To: Marni Elaine Byrum, Esq. Chair, VA State Bar Standing Committee on Legal Ethics
Job and Judgeship for Virginia Senate Resignation
We demand immediate, thorough investigation by the Virginia Bar and state Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee of the offer of Judgeship to the daughter of Sen. Philip Puckett upon the senator's resignation from the State Senate of the State of Virginia, an action which gives control of that body to the GOP party. The position of Judge in the Commonwealth of Virginia should not be offered to anyone as a bribe or quid pro quo in a transaction set up to win a majority in one of the houses of the state legislature.
Why is this important?
At a time when the state government is deadlocked in a struggle to provide affordable health care to over 400,000 low income residents of the State of Virginia, it is unacceptable for a state Senator to abdicate his position or someone else to induce him to in what appears to be a direct quid pro quo transaction made in order to receive a state job for himself and an offer of Judgeship for his daughter . It is wrong both to make such an offer to obtain a political end and to accept such an offer to obtain a highly paid or powerful state position.