Guess What Issue JUST Came UP in the AG’s Race? Indigent Defense!

“John Adams – the best attorney general the powerful and well-connected can buy,” a voice in Herring’s ad says.

The ad singles out three cases Adams worked on. Adams is on a leave of absence during the campaign from his role as chair of the government investigations and white-collar litigation department at the Richmond firm McGuireWoods. Among the cases was that of CommunityOne Bank, which in 2011 agreed to pay $400,000 in restitution to victims of a third-party ponzi scheme that operated through accounts maintained at the bank, according to a Department of Justice news release.

So apparently it is not the Commonwealth and its laws and the acts of the legislature drawing district lines that aren’t worthy of defense but so are white-collar criminal suspects and large corporations, too!  So who is left?  To paraphrase Dietrich Boenhoffer:

First the state constitution does not get defended and I said nothing because I supported gay marriage.

Then the gerrymandered lines weren’t defended, and I agreed – change the lines!

Then it was the white-collar criminal suspects not defended and I always pay my taxes…

Then it was evil corporations not defended, and I am not an evil corporation.

Then it was me and there was no one left to defend me!

But this is a golden opportunity for the GOP – not just John Adams – but Sen. Jill Vogel (who already promised me we would talk in re indigent defense in January – win or lose!) and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie.  All three ought to come out – at a setting in NOVA is best – for a statewide public defender system.  After that, talk up collaborative divorce.  I’m telling you – we can win some suburban women in NOVA and Hampton Roads and there is the election!  Can you say GOP sweep?