Virginia House Speaker Bill Howell thinks “perhaps there is a need for greater disclosure”

In reaction to the “gift scandal” hovering over Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his fallen-from-grace Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli like a political career crushing boulder, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Bill Howell had this to say, “Because of the concern that’s been expressed over this most recent Star Scientific thing, perhaps there is a need for greater disclosure.” In political speak this means nothing is really going to happen, but I’ll act like I’m concerned.

There is no “perhaps” about the need for greater gift and donation disclosure between public officials and their donors. While neither McDonnell nor Cuccinelli have technically broken Virginia law (at least not that we know of yet), the scandal surrounding these two fallen political stars and the Star Scientific CEO (three stars fall!), Jonnie Williams Sr., highlights the absurdity of allowing the lax donation disclosure laws in Virginia to remain unchanged.

It stands to reason that if person or organization A gives political representative B a large amount of gifts relative to the gifts given by person or organization C (i.e., the people of Virginia), then the former will more than likely have a greater influence in representative B’s policy making decisions.

In the case of Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr. and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (and perhaps Ken Cuccinelli as well), this gift-giving relationship was clearly intended to influence the policy decisions of the latter in favor of the former. Anyone who claims otherwise must have had a wedding thrown for their daughter on Star Scientifics dime.

The reality is that under current Virginia law, the average Joe Virginian cannot compete against the business accounts of wealthy companies like Star Scientific or Virginia Uranium Inc., over the long term. Indeed, this is precisely the point of Virginia’s current law, it was made to favor those with deep pockets while giving the impression of some degree of fairness and democratic value.

This reality leaves Virginia’s republican form of government in a realistic state of quasi-oligarchy, or control of the reins of government by the wealthy.

Unfortunately for Williams Sr., Cuccinelli, and McDonnell, their unethical relationship of gift giving and political favor dealing went too far and now the law of public opinion will partially do what Virginia law cannot (not yet, anyways): throw the bums out of office or disgrace them so deeply that political revival will prove impossible.