Morning Read-Cuccinelli: Electing Romney Would Be Giving Up On Obamacare Fight

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said Thursday that electing Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee would effectively be giving up the battle over Obamacare.

Cuccinelli, a Republican who has led Virginia’s fight against Obama’s healthcare mandate, said the health care law Romney signed as the former Massachusetts governor is too close to Obama’s law to leave the GOP front runner any room to criticize it, according to The Washington Times.

Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts has been dubbed ‘Romneycare”.

VIA The Washington Times:

“One thing that people voting as between Romney and Santorum is, they’re deciding whether to give up that issue,” Mr. Cuccinelli said on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program.

“I mean, for Romney to go out and say, ‘I’d repeal it,’ is fine, and I believe him, but it doesn’t have the power politically to motivate people to vote or volunteer that someone who has been a permanent opponent does. I mean, you are effectively giving that issue up if you select Romney as the nominee, and we may be doing that,” Mr. Cuccinelli said.

Cuccinelli hasn’t endorsed anyone yet and did not say who he voted for in the Virginia primary, where only Romney and Paul were on the ballot.

The Attorney General is running for governor of Virginia.

* Pete Ross, a local businessman running for D.C. Shadow Senator, was sentenced to one day in jail and a $50 fine after he was arrested during a voting rights demonstration last year.

The bizarre part of this sentence, The Washington Post reports, is that Ross actually wanted to go to jail, but his opponent in the senate race did not want him to be sentenced.

He apparently pushed for the maximum sentence of 90 days as a way to highlight the lack of D.C. voting rights. He even had plans to continue his campaign through jail on Election Day.

But before his sentence, the case was transferred to another judge Thursday morning because one of his opponents in the campaign, Michael Brown, reached out to the judge Wednesday night to try and influence her not to give Ross jail time.

Brown told the Post that he was upset that Ross is using the jail time to gain publicity for his campaign off the statehood issue.

“Pete Ross’s attempt to gain publicity by criminalizing the statehood movement is wrong," Brown told the Post, saying that he was also arrested during a voting rights demonstration last year. "For those of us who fought the charges, his stunt is an insult."

* This one’s for the record books. On Saturday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski will become the longest serving woman in congressional history.

Serving as a senator since 1986, Mikulski already holds the record for the longest serving woman senator. But she also spent 10 years as a congresswoman prior to her current post.

At 75, she will surpass the current record holder Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, a Massachusetts Republican who spent 35 years in congress.

The Post reports that when Mikulski began her tenure in the House in 1977, she was one of just 21 women serving in Congress — 18 in the House and three in the Senate. There are now 92 women serving.

Mikulski is also the first female Democrat to serve in both chambers of Congress and the first female Democrat to be elected to the Senate without succeeding her husband or father, according to the Post.

* Federal prosecutors ordered D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown to handover his records related to campaign contributions by Jeffrey Thompson, a prominent D.C. political donor.

All three sitting D.C. council member’s have handed over the subpoenas , which seek records of all of Thompson’s donations.

Thompson’s home and office were raided a few weeks ago and the federal officials are believed to be investigating possible campaign finance irregularities in D.C. government.

* In the contentious Virginia senate race between two former Virginia governors, the Kaine campaign released its latest web video this morning. The video, entitled “George Allen: Big Spender,” showcases Allen’s “long record of fiscal irresponsibility and big spending.”

Watch the video below.

 Below is one of Allen’s campaign videos, which shows Kaine as an “unabashed supporter” of the president. 

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