By all accounts, Cuccinelli is putting things in place to be the next governor of Virginia, which would be great for me since I live here, but I’m willing to share him. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

Why do I like him so much? Well, he’s Catholic, for starters. Actually Catholic, not just someone who says that because they like the sound of it. Which means he’s also very pro-life. He has seven children. My wife worked with him when he was in the state senate to get the bill pushed through that made it possible for the Virginia DMV to offer “Choose Life” license plates (which I now see everywhere I go). He took a personal interest in making that happen.

He’s also currently in a battle with the state health board over new regulations on abortion clinics issued earlier this summer. The Virginia Board of Health voted to exempt abortion clinics from meeting new structural and design standards applied to other medical facilities like hospitals. But Cuccinelli’s office said that conflicts with the law, and he won’t certify their decision:

The board of health last month amended draft regulations to effectively grandfather clinics into compliance with the new design and building requirements. At the June 15 meeting, Senior Assistant Attorney General Allyson Tysinger advised the board that its action conflicted with state law and said the attorney general’s office was not likely to certify the regulations.

In a memo to Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Remley that was made public late Monday afternoon, Tysinger wrote that the board had exceeded its authority and that the attorney general’s office could not certify the regulations.

“Our office is the first to review to determine whether the board has statutory authority to promulgate the regulations,” Cuccinelli spokesman Brian Gottstein said in an email. “Our office merely reviews the regulations and certifies whether they are compliant with the law or not. We make that determination solely on a legal basis, not on the basis of whether we agree with the policy or not.”

The proposed regulations will go through additional executive branch analysis before McDonnell acts. McDonnell could approve the regulations or return them to the board of health with recommended changes. The regulations then would be open for another round of public comment, another vote by the board and additional executive branch review before becoming final.

“This has a ways to go through the process,” said McDonnell, who signed the 2011 legislation requiring abortion clinics to meet more stringent building standards.

“I certainly won’t approve legislation that isn’t faithful to the intent of the law, which I supported,” McDonnell told reporters.

Cuccinelli was one of the first state AGs to file a suit (and do so effectively) arguing that Obamacare’s mandate is unconstitutional. Of the health care legislation, he stated that it was “the greatest erosion of liberty in my adult lifetime.”

This is supposed to be a joke at Cuccinelli's expense. I just think I'll call him Miles Davis.

He’s a second amendment advocate.

He’s fighting to reduce the government’s power of eminent domain.

On pretty much any issue he’s litigating, he’s on the right side of it.

I admit, I don’t know enough about political fast-tracking to know for certain whether stepping into the top spot at the Department of Justice would be good or bad for Cuccinelli’s long-term political prospects. Maybe being governor of Virginia first would give him the executive experience he needs to run for President a few years down the road. He’d make an impressive candidate.

All I know is that I’d love to see someone running the Justice Department who actually understands liberty, natural rights, and human dignity. Call me a dreamer.

That’s fairly standard, basic U.S. government 101, right? I mean, any school kid knows that stuff, so you’d expect a person who supposedly taught Constitutional law would especially know that, right?  So what the heck is the executive branch doing declaring a duly enacted law unconstitutional, stipulating its own interpretation of the Constitution, and refusing to defend and enforce that law?

It seems some Con Law professors and lawyers are like so many theologians who get “so smart” that they forget to be orthodox and suddenly they’ve formulated a doctrine that makes sense to them (or at least fits their hoped-for reality), but doesn’t at all resemble the original material upon which it was built. But I digress…

The abandonment of DOMA and the reasoning for it is what we call a “naked power grab.” They didn’t even do it surreptitiously by defending the law poorly and letting it be struck down in court. While underhanded, that would at least be defensible. No, they boldly proclaimed themselves unrestrained by the strictures of their Constitutional role and did that which is reserved to the judicial branch.

Some have pointed out that this could backfire on Obama at some later date. They say it opens the way for Congressional Republicans to insert their own lawyers into the defense of DOMA, who would undoubtedly mount a more robust defense of the law, thus saving what was otherwise a sabotaged defense.

Another says both a) that it may backfire on Obama’s when a future Republican president simply decides that Obamacare is unconstitutional and therefore not to be enforced or implemented; and b) that since Elena Kagan was likely party to conversations regarding DOMA during her recent tenure as solicitor general she will be under great pressure to recuse herself on any future DOMA-related case before the Supreme Court.

A friend of mine also pointed out that this really puts any Supreme Court action on this topic in a new light because of the jurisprudential tendencies of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy, the only real “swing” vote on the present Court, frequently decides and reasons in ways more focused on defending and expanding the prerogative of the Court rather than offering worthwhile opinions on the merits. Any incursion upon that prerogative will not play well with him, and this decision by Obama is beyond an incursion: it’s a taking, bypassing, ignoring of the Court. Justice Kennedy won’t take kindly to that. So this decision is a loser there as well.

But those are all long-term ramification thoughts. What about right now?

Ed Whelan suggests something I had thought immediately, but would go further than he does.

See, along with the separation of powers we have “checks and balances.” The President must sign acts into law, but if the President is recalcitrant on a manifestly worthy law and vetoes it, the Congress can override the veto and make the act a law in spite of the President’s opposition.

Also, while the executive branch is charged with carrying out the work of governance, it cannot raise or apportion its own money: that is up to Congress to apportion and provide. Specifically, all spending initiatives must originate in the House of Representatives. If the House does not want something to get money, it does not get money.

If the President and his attorney general have refused to do what they swore they would do and have overstepped their specific duties, the Congress can, and ought to, simply defund their activities. Cut the President’s salary. Cut the salary of anyone involved in the non-defense of a duly enacted law. If they are specifically refusing to do their job and are specifically violating the principle of separation of powers they ought not get paid as though everything is operating properly.

It really is not hard to do, especially with the continuing resolution to fund the government through the remainder of this year still in the works. Simply remove the line items that apportion monies to those accounts and it’s done.

We’re looking to cut costs on ineffective and poorly performing parts of the government: the President and Attorney General have presented a good example of ineffective, poorly performing government.