1. Ken Cuccinelli was the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia in the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election, losing to the Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe.
59 Facts About Ken Cuccinelli
1. 2.
Ken Cuccinelli rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, and in his position as Attorney General investigated climate scientists whom he accused of fraud.
3.
Ken Cuccinelli's father is of Italian descent and his mother is of Irish ancestry.
4.
Ken Cuccinelli co-founded a general practice law firm in Fairfax, Virginia.
5.
Ken Cuccinelli ran for the state Senate in the 37th District in an August 2002 special election.
6.
In 2010, Cuccinelli was the first attorney general to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
7.
In July 2010, Ken Cuccinelli joined eight other states in filing an amicus brief opposing the federal government's lawsuit challenging an Arizona immigration enforcement statute.
8.
In 2010, Ken Cuccinelli sought judicial review of the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that greenhouse gasses endanger public health.
9.
In 2010, Ken Cuccinelli announced he would challenge the March 2010 standards for motor vehicle fuel efficiency specified in the Clean Air Act.
10.
Ken Cuccinelli opposes homosexuality, describing homosexual acts as "against nature" and "harmful to society".
11.
Ken Cuccinelli has argued against the constitutionality of same-sex marriages.
12.
Ken Cuccinelli defended the constitutionality of Virginia laws prohibiting sodomy.
13.
On June 25,2013, Ken Cuccinelli filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court, but in October 2013 the Supreme Court denied Ken Cuccinelli's appeal.
14.
On November 24,2010, Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion that police, school administrators, and teachers could search students' cell phones on the basis of reasonable suspicions in order to deter cyberbullying and "sexting".
15.
The ACLU and the Rutherford Institute said that Ken Cuccinelli's opinion was in error, lacking a legal foundation.
16.
Ken Cuccinelli was involved in passing legislation targeting human trafficking.
17.
Ken Cuccinelli himself stated that he was considering running for the Senate.
18.
Ken Cuccinelli is operating under the assumption that he will run for reelection [in 2013].
19.
Ken Cuccinelli hasn't ruled out any option besides running for president, which he has no desire to do.
20.
On November 30,2011, The Washington Post reported that Ken Cuccinelli would announce within days that he was running for governor in 2013; the next day, Ken Cuccinelli confirmed that he would run.
21.
Ken Cuccinelli said he would continue serving as attorney general during his run.
22.
Ken Cuccinelli is the first attorney general since 1985 to remain in office while seeking the governorship rather than resign the position while seeking the office, a precedent that the last six attorneys general to run for governor have adhered to.
23.
In 2014, Ken Cuccinelli was involved with the co-founding of an oyster farming company in Tangier, Virginia.
24.
In early polls on the 2017 gubernatorial race, Ken Cuccinelli was a frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
25.
However, in April 2016, Ken Cuccinelli announced that he would not run for governor in 2017.
26.
In May 2016, Ken Cuccinelli was named general counsel of the FreedomWorks Foundation, where he helps state attorneys general who want to oppose a federal regulation.
27.
In January 2017, Ken Cuccinelli filed a legal brief on behalf of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, challenging a 2015 law which freezes base electricity rates charged by Dominion Power, one of the state's most powerful corporations, and Appalachian Power Company.
28.
Ken Cuccinelli was appointed to serve as the Principal Deputy Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in June 2019, allowing him to become the Acting Director.
29.
Ken Cuccinelli was appointed Acting Director when leading Senators indicated he had little chance of Senate confirmation as permanent director.
30.
Ken Cuccinelli was first appointed to a newly created position of "Principal Deputy Director", which according to Department of Homeland Security officials allowed him to then be appointed as Acting Director under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
31.
On March 1,2020, US District Court Judge Randolph D Moss ruled that Cuccinelli was not lawfully appointed to serve as acting director and therefore lacked authority to issue two of the directives challenged in the lawsuit.
32.
In July 2019, Ken Cuccinelli blamed an asylum seeker for the asylum seeker's own death and that of his daughter who were found dead on the banks of the Rio Grande River.
33.
Ken Cuccinelli said, "The reason we have tragedies like that on the border is because those folks, that father didn't want to wait to go through the asylum process in the legal fashion, so decided to cross the river".
34.
Ken Cuccinelli said in an interview that the administration is prepared to deport approximately 1 million undocumented immigrants who have final removal orders already in place.
35.
Ken Cuccinelli further asserted that the poem referred to European immigrants, though these assertions were disputed by Lazarus's biographer.
36.
In October 2019, Ken Cuccinelli testified to a Congressional investigation that he alone had made the decision to end the medical deferred action program, a decision which he reversed after public outcry, and complaints from some patients in the US for medical care that they would die if deported to their home countries.
37.
On November 13,2019, newly sworn-in Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf named Ken Cuccinelli to be the acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.
38.
Ken Cuccinelli continued to serve concurrently in the acting USCIS director role.
39.
Ken Cuccinelli was appointed as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29,2020.
40.
Ken Cuccinelli defended the policy, saying "there isn't a reason" for international students to remain in the United States unless classes are in-person.
41.
Ken Cuccinelli said that the intent behind the announcement was to encourage universities to have in-person classes during the pandemic.
42.
That same month, Ken Cuccinelli defended the deployment of federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear to Portland, Oregon, where they picked up protestors and took them into unmarked vehicles.
43.
Under his tenure, Ken Cuccinelli reduced oversight of the DHS's intelligence arm, making it unnecessary for it to get approval from the DHS's civil liberties office in producing intelligence products.
44.
The complaint said that Ken Cuccinelli's action was an abuse of power intended to "tie Biden's hands" with regard to immigration policy.
45.
In February 2021, Ken Cuccinelli was named a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, where he authored five commentary essays for the foundation in 2021 before leaving the foundation at some unannounced date.
46.
In 2023, Ken Cuccinelli authored the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
47.
Ken Cuccinelli sponsored a number of bills to discourage abortions, including requiring doctors to anesthetize fetuses undergoing late term abortions, altering the licensing and regulation of abortion clinics, and requiring that a doctor save the fetal tissue when performing an abortion on a woman under age 15, for forensic use.
48.
Ken Cuccinelli supported two "personhood" bills that sought to provide human embryos with legal rights.
49.
In 2010, Ken Cuccinelli made statements that appeared to question whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
50.
Ken Cuccinelli believes that mental illness is the root cause of mass shootings, and that they can be better prevented with more access to mental health care.
51.
Ken Cuccinelli has pushed for restricting mentally ill persons from obtaining guns.
52.
Ken Cuccinelli sought to ban undocumented immigrants from attending Virginia colleges.
53.
Ken Cuccinelli was a staunch Ted Cruz supporter during the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries.
54.
In March 2023, Ken Cuccinelli launched Never Back Down, a super PAC encouraging Ron DeSantis to enter the 2024 Republican primary.
55.
In 2006, Ken Cuccinelli sent out a fundraising letter that criticized the Virginia Senate's Republican majority for passing a gasoline tax increase.
56.
Ken Cuccinelli has stated that he would offset that lost revenue by slowing the growth of the state's general fund spending and by eliminating unspecified tax exemptions and loopholes.
57.
In 2012, Ken Cuccinelli championed a constitutional amendment to prohibit eminent domain from being used to take private land for private gain, thus restricting it to being used only for public gain.
58.
In 2005, Ken Cuccinelli was the chief patron of SB873, legislation that entitled law enforcement officers to overtime pay from local governments for hours worked while on vacation or other leave.
59.
Ken Cuccinelli phoned her during their senior year in college, they reconnected, and married in October 1991.