After nearly year-long logjam, GOP 'rams through' State Corporation Commission pick with no Democrat

[TexasTowelie]

After nearly year-long logjam, GOP ‘rams through’ State Corporation Commission pick with no Democratic support


More than a year after Judge James Dimitri said he was stepping down from the State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, insurance, banking and other business interests, Republicans in the General Assembly muscled through a surprise pick to fill the last remaining year of his term in a single day with zero Democratic support.

The new judge is Judge Patricia West, a former chief deputy attorney general under Ken Cuccinelli, a former secretary of public safety under Gov. George Allen and a judge on the Virginia Beach Circuit Court. She is an associate dean of career and alumni services and a professor of law and government at Regent University, a Christian university in Virginia Beach.

“I would like to continue my service to the commonwealth and this is an area where I can really serve the people of the commonwealth and the companies that decide to do business here,” she told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Wednesday morning in a meeting that took some lawmakers and lobbyists by surprise.

Her selection broke a lengthy impasse between House and Senate Republicans, who control both chambers, that had failed to produce a pick for the seat over the past year.

Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/01/16/after-nearly-year-long-logjam-gop-tries-to-ram-through-state-corporation-commission-pick/

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Assembly elects Patricia West, former judge and top aide to Allen, Cuccinelli to SCC post

Assembly elects Patricia West, former judge and top aide to Allen, Cuccinelli to SCC post

By MICHAEL MARTZ Richmond Times-Dispatch 15 hrs ago

The long search for a new judge on the State Corporation Commission ended with the surprise election on Wednesday of a Republican former judge whose candidacy started a partisan battle over public transparency and gender in a critical election year.

Republican majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly elected former Judge Patricia West — a conservative Regent University official and former key aide to Gov. George Allen and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli — to fill the SCC post vacated by the retirement of Judge Jimmy Dimitri at the end of February.

West, 57, will become the third judge on an independent commission established in the Virginia Constitution to oversee public utilities, banks and insurance companies. The SCC is now under increasing pressure from the General Assembly to carry out its priorities for regulating electric utilities and expanding use of renewable energy.
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The debate over her election was anything but lofty in the House of Delegates. It had favored Richmond lawyer and lobbyist David Clarke to succeed Dimitri but quickly fell behind West after Senate Republican leaders advanced her candidacy with their House counterparts on Tuesday afternoon.
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Staff writers Graham Moomaw and Patrick Wilson contributed to this report.