Virginia Attorney General retains Civil Investigative Demand powers

Ignoring the fact that Virginia’s current Attorney General will not always be Virginia’s Attorney General, two Senate Democrats (Sen. Don McEachin and Sen. Chap Petersen) and a Delegate (Del. David Toscano) in a politically motivated manner sought to curb the powers of the Virginia Attorney General to investigate fraud perpetrated on the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Today that attempt was unceremoniously put to rest in the House of Delegates Civil Subcommittee by voice vote.  The Democrats on the Subcommittee did not appear to even force a recorded vote.  Washington post coverage can be found here.

Attorney General Cuccinelli, and future Attorneys General, will retain their Civil Investigative demand powers.

A word to statewide office seekers:  If pushing politically motivated legislation that you know will fail, make a bigger deal about it.  Activists will remember how hard you fought for the things you believe in.

A link to a press conference of the bills’ supporters so you can hear their own words can be found here.

I discussed the flaws of the original proposals here.

Sen. McEachin’s quiet capitulation on his bill is discussed here.

McEachin gives up on Civil Investigative Demands

On January 16 I discussed Sen. Don McEachin’s (D - Richmond) blunt overreaction to the perceived problem of an Attorney General being able to investigate fraud in government contracting.  SB1314 would have completely eliminated the investigatory power of the Virginia Attorney General (regardless of the nature of the fraud, or the political party of the Attorney General) prior to the filing of a lawsuit.  

On January 31, 2011 this bill was “incorporated” into Sen. Chap Petersen’s (D - Fairfax) SB831.  SB831 prohibits Civil Investigative Demands [CIDs] in the limited instance in which a CID is issued against an academic institution and the subject matter is “a matter of academic inquiry or research.”  In a cursory manner, I criticized the merits of Sen. Petersen’s narrower bill in an update to the January 16 post.  At Least Sen. Petersen’s bill targets directly the behavior he finds objectionable, the investigation of Climategate through the use of CIDs.

Since SB1314 and SB831 had somewhat common goals it makes some since for one to be the primary bill, and the other to be incorporated.  Since SB831 is now the primary bill and it has passed out of committee we should look at what the combined bill looks like compared to the original.  See the current version here, and the original here.

So what parts of SB1314 were incorporated in SB831?

 ANSWER after the jump:

Sen. McEachin proposes to eliminate powers of the Attorney General

UPDATE:  Narrower proposal offered by Sen. Chap Petersen
UPDATE2: McEachin gives up on Civil Investigative Demands Here

As suggested in the Spring of 2010, Sen. Don McEachin (D - Richmond) has proposed a bill to eliminate the power of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia to issue civil investigative demands [CID] in cases of suspected o fraud on the taxpayers. 

SB1314 takes away all court enforceable investigative authority from the AG until after a lawsuit is filed.  It does not water the subpoena process down or impose limitations.  Instead, the bill completely eliminates the process and the nine statutes underlying the process.  Pretrial investigative authority will be limited to that which the AG can gain voluntary compliance. 

At this point, many people know about the AG's attempt to obtain documents through this civil investigative demand from the University of Virginia.  Unfortunately Sen. McEachin's heavy handed attempt to put a check on the current AG's power will have the unintended consequence of leaving Virginia less able to properly exercise its rights under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act [FATA].