Kaine's office discussed special session with Shannon campaign

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine acknowledged Monday that his office discussed plans for a legislative special session to fix state laws on how evidence is presented in court with Steve Shannon and a member of his campaign "team."

The governor disclosed that communication on a Monday afternoon conference call organized to defend the Democrat running for attorney general against an attack ad sponsored by Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli.

In the ad, Cuccinelli suggests Shannon failed to see the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that placed a burden on prosecutors to present live testimony from forensic scientists during trials instead of an evidence analysis report.

Cuccinelli lobbied for a special session of the General Assembly in the wake of the high court's late June decision fearing it would cause drunk driving and drug cases to be tossed out of court.

Kaine convened the General Assembly for a one-day session Aug. 19 to amend state laws dealing with testimony about evidence.

During Monday's conference call, Kaine called Cuccinelli's ad "completely false," noting that Shannon and his campaign manager, Mike Henry, were in contact with administration officials about the session early on.

Henry, who managed Kaine's successful 2005 campaign for governor, confirmed that he spoke by telephone to the governor's legal advisor.

Kaine's comments are interesting because his office previously said it did not have any "public records" of recent contact between the administration and the campaigns of statewide Democratic candidates, including Shannon.

The Virginian-Pilot recently reported on open records requests the newspaper made to determine if coordination between several state government offices and political campaigns had occurred this year. Among the records sought were e-mails and phone records.

After being apprised of the governor's comments Monday, Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey reiterated that the administration properly responded to the Pilot's record request.

-- Julian Walker

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