McDonnell ran office like a law firm

In the days after he became Virginia's attorney general in 2006, Bob McDonnell made a point of visiting each member of the staff and asking their thoughts on the attorney general's office.

Later, when the staffers had birthdays, McDonnell sent them cards or called.

"I think everybody felt appreciated by him," said James Towey, a former senior assistant attorney general under McDonnell who is now running as a Democrat for the House of Delegates.

McDonnell, 54, a Republican elected attorney general by just 360 votes in 2005, recently resigned to run full time for governor.

Democrats take issue with many of McDonnell's political stances as attorney general -- from his strong backing of offshore drilling to his opposition to a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. But lawyers in both parties, in and out of the attorney general's office, said they found they could work with McDonnell.

"He ran the office like a law firm," said Rusty McGuire, an assistant attorney general from 2003 to January of 2008. "He was not a micro-manager. He gave you his vision and let you carry out that vision."

McGuire, a Republican who is now seeking a Hanover County seat in the House of Delegates, said the morale in the office -- the fourth largest law firm in the state -- was high. The office has about 240 employees, including 165 in Richmond.

"We wanted a professional office that served its clients well," McDonnell said in a brief phone interview from Washington, where he was raising money for his campaign. "It was not a partisan office. It was a law firm."

C. Richard Cranwell, chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said he appreciated McDonnell's service to Virginia but disputes that McDonnell was a nonpartisan attorney general.

"Just like his time in the legislature," as a delegate from Virginia Beach, "Bob McDonnell's service as attorney general has been marked by a dogged pursuit of his own ideological agenda, instead of solving real problems for real Virginians," Cranwell said.

McDonnell sometimes was a thorn in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's side.

In February 2006 McDonnell issued an opinion that said Kaine overstepped his constitutional authority when he issued an executive order that outlawed bias against gay people in state hiring, employment and promotion. Kaine ignored the opinion and criticized McDonnell, saying the attorney general was favoring discrimination.

Kaine and McDonnell also questioned each other's actions over the 2007 transportation funding package. McDonnell had defended it as constitutional, but the Virginia Supreme Court rejected it, in part, as taxation without representation. McDonnell said Kaine proposed the offending amendment, without vetting it through his office.

In March 2008, when reporters asked how he would fix the 2007 transportation plan, McDonnell said: "I don't have a particular plan or vision."

But McDonnell and Kaine also have worked together. For example, after the massacre at Virginia Tech, McDonnell's office represented the state in settlement talks with survivors and with victims' families, an effort Kaine supported.

Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring, a Democrat, supports former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria, one of McDonnell's three potential Democratic opponents for governor. Herring said although he doesn't agree with McDonnell philosophically, when it came to combating gang activity, McDonnell's office was an accessible and productive partner.

"We could pick up the phone and call those guys and get assistance," Herring said. "When he says he's going to so something, he does it."

McDonnell, eyeing the governor's race from the get-go, did not shrink from politics as attorney general.

His agenda included politically appealing law-and-order initiatives, including protecting children from sexual predators, taking drug dealers off the streets, defending against identify theft, combating gang violence and protecting against terrorist threats.

His legislative agenda included generally noncontroversial policies that enabled him to secure passage of 83 of the 94 proposals during his tenure.

As a legislator, McDonnell had angered firearms-rights advocates by backing the 1993 state law restricting buyers to one handgun per month. As attorney generalm he joined a successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to Washington's ban on possession of handguns.

McDonnell also interceded on behalf of Episcopal churches in Northern Virginia that bolted the diocese in protest over the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. At issue in a continuing court fight is whether the breakaway churches can keep their property.

His office won all nine of the cases it argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A couple of lower-court cases are pending. McDonnell trumpeted one of the largest spam convictions in the nation, but that case now is going to the U.S. Supreme Court. McDonnell appealed a Virginia Supreme Court opinion that Virginia's anti-spam law violates free-speech rights.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has twice ruled Virginia's late-term abortion ban unconstitutional -- in 2005, and then last year, during McDonnell's tenure. The case awaits a decision by the full court.

Despite McDonnell's well-publicized differences with Kaine as attorney general, the governor's former chief of staff, William Leighty, said the two got along well and disagreed civilly. They even exchanged news releases before releasing them to the public.

"He did to us and for us everything he said he would do," Leighty said.

Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.