Southwest Virginia Judgeship Scandals Impact Virginia Senate

One of the drawbacks of Virginia's judicial appointment system is that too often individuals gain judicial appointments based on either who they are related to or due to political cronyism (and how much money one has contributed to politicians).  A case in point is the drama surrounding the Virginia Senate where the GOP regained control of the chamber by bribing a Democrat Senator to abruptly resign with a plum job and a judgeship for his daughter.  Now, the would be GOP candidate for the now open seat has his own judgeship problems, this time involving his sister.  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the two scandals.  Here are excerpts:

The Republican candidate in a snap election in Southwest Virginia that will decide control of the state Senate faces the same potential ethical headache that supposedly triggered the resignation of a Democrat, temporarily tipping the chamber to the GOP.

Del. Ben Chafin, like former Sen. Phillip Puckett, has a judge problem.

Chafin’s sister and former law partner is Teresa Chafin, a judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals. She joined the intermediate court in 2012, a year before her brother was elected to the House of Delegates. She faces reconfirmation by the legislature in 2020, when he could be starting his second full, four-year term in the Senate.

Puckett’s daughter, Martha Ketron, is seeking a juvenile and domestic relations court judgeship to which she was temporarily appointed by the local circuit court. He quit the Senate on June 9 because her nomination had been stalled by Republicans. The GOP floor leader said it’s wrong to pick as judges the relatives of sitting senators. Puckett now finds himself ensnared in a federal corruption investigation.

By doing away with an evenly divided, 20-20 Senate, you do away with Democratic control. For that 21st seat, Republicans had to find a weak link. Puckett was among the weakest.

Supposedly to save his daughter’s judicial ambitions, Puckett surrendered, in midterm, a seat in deeply red territory. Puckett practically handed it to Republicans, leaving at the worst time for his party: the finale of the budget and health care fight, when neither side could spare a vote.

It appeared Puckett might get something in return: a high-paying job as the second-in-command of the Republican-controlled tobacco board.

It underwrites new and existing businesses across the tobacco belt with millions of dollars from Virginia’s share of the national settlement with cigarette makers. That board members have access to piles of cash makes them very popular in the economically ailing region — and even more powerful.

Such coziness apparently aroused the suspicions of federal prosecutors. They are now investigating the circumstances surrounding Puckett’s resignation.

The job-and-judgeship imbroglio is at least the third public corruption investigation in Virginia since 2011. The first led to the conviction of Phil Hamilton, vice chairman of the House budget committee; the second, to the indictments of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen.

Just ahead of the mass meeting at which Chafin was nominated, a subpoena for correspondence and records was issued to the tobacco board, according to legal and political sources.

It would apply to the agency’s overseers. Among them: Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott. . . .

Kilgore is lawyering up, hiring Thomas Cullen, a former federal prosecutor in Roanoke. Cullen is the son of the head of McGuireWoods, the Richmond legal behemoth in which Kilgore’s twin brother, Jerry is a partner. The firm is representing Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the diet-pill impresario who showered the McDonnells with thousands of dollars in unreported gifts, allegedly in return for favorable treatment from the state.

Puckett, too, has counsel: Tom Bondurant Jr., a former U.S. attorney in Roanoke. He was lead prosecutor in Operation Big Coon Dog, in which 16 people, including several public officials, were convicted of bribery and fraud in the misuse of federal disaster funds in Buchanan County in 2002.

Twelve years on, another dog is snarling in Southwest Virginia. It’s the latest alarm over the way politicians are doing business in Richmond.

Sadly, in many ways Virginia's legislature still operates on a corrupt 19th century model where members of the General Assemble act more like Boss Hogg or Boss Tweed than Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.  Corruption and cronyism is the name of the game.