GOP delegates willing to kill LeBlanc appointment

[Judi Lynn]

GOP delegates willing to kill LeBlanc appointment
By BOB LEWIS
AP Political Writer
February 11, 2006
RICHMOND, Va. -- Republicans who dominate the House of Delegates are prepared to kill the appointment of Virginia's former top union official to a seat in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's cabinet.

Numerous House Republicans said privately last week they have ample votes to block the confirmation of Daniel G. LeBlanc, perhaps as soon as Tuesday.

LeBlanc stepped down as president of the Virginia AFL-CIO and as a member of the Democratic National Committee when Kaine chose him as his Secretary of the Commonwealth, a post all governors fill with loyal partisans.
(snip)

In the House, however, Republicans on the House General Laws committee grilled LeBlanc under oath for more than an hour, repeatedly demanding he explain disparaging comments he made as Virginia's top labor leader about the state's right-to-work law. They interrogated him about Kaine's intent to restore the voting rights of reformed felons and pressed him about his misdemeanor arrest with hundreds of striking miners for blocking access to the Russell County Courthouse during the bitter Pittston Coal Co. strike 17 years ago.
(snip/...)

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--xgr-leblanc-gop0211feb11,0,1506349.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia

[demosincebirth]

1. he sounds like a good man for the job, but you repugs,

alway the friends of the working man...heh,heh.

[gratuitous]

2. A union man disparaging right-to-work (for less)?

Holy smokes, but that's a danger to every robber baron everywhere! How dare a governor appoint his own choice to a post???

[Supersedeas]

6. Well, what neeeerrrrvvvve!!!

[AlecBGreen]

3. The Virginia GOP

is really stinging...They are getting their ass handed to 'em on a silver platter, and they just found out a few days ago that James Webb is gonna come in and smash George Allens soft teeth down his whiny throat.

They are NOT happy campers :(

[f-bush]

4. I just love it when the repukes eat their own!

[Charlie Brown]

5. They tried to "red-bait" LeBlanc

It appears that McCarthyism is alive and well in Virginia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701889.html

Del. Terrie Lynne Suit (R-Virginia Beach) led the questioning, citing an article in an online publication, the People's Weekly World, which she said quoted LeBlanc as saying that white executives of Newport News Shipbuilding ran the shipyard and its black workers like "a plantation."

She said the site, which bills itself as "a progressive, leftist, socialist and communist weekly," quoted LeBlanc as comparing "right-to-work" lawmakers with segregationists.

"How will you reach out to Newport News Shipbuilding and work with them . . . given that you have no respect for that corporation?" Suit asked.

"Where did you get that quote from? I don't read that kind of newspaper," LeBlanc said, prompting the GOP chairman of the committee to produce a similar quote from the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper.

LeBlanc later acknowledged saying "something similar to that" but insisted several times that "I have a good relationship, but more importantly, the working men and women have a great relationship with the shipyard."

[Toucano]

7. But Kaine won the election!!

He has a right to fill positions with anyone he chooses.

Isn't that the argument, even by Democrats, against blocking Bush appointees like Alito, Rice, and Gonzales??

[superconnected]

8. Egad, a good person. The GOP must stop him!

figures.

Gotta love how they'll support an ex coke head but not ab ex rights activist.