Cuccinelli questioned on health care at Boys State

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli described his views of limited federal government at Boys State on Friday, and then defended them against a series of pointed questions from high school students about health care, sexual orientation and academic freedom.

Three of the questions focused on Cuccinelli’s lawsuit opposing the federal health care bill, his legal advice to college presidents that their policies should not provide special protections for homosexual people, and his fraud investigation into climate research at the University of Virginia.

“There were a lot of great questions, and some very insightful ones,” Cuccinelli said before leaving the weeklong experiment in politics and governing at Liberty University and heading to a similar speaking engagement at Girls State in Farmville.

Cuccinelli gave direct answers to all the questions.

One of those questions came from a young man who said his father was about to be laid off from a job he’d held for 15 years and would lose his health insurance.

“What is your justification that Virginia requires insurance on automobiles and not on the health of its citizens?” the student asked as several others applauded the question.

Cuccinelli replied that the constitution limits U.S. government powers, but lets states do many things the feds should not attempt. Citing Massachusetts’ single-payer health care system, Cuccinelli said, “It is perfectly constitutional for a state” to require people to buy insurance — on their health or their cars, he said.

Virginia requires people to buy car insurance as a condition of using its roads, but people can decline the privilege of using the highways, he said. “There is a legal and constitutional distinction between the two,” he said.

“Whatever one thinks of the policies in the health care bill, every bill has to be constitutional. And we argue this bill is not,” Cuccinelli said.

Another student took aim at the attorney general’s advice concerning homosexual people.

“I’m sure you are aware of a letter that was sent to state universities regarding discrimination policies based on sexual orientation,” a student said to Cuccinelli. “How is that not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?” the student asked.

“I know about it,” Cuccinelli replied. “I signed the letter. It was legal advice we gave to universities that was consistent with what five attorneys general before me had given.

“State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli said.

“Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment,” he said.

“There are judges who think these things ‘evolve,’ is the word they like to use,” Cuccinelli said, but the correct approach to making such a change would be a constitutional amendment, he said.

Another student asked Cuccinelli about his civil investigative demand for records about climate research done at the University of Virginia.

“You recently set in motion a case that questions established protections of individual rights in academic institutions, not only in Virginia but across the nation,” the student said.

“Critics fear that your issuing a civil investigative demand for documents detailing the climate change research of Michael Mann, a former professor at the University of Virginia, on the grounds of alleged academic fraud in violation of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act is a suspension of academic freedom,” the student said.

“Can you explain the justification for your demand?” the student asked.

Cuccinelli replied, “Let me zero in on one particular word. You said, ‘investigation for academic fraud,’ and that is not what we are investigating.”

Rather, Cuccinelli said, he is investigating whether taxpayer dollars were used fraudulently.

“We are looking at whether taxpayer dollars were used at a state institution for what the taxpayers were told that money would be used for, or was it used for another purpose,” he said.

Cuccinelli added that he wasn’t assuming fraud occurred, but “there is public information that indicates there may be a problem,” he said. An attorney general is responsible for investigating such information, he said.