in place at every income level.

    For a moment, there was even partisan harmony. Both voiced sorrow and outrage at Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., and advocated better background checks to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. Allen even praised Kaine's handling as governor of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at Virginia Tech in April 2007.

    By the final third of the debate, however, the dialogue became much more acerbic, partisan and personal.

    Republicans have sought to handcuff Kaine to Obama and his liberal policies. Allen accurately called Kaine Obama's hand-picked DNC chairman, but then rankled Kaine by saying he is, "in effect (Obama's) hand-picked senator, recruited to run for the Senate ...''

    Kaine interrupted Allen.

    "I am highly offended at that. I am campaigning full-time for 19 months with the support of my family. For you to say I am hand-picked by somebody else rather than doing it myself is completely out of line,'' Kaine said.

    Allen, who courted his party's conservative base in the primary, has sought to soften his partisan image since winning the nomination in June.

    So Kaine confronted Allen on his support for an anti-abortion measure that would extend the legal rights of personhood to human embryos from the moment of conception. Critics of "personhood'' legislation say it would not only end abortion rights should the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling be overturned, it could also deny women certain forms of birth control.

    "Why would you claim to be a small-government guy and propose what would be such a dramatic reach into people's personal lives and moral decisions?'' Kaine asked.

    Having stumbled over the same question in a December one-on-one debate with Kaine, Allen explained that his proposal is not intended to interfere with contraception.

    "It's about protecting an unborn child and its mother,'' he said. It would hold attackers criminally accountable for assaults on women that kill or injure her fetus, no matter its gestational age.

    A new Quinnipiac University poll released this week put the race as a dead heat.

    This article includes reporting by The Associated Press and NBC4 Washington.

     

  • Virginia repeals one-a-month limit on handgun purchases

    By msnbc.com news services

    RICHMOND, Va. -- A Virginia law limiting handgun purchases to one per month was repealed Tuesday, over the opposition of gun control supporters and relatives of victims who survived the Virginia Tech massacre.

    Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell signed the bill into law after it was passed two weeks ago by the GOP-controlled General Assembly. He did not comment on signing the bill, though he said earlier he supported repealing the law.

    The governor met Saturday with families of people killed or injured in the April 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The families had hoped to persuade him to veto the bill, although they knew it was a long shot.

    Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin was wounded at Virginia Tech, was at the meeting. He said the governor had previously said he would sign the bill and "it would have been very difficult for him to go back on it."

    McDonnell is seen as a contender for his party's vice presidential nomination in 2012. He signed the repeal a day after a high school student opened fire with a handgun at an Ohio school, killing three students and wounding two others.

    Colin Goddard of the Brady Campaign, a survivor from the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, shares his thoughts regarding Monday morning's shooting at Chardon High School and the NOW panel weighs in on the need for stricter gun control laws.

    Opponents worry that lifting the limit could spur an increase in gun violence.

    'They have not learned'
    Goddard, president of the Virginia Center for Public Safety, reserved his harshest criticism for legislators who passed the bill.

    "They have not learned a damn thing," Goddard said. Alluding to Monday's school shooting that left three students dead in Ohio, Goddard said: "Here we are watching kids dying in other states, and we're going to be a purveyor of firearms for other states."

    Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily was wounded in the shooting that left the gunman and 32 others dead at Virginia Tech, said she was disappointed by the governor's action.

    "Getting rid of the one-handgun-a-month law will make it easier for gun traffickers to purchase handguns in bulk," she said in a written statement. "There have been too many tragedies in other states fueled by guns that come from Virginia, and this will only make the situation worse."

    Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William and sponsor of the repeal bill, said the one-handgun limit didn't accomplish much for law enforcement.

    April 16: On the anniversary of a campus shooting, the Virginia Tech community gathered to commemorate the 32 people who lost their lives. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

    "I think Virginians deserve effective laws, and one handgun a month has been overtaken by technology and improved background checks," he said. "Criminals don't go into gun stores, stand there in the bright light, hand over their driver's license and stand there and wait for the vendor to see if they have a criminal record."

    He added: "If you really want to get after gun crime, you get after people who use guns illegally. You don't punish law-abiding citizens."

    The 1993 law was a major legislative legacy of Democratic former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, passed when Virginia was a favorite armory for East Coast criminals. It never applied to rifles or shotguns.

    The law was intended to slow the flow of guns from Virginia to New York City and other metropolitan areas in the Northeast. In 1991, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that 40 percent of the 1,236 guns found at crime scenes in New York had been purchased in Virginia.

    Goddard said the repeal legislation was one of 30 gun bills his organization opposed this year in a session that has seen an increase in conservative measures pushed by Republicans, who strengthened their House majority and gained control of the Senate in last November's elections. Ten of those bills are still alive, he said, whereas in previous years only one or two pro-gun bills typically were passed.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.