Governor rejects call for more anti-bias rules

By: Jeff E. Schapiro Media General News Service | Daily Progress
Published: March 13, 2010

RICHMOND — Gov. Bob McDonnell says he’s done enough to protect gay state employees from discrimination in the workplace.

Rejecting Democratic demands that he seek last-minute legislation to carve in state law anti-bias safeguards, McDonnell on Friday said his public pledge to oppose prejudice and fire those guilty of it is sufficient..

The Democrat-dominated Virginia Senate endorsed a measure to include sexual orientation in the anti-discrimination laws. The proposal died in the GOP-controlled House of Delegates.

McDonnell this week issued an “executive directive” extending largely symbolic protections to gay public employees.

He was forced to act because of the furor over an opinion by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that there is no legal basis for the state’s public colleges to protect gay students and employees from bias based on sexual orientation.

Cuccinelli, a Republ-ican, on Friday stood by his view, noting that it mirrors a 2006 opinion by McDonnell when he was attorney general.

In a letter to McDonnell, Jon Blair, head of the gay-rights lobbying organization Equality Virginia, urged the governor to propose legislation adding sexual orientation in the anti-bias laws.

While welcoming Mc-Donnell’s directive, Blair said that for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Virginians, “the basic right to attend school and college and work in public workplaces free of discrimination remains unsecured.”

And former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, a Democrat who served as attorney general from 1982-85, challenged the legal scholarship on which Cuccinelli’s opinion rests.

Baliles said Cuccinelli has misinterpreted a 1982 opinion — by Baliles — that spotlighted the limits of local government to address discrimination without the sanction of the General Assembly.

While the powers of localities derive from the state, taxpayer-supported colleges — unless the legislature determines otherwise — are free to establish “standards of conduct,” said Baliles, including presumably policies protecting gays.

Baliles, retired from politics, heads the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Jeff E. Schapiro reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Times-Dispatch staff writer Jim Nolan contributed to this story.