Norment: I "adhered to what the attorney general directed"

RICHMOND

Before state Sen. Tommy Norment took a $160,000-a-year job with the College of William and Mary last year, the state attorney general warned him against giving legal guidance to the university and said Norment would need to disqualify himself from General Assembly actions involving the school.

The opinion from then-Attorney General Bob McDonnell concluded that Norment's proposed job as a part-time faculty member wasn't "an impermissible conflict of interest." The opinion was provided to The Virginian-Pilot in response to an open records request.

In an interview Friday, Norment, R-James City County, said he has "adhered to what the attorney general directed me to do in their opinion letter and I will continue to do so."

Taylor Reveley, the college's president, has said that Norment's job involves both teaching and legal work.

"As you know, (state law) provides that certain legal services to state agencies, officers, and employees be provided by the Attorney General," Attorney General Bob McDonnell wrote in a July 9, 2008, opinion. "As you undertake your new duties, I ask that you rely on my staff for such legal services as you and the college may require."

In his written request for guidance last year, Norment indicated that "at no time will I assume a relationship of 'attorney-client' that would result in the exercising of an attorney-client privilege or any work product privilege."

That runs counter to the position taken by Reveley, who has said legal work accounts for a significant part of Norment's job at the college. Asked to address the discrepancy Friday, Brian Whitson, a college spokesman, appeared to back off somewhat from Reveley's statements.

In an e-mail, Whitson characterized Norment's role as "advising the president in a manner protected by working papers and consulting with the Office of the Attorney General as necessary."

Asked whether Reveley had seen McDonnell's opinion before hiring Norment, Whitson did not respond.

Norment said McDonnell's opinion doesn't prevent him from giving "advice and counsel" to Reveley.

"What it says is that in essence because the attorney general's office is the official attorney for the college, that any advice and counsel that I give to the president that may involve legal issues is not protected by attorney-client privilege," Norment said. "It doesn't say I can't give them advice."

McDonnell's six-page opinion told Norment "it is incumbent on you... to determine whether your employment by the College... will present an appearance of impropriety that you find unacceptable and that will affect the confidence of the public in your ability to perform your duties impartially."

It also noted that because Norment's William and Mary salary exceeds $10,000, he has a "personal interest" in college-related business that comes before the General Assembly. Therefore, McDonnell wrote, Norment is required by law to "disqualify himself from participating" in such transactions.

Months after joining the college faculty last summer, during the 2009 legislative session, Norment sponsored nearly $20 million in budget amendments for William and Mary. None passed.

The current attorney general, Bill Mims, who released McDonnell's opinion, said conflict-of-interest situations are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, he said, sponsoring budget amendments to benefit an agency a legislator works for is not a conflict so long as it doesn't personally benefit that individual.

Norment said the budget amendments weren't unlike spending requests he would make in any other year as a legislator from a district that encompasses the college.

"I have no direct benefit because I am employed under a contract which neither rises nor falls based on what the General Assembly does," he said. "It's a fixed contract."

However, McDonnell, now the Republican candidate for governor, said Friday that while sponsoring budget amendments for one's employer might not technically be a conflict, "I think it certainly creates an appearance of a conflict."

"In the interest of ensuring public trust," McDonnell said, lawmakers should "always try to err on the side of caution."

McDonnell's opponent in the governor's race, Creigh Deeds, said in a statement that legislators owe it to Virginians to recuse themselves from specific votes in which they have a personal financial stake in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Norment said "there's a whole universe" of legislators who are "either directly or indirectly connected to state government, or local government that is funded by state government" through their employment.

"It's just an inherent situation when you have a part-time citizen legislature where people are coming from a diversity of backgrounds and employment experiences," he said. "And I don't think there's anything inherently insidious about that. The amount of money that you are paid as a part-time legislator, unless you're independently wealthy, necessitates that all of us work for a living."

Ultimately, he said, "the individual has to exercise his or her own conscience to determine what they are comfortable with."

Norment said he remains "comfortable with it. And very candidly, if I wasn't comfortable with it, I would have never accepted the position from William and Mary."

Forrest "Frosty" Landon, retired founder of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said the Norment case suggests the need for more transparency in state lawmakers' dealings with state entities such as William and Mary.

"There should be full disclosure when these contracts are entered into - really explicit disclosure so the public can judge whether it's appropriate or not," Landon said.

He also said the General Assembly should scrutinize William and Mary's policy of hiring its own in-house lawyers who don't answer to the attorney general.

"The legislature ought to look at whether that's an appropriate job description for anyone, whether he's a sitting legislator or not," Landon said.

Pilot writer Bill Bartel contributed to this report.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com