Ken Cuccinelli

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ken Cuccinelli (2012)

Kenneth Thomas "Ken" Cuccinelli II (born July 30, 1968 in Edison , New Jersey ) is an American Republican Party politician who was Attorney General of Virginia from 2010 to 2014 . In 2013 he also ran as a Republican candidate in the gubernatorial election in Virginia, but he lost.

In June 2019, he was appointed provisional head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , which a federal judge ruled on March 1, 2020 to be illegal.

Life

After attending Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC , he first studied mechanical engineering at the University of Virginia and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BS Mechanical Engineering) degree . He then completed a postgraduate degree in international trade and politics at George Mason University with a Master of Arts (MA International Commerce and Policy), before completing a further degree in law at the Law School of George Mason University with a Juris Doctor ( JD) graduated.

He initially practiced law in Virginia and served on the Board of Directors of Family Incorporated from 1998 to 2000 . In addition, Cuccinelli was involved with the Defenders of Property Rights and the Columbus Knights .

He began his political career in August 2002 when he became a member of the Virginia Senate as a representative of the Republican Party and represented the 37th district in Fairfax County in this until 2010 . Cuccinelli belongs to the right wing of his party and represents extremely conservative political positions. As a senator, he was responsible, among other things, for a legislative proposal that would have allowed companies to fire employees who do not speak English at work, which would also mean that they would lose their entitlement to unemployment benefits. However, the proposal failed. Cuccinelli is also an avowed opponent of homosexual rights , is an anti- abortion opponent and campaigns against restrictions on gun ownership . He is also an avowed climate denier who denies man-made global warming and is known for harsh attacks on climate researchers.

Cuccinelli was elected Attorney General of Virginia in November 2009 and held the office since January 16, 2010. In November 2013, he ran as a Republican candidate for governor of Virginia . With a share of the vote of 45.3 percent, he was defeated by the Democrat Terry McAuliffe , who got almost 48 percent of the vote and thus succeeded Bob McDonnell in January 2014 . Cuccinelli's tenure as Attorney General also ended in January 2014. His successor in this office was the Democrat Mark R. Herring .

Official acts as Attorney General

In March 2010, Cuccinelli filed a lawsuit against US President Barack Obama's health care reform on the grounds that the reform bill would violate the sovereignty of the state of Virginia.

In August 2010, Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion that the review of the residence status of anyone stopped by the police is allowed, regardless of the reason for the control. The report was created against the background of a heated debate about planned tightening of immigration law in a number of US states.

Also in August 2010, Cuccinlli prepared another report that enables the authorities to exercise more strict supervision over abortion clinics . Proponents of the right to abortion sharply criticized the report. The executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia sees Cuccinelli's action as an attempt to close abortion clinics in Virginia.

Cuccinelli also tried to force the University of Virginia to hand over data and documents related to previous research by climate scientist Michael E. Mann . Cuccinelli wanted to initiate a legal investigation against Mann on the suspicion of allegedly fraudulent research funds with the help of manipulated climate data and cited the controversy surrounding the hacking incident at the University of East Anglia's climate research center . However, he did not present any evidence of any wrongdoing by the scientist and ignored the exonerating reports of several official investigative commissions. Cuccinelli's actions met with massive criticism in scientific circles and were branded as an attack on the freedom of science . In a joint statement, 19 professors from Old Dominion University drew parallels between Cuccinelli's approach and the McCarthy era . 255 scientists from the National Academy of Sciences , including eleven Nobel Prize winners , issued an open letter calling for an end to the “ McCarthy-style persecution of our colleagues.” The letter also expressed dismay at the way in which “climate change deniers” not only climate research in general, but also individual climate researchers. Such attacks would not be guided by a sincere pursuit of alternative explanations, but by “pressure groups or dogmas.” The signatories also called for an end to the harassment of scientists by politicians who seek diversions to prevent climate change. Protests also came from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which accused the Attorney General of making false claims. More than 900 US scientists signed a petition calling on Cuccinelli to stop the "totally unjustified" investigation. In an editorial, the leading journal Nature described Cuccinelli's actions as an “ideologically motivated inquisition” that harassed and intimidated scientists. The Washington Post commented that the Attorney General had declared war on freedom of research. Even the climate skeptic Stephen McIntyre condemned Cuccinelli's actions.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which includes nearly 50,000 US scholars, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on the University of Virginia in May 2010 to take legal action against Cuccinelli's demand for data to be disclosed , and offered their support to the university. After the university then appealed against the Attorney General's claim, a court ruled in August 2010 in the first instance that Cuccinelli's claim was incomprehensibly justified. The court thus gave the university the right to refuse to hand over the data. After the Attorney General appealed, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in March 2012 that Cuccinelli did not have legal authority to request the release of such information and records. The decision ended the two-year legal battle and was viewed by commentators as a political embarrassment for Cuccinelli, who wanted to raise his profile with the campaign against the climate researcher for his upcoming candidacy for the post of governor.

Since April 2010, Cuccinelli has also filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force it to abandon its greenhouse gas emissions regulation . As a justification, he cited doubts about the results of climate research and again referred to the controversy surrounding the hacker incident. In June 2012, however, a federal court dismissed Cuccinelli's lawsuit and upheld the EPA's finding that greenhouse gases pose a public health risk and are likely responsible for global warming for the past half century. The court's unanimous decision said the US Environmental Protection Agency had provided solid scientific evidence to support its findings. The EPO director at the time, Lisa Jackson, welcomed the verdict and spoke of an emphatic confirmation of her agency's actions.

The US magazine Newsweek commented in September 2010 that Cuccinelli had earned a reputation as an "avid crusader of the Tea Party " with his official acts . Spiegel Online wrote that the Republican is fighting "on all fronts against the 21st century".

Web links

Commons : Ken Cuccinelli  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sensitive defeats for radical republicans , in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , November 7, 2013
  2. ↑ https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.210960/gov.uscourts.dcd.210960.34.0.pdf
  3. ^ Bill Targets Workers Who Speak No English , in: The Washington Post , Jan. 17, 2008
  4. ^ Virginia elections 2013: Results of the 2013 elections
  5. ↑ US Health Care Reform: Republicans Riot , in: DiePresse.com , March 23, 2010
  6. ^ Virginia legal opinion supports checks of immigration status , in: The Washington Post , August 3, 2010
  7. ↑ Virginia can impose tougher abortion clinic oversight, AG Cuccinelli says , in: The Washington Post , August 24, 2010
  8. ↑ a b Climategate reloaded , in: Deutschlandfunk , May 31, 2010
  9. ↑ a b Science subpoenaed , in: Nature , Vol. 465, No. 7295, pp. 135-136
  10. ^ A statement from the ODU Faculty Senate Executive Committee regarding the investigation of Dr. Michael Mann by the Attorney General ( Memento from May 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) , May 11, 2010
  11. ↑ a b Climate Change and the Integrity of Science ; Gleick et al. (2010): Climate Change and the Integrity of Science , in: Science , Vol. 328, No. 5979, p. 689 f.
  12. ↑ Statement of the AAAS (PDF; 67 kB)
  13. ↑ a b Ken Cuccinelli Makes Basic Factual Errors About Mike Mann's Research, Stolen Emails in Response to UVA ( Memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) , Union of Concerned Scientists press release , July 1, 2010
  14. ↑ Petition (PDF; 86 kB)
  15. ^ U-Va. should fight Cuccinelli's faulty investigation of Michael Mann , in: The Washington Post , May 7, 2010
  16. ↑ See Cheryl Hogue and Steve Ritter (2010): Virginia Probes Climate Science , in: Chemical & Engineering News, Vol. 88, No. 19, p. 10
  17. ^ Letter from the AAUP and the ACLU to the Rector of the University of Virginia (PDF; 211 kB)
  18. ↑ Court judgment (PDF; 342 kB)
  19. ↑ a b Virginia court rejects skeptic's bid for climate science emails , in: The Guardian , March 2, 2012
  20. ↑ Cuccinelli challenges EPA on global warming findings , in: The Washington Post , April 16, 2010
  21. ^ Court Backs EPA on Warming , in: The Wall Street Journal , June 27, 2012
  22. ^ Katie Maloney and Alan Mascarenhas: Inside the Tea Party. Ken Cuccinelli. In: Newsweek's Education Site. September 23, 2010, archived from the original on September 28, 2010 ; accessed on July 10, 2013 .
  23. ↑ US gubernatorial elections: Tea Party threatens double failure , in: Spiegel Online , November 5, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Cuccinelli, Ken
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cuccinelli II, Kenneth Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Edison , New Jersey