Virginia Senate Dems refuse to confirm Cuccinelli, other Youngkin board nominees

Updated June 10

In a Monday evening vote, Democrats on a Virginia State Senate committee declined to confirm eight of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees for three university boards, including former Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli and former state commerce and trade secretary Caren Merrick.

Rejected in an 8-4 vote of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections were eight Youngkin appointees to the boards of George Mason University, the University of Virginia and Virginia Military Institute. Cuccinelli, who also served as acting director of the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services during President Donald Trump’s first term, was appointed in March to serve on U.Va.’s board.

Cuccinelli replaced Bert Ellis on U.Va.’s board of visitors after Youngkin dismissed Ellis, whom the governor appointed to the board in 2022 as a vocal opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion. Ultimately, Ellis proved to be too outspoken for the governor, despite sharing views on DEI. In Youngkin’s March letter to Ellis notifying him of his removal from the board, the governor wrote, “Your conduct on many occasions has violated the Commonwealth’s Code of Conduct for our Boards and Commissions and the Board of Visitors‘ Statement of Visitor Responsibilities.”

George Mason appointments

Charles J. Cooper, a Florida appellate attorney who represented former U.S. Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and John Ashcroft and served as a U.S. assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, was among the rejected appointees to George Mason’s board, along with Merrick, who served as the state’s commerce secretary under Youngkin. William Hansen, a former U.S. deputy secretary of education under President George W. Bush, and Maureen Ohlhausen, a former Federal Trade Commission chair, were also rejected by the Senate committee.

VMI appointments

VMI’s board has been at the epicenter of controversy surrounding the ouster of the military college’s first Black superintendent, retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, who was named in 2021 while VMI was putting its first DEI programs in place after a study on racist and sexist conduct among students and staff was ordered by former Gov. Ralph Northam, an alumnus. Wins said in March when the board — now dominated by Youngkin appointees — voted against renewing his contract that the decision was “a partisan choice that abandons the values of honor, integrity and excellence upon which VMI was built.”

Youngkin named John Hartsock, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ben Cline; Stephen Reardon, an attorney with Spotts Fain; and Jose Suarez, a Florida businessman, to VMI’s board. All three are alumni, according to their board bios.

Although the governor makes thousands of appointments to state boards and commissions, the Virginia General Assembly has some control over the process and must vote to confirm appointments — which it typically does without much controversy. However, public universities’ boards have become hotbeds of controversy in recent years due mainly to political disputes.

Cuccinelli’s appointment was a lightning rod for some student and faculty critics at U.Va., who called for the legislature to deny him the board seat. In an open letter signed by more than a dozen student organizations and employee groups, opponents cited Cuccinelli’s “track record of undermining the rights and safety of marginalized groups,” as well as a probe he launched as attorney general into a professor conducting climate research at U.Va.

Meanwhile, Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, said Monday during the committee meeting that the eight nominees “are not good choices” for the three universities’ boards. He added that there has been a “disturbing pattern of conduct” on George Mason’s board since spring 2024.

“The previously civil climate at that university has devolved,” Ebbin said, adding that meetings have been punctuated by “demeaning exchanges, hostile questions, even rude personal taunts that have been documented on the internet.”

He added that President Gregory Washington, who is Black, was asked by a board member “how it would feel to hear, ‘Get a rope and hang them all’ invoked as free speech. Sadly, it appears that some of the visitors do not seem to be there for academic or even university governance purposes. They seem to be there … to disrupt and, if they can, to destroy.”

Although Ebbin did not name the George Mason board member who allegedly made the comment to Washington, the George Mason student newspaper reported in March that BOV member Robert Pence, a businessman who was the U.S. ambassador to Finland during Trump’s first term, said similar words during a board discussion over a resolution regarding antisemitism amid widespread campus protests of the war in Gaza.

Sen. Aaron Rouse, who chairs the Senate Privileges and Elections committee and is seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, called Cuccinelli “a Trump crony who is simply too extreme to have a role in shaping one of our commonwealth’s flagship universities” in a statement after the vote.

Letter to rectors

Sen. Scott Surovell, the Senate’s majority leader, sent a letter to the state’s 15 public university rectors on Monday that was provided to Virginia Business. It addresses the governance of Virginia’s public higher education institutions and refers to the Senate committee vote to reject the eight nominees.

“As you are aware, Virginia’s public universities operate under a framework established by the Code of Virginia and are subject to the ultimate authority and control of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Surovell wrote. “It is important to understand that Virginia is currently and for the next six months will experience divided government. This means that governance of our universities is a shared exercise between coequal branches of government.”

Surovell added, “I am aware that the governor has advised his appointees that they are to follow his directives. The governor of Virginia, while an important partner in higher education policy, does not possess the authority to issue binding directives to boards of visitors regarding university operations, policies or governance decisions.”

He also wrote that the “people of Virginia expect and deserve board members who will act independently, thoughtfully and in the best interests of their respective institutions and the commonwealth,” and that if “any board of visitors fail to exercise appropriate independent judgment or allow external influences to compromise their fiduciary duties, the General Assembly will not hesitate to examine the situation and take whatever legislative action may be necessary to ensure proper governance and accountability.

“Finally, I remind you that … the Code of Virginia requires that all members of boards of visitors be confirmed by the General Assembly,” Surovell concluded. “The General Assembly takes this confirmation responsibility seriously and will not confirm individuals who do not possess the judgment, character or willingness to follow the principles articulated in this letter.”

Questioning process

Republican Sen. Glen Sturtevant defended the governor’s picks, saying, “There is nothing about any of these individuals that makes them unqualified to serve the commonwealth of Virginia in any of these positions. These are all highly qualified appointees.”

Sturtevant argued that the 15-member committee, which is controlled by eight Democrats, doesn’t meet the state’s constitutional standard in rejecting the governor’s appointees. Sturtevant suggested that a meeting of the joint subcommittee was required before this committee met: “There are steps in this process.”

Rouse responded to Sturtevant, saying that the committee had held sessions before to confirm “hundreds and hundreds” of Youngkin appointees without first holding a joint subcommittee meeting, and that the committee’s mission was to “provide accountability and oversight to our prestigious institutions to ensure that those bodies align with our values.”