Tide shifts on Dems

Politics have the quality of the weather, which, according to weathered adage, can be counted upon to change. That appears to be unfolding in Virginia, where evidence suggests Republicans are hoisting themselves from the ashes and the opposition party is gathering soot. The attorney general’s race is an example.

State Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, who increasingly wears the look of a fellow on the rise in a GOP longing for such people, is finishing a good month. He successfully pushed for a special session that received the imprimatur of Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other sensible people in both parties. Not so his opponent.

Here’s the problem Cuccinelli tackled: The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year decided in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that defense lawyers in criminal cases can require crime lab technicians to appear in court to testify on their findings rather than simply filing test results. Crime labs traditionally are so backlogged that the condition is a cliché. The high court neither noticed nor cared. So another victory for the accused. As a result, court subpoenas for crime techs increased by more than 21 times last month over the same month the previous year.

The implications of judicial fiat did not escape Cuccinelli, fortuitous for those who prefer that criminals occupy a place somewhere off the streets, to which they’d gravitate if lab techs failed to appear in court, allowing potential bad guys to roam. Lawmakers, along with Kaine, saw Cuccinelli’s point. During the Aug. 19 session, they voted to give defendants a minimum of 14 days to call techs to testify. A second measure allows prosecutors to delay proceedings if techs are unavailable.

Cuccinelli wants more, chiefly to allow technicians to testify live from their labs via video feed. This move does not circumvent the inanity of the high court’s decision and the woes it exacerbates, nibbling into time when there’s already precious little of it for an already overworked group, but this step would significantly reduce the burden. Lawmakers should approve the live video option, and quickly.

In the meantime, Cuccinelli has demonstrated an awareness that his opponent, Del. Steve Shannon, D-Dunn Loring, has lacked. A former prosecutor who surely knows better, or should, Shannon assailed Cuccinelli’s call for a special session as a “political stunt” and sent a torrent of e-mails to this newspaper and others outlining similar criticisms. Kaine’s backing of Cuccinelli on the special session was a form of sharp rebuke.

That stumble has mirrored others in a fall campaign in which the outcome appears increasingly bleak for Democrats. Throughout the second half of this decade, as President George W. Bush’s popularity spiraled into the earth, Republicans have flailed in seeking to find the heartbeats of voters, a maneuver Democrats mastered. The GOP misapprehended the extent of Americans’ discomfort with war in Iraq, and when the economy began to descend, the party fell with it.

Six months into a new presidential administration, Democrats are wearing the dazed gaze that last fall countenanced their foes. Cuccinelli, who spoke Saturday in the Valley (see story, Page A1) and is emerging among conservatism’s powerful new voices, showed in Melendez an understanding of something fundamental – that voters do not want authorities burdened needlessly in the prosecution of criminal cases. Shannon must prove he is similarly aware, or else risk tumbling with others in the wake of a rising red tide.