Bob McDonnell Came Into Office "Tainted," and It Never Got Any Better

I was reading the Washington Post article this morning about how Virginia has basically no limits on campaign donations, including the wonderful news that "Republican Robert F. McDonnell has received more than $36,700 from [Dominion Power President] Thomas F. Farrell II." Wonderful, huh? Anyway, the article reminded me of something the Washington Post wrote almost four years ago, on October 28, 2005, entitled "Virginia's Hidden Money." Check this out.

DEL. ROBERT F. McDonnell of Virginia Beach, a Republican, is the front-runner in Virginia's race for attorney general. If he wins on Nov. 8, he'll become Virginia's foremost law enforcement official. Yet as things stand, he would enter office tainted, complicit in ignoring the state law that insists the public should know where candidates get their cash. If he approaches this law with a wink and a nod, why should he be trusted to enforce the others?

Last week in this space we asked the McDonnell campaign to determine and disclose the identities of contributors who have channeled money to Mr. McDonnell through the Republican State Leadership Committee, a tax-exempt group that has been active in other states. This is no small matter: Mr. McDonnell has received more than $1 million from the RSLC, much of it in the past few weeks; among other things, this money has paid for a blitz of TV advertising in Northern Virginia. At the same time, the Virginia Board of Elections said groups such as the RSLC's Virginia committee should itemize contributions exceeding $100 and report any contributions above $10,000 on the board's Web site within three days.

The response from the RSLC and Mr. McDonnell? Silence.

Unfortunately, Bob McDonnell went on to become Attorney General of Virginia, and "silence" was all we ever got from him on this subject. Fortunately, as the Virginian-Pilot explained on February 23, 2006, the General Assembly took action and "plugg[ed] the hole in campaign finance laws that masked major financiers of Attorney Gen. Bob McDonnell's November election." The Virginian-Pilot added that "a state that touts public disclosure as the best way to guard against campaign abuse makes a mockery of its own standards when groups such as the RSLC can escape the dragnet."

Yet that's exactly what Bob McDonnell did in his run for Attorney General in 2005, and he got away with it. He also never fessed up. As the Virgnian-Pilot wrote on November 2, 2005, "The fact that the names of the donors to RSLC were not known until after the campaign was over 'violates at least the stated spirit of Virginia law.'" After that, why on earth we would trust Bob McDonnell with a position of even higher authority is completely beyond me.