Del. Phil Hamilton lost his reelection bid earlier this month, I was relieved to see–voters saw fit to hand him his hat for lining his own pockets with taxpayer dollars (or so it appears). Democrat Robin Abbott won the Peninsula district with 54% of the vote. Like every other outgoing delegate, Hamilton remains a delegate until January, when his replacement will be sworn in, when he’ll wrap up two decades in the house.
Or, rather, he would have remained a delegate until January. Hamilton resigned his job on Sunday, effective immediately. Which is a strange thing to do. I can’t say it’s never happened, but I can say that it’s mighty unusual. Why would he do that? Well, there’s one good reason: the house ethics committee isn’t in the business of investigating former delegates. (Whether they’re legally empowered to do so is a matter of some debate.) If he’s not a delegate, he’s not under investigation.
He could be investigated by the state, but Gov. Tim Kaine said on Monday that he didn’t want to launch an investigation during the election season, because it could have appeared politically motivated. Which is probably true; it was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario for Kaine. But it robbed voters of the knowledge of Hamilton’s guilt or innocence, and may have resulted in their reelecting a criminal.
All of this is to say that Hamilton didn’t have much to worry about thus far. A relatively neutered ethics committee led by his friends and a governor who bowed to political pressure to ignore the matter. No problemo.
Or so the case had been. Now comes word that a federal grand jury subpoenaed the House of Delegates in the matter, way back on September 22. The grand jury was to reconvene on October 21, and it’s a fair bet that House Clerk Bruce Jamerson complied.
Corruption in politics should be subject to harsh penalties, and we should be able to dish out those penalties on our own. Instead, by all outward appearances, we as a state are willing to overlook apparent criminal behavior, to tolerate politicians’ incestuous protection of one another. That the federal government has to step in here is an embarrassment for Virginia.
This is the point where I’m obliged to call for house ethics reform. And, yes, that’s necessary. But it’s tough to envision how that will happen. The house has a newly-enlarged majority that had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into allowing the public to see video of their own ostensibly-public proceedings. A majority that had to be shamed into ending their practice of holding secret votes to kill bills, hundreds of such votes every year. And the most outspoken champion of house ethics reform is Del. Ward Armstrong (D-Martinsville), Democrats’ minority leader; Republicans aren’t about to do anything that he wants them to do. I suspect strongly that the only way that meaningful ethics reform will come about is for the chamber to flip to Democrats, and only then if they campaigned on the platform of ethics reform, and only then if it happens in the term immediately following the election. Del. Armstrong told me a couple of years ago that he’s a big fan of nonpartisan redistricting…unless Democrats are in the majority. Much like redistricting reform, only the minority is interested in ethics reform.
It’s tough to see how this larger story will have a happy ending. There’s no telling what’ll happen with Hamilton, but I can’t see how it will have any effect on corruption in the General Assembly. And it may well get worse. If a Democratic governor doesn’t want to investigate a Republican-led house, I can’t see that a Republican governor will be any more eager. Shamefully, federal grand juries may be our best hope for rooting out corruption in the legislature.
Every time I look at this headline, I think it says, “The Hamilton Case Goes feral.
I agree with you Waldo and, as hard as it is for me to say anything good about the man (largely based upon his treatment of Will Vehrs some time ago), Ward Armstrong’s effort deserves support.
And I put it writing.