Praise for a local filmmaker and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors elections in today’s letters to the editor.

Asthma workshop has advice to help breathe easier

Cuccinelli says he forgot to disclose big-ticket gifts but promises amnesia won’t cancel proposed ethics reforms.

In Virginia, elected officials aren’t asked to do much to comply with the state’s embarrassingly weak ethics laws.

Officeholders can accept unlimited gifts but must disclose items with a value greater than $50. Those who have fought restrictions on dinners, football tickets, plane rides and other favors heaped on executive and legislative officials argue that disclosure is the best disinfectant. But, sometimes, public officials have trouble complying with even the flimsiest of standards.

On Friday afternoon — the perfect time for a politician to dump bad news — Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced that he had received more gifts from Star Scientific executive Jonnie Williams Sr. than the nearly $13,000 in largesse he had previously disclosed. Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor, failed to account for two stays at Williams’ Smith Mountain Lake home. One of those getaways with his family came with a catered Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy of Williams.

“I declared everything I remembered when I filled out the forms,” Cuccinelli told reporters.  “It happens that some of the things I forgot were Jonnie Williams related.”

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Most candidates to succeed Putney have no clue what the job entails.

Three Republicans running for the House of Delegates seat of retiring Del. Lacey Putney staged a theater of the absurd last week.

Two of the candidates, Jim McKelvey and Zachary Hatcher, said in a Bedford public forum that they would serve their constituents by pushing to repeal the constitutional amendment that allows them to elect their U.S. senators. Candidate Zach Martin said he would fight federal mandates, including the health care overhaul that already has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Guns, cyclists, and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors elections in today’s letters to the editor.

A worthy tribute to a great horse

Speaker Howell is having to play defense against his own team.

Gov. Bob McDonnell may be getting all the glory for this year’s transportation bill, but it was House Speaker Bill Howell who handled much of the grunt work necessary to secure votes for the first significant investment in Virginia roads and bridges in a quarter century.

Now that Howell has saved the commonwealth’s motorists from a plague of potholes, he’s taking on an even more daunting challenge: to save his party from itself.

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The leading candidates for governor are already full steam ahead with their fundraising.

Would that every penny given this year to Virginia political candidates or spent on their behalf were invested in a meaningful discussion of the commonwealth’s future challenges and opportunities.

Alas, the motivations of those stroking the biggest checks in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest appear to be anything but uplifting. Indeed, the corporations, unions, rich folk and secretive political groups bankrolling the campaigns know full well their cash will be shoveled into deceitful personal attack ads like those that insulted the sensibilities of swing state voters during last fall’s slimefest.

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The only limit on gifts to public officials is a requirement that they disclose the swag, but McDonnell found it’s easy to avoid that rule.

The latest revelation about the June 2011 wedding of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s daughter makes it all the harder to swallow his explanation that a businessman’s $15,000 check to cover the catering was a gift to her, not him — so, by law, he needn’t have reported it. And didn’t.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported it had obtained documents showing McDonnell had signed the catering contract, assuming financial responsibility, and had put down almost $8,000 in deposits.

Even before that story broke, the smell was building around the poached jumbo shrimp served courtesy of Jonnie R. Williams Sr.

On Monday, McDonnell spoke directly to reporters for the first time about the catering payment, but wouldn’t answer questions about whether Williams had given other gifts to his family.

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GOP lawmakers’ cure for long lines at the polls? More queues and more costs for new photo IDs.

High voter turnout, computer shortages and voter confusion about where to vote created long lines at the polls in last November’s presidential election. People in some Virginia localities, including Roanoke and Montgomery County, had to wait hours to cast their ballot — in some cases, well after polls closed.

So of course, lawmakers fairly flew to Richmond in January, burning with zeal to bust down the barriers that so recently made exercising a basic right of citizenship into a grueling test of physical endurance. One would think.

But, nah.

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Roanoke voters should be ready now to discuss a precinct plan with the aim of making voting easier.

Roanoke voters were tired, sore and angry following November’s presidential election, when precincts were short on equipment and long on lines. They were in no mood to tolerate a change that would have reduced the number of voting precincts in the city from 32 to 19.

It wasn’t that the Roanoke Electoral Board offered an ill-conceived proposal. Much time and thought went into designing the precinct realignment plan, the first overhaul undertaken since 1967.

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The New York  Times published an editorial today that’s worth a read, even if you’re past your 10-click limit for freebies. The Times calls for strengthening Americans’ right to vote at a time when there are efforts within the judicial system and state legislatures to roll back those rights.

The Supreme Court last month heard arguments in a case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states like Virginia with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval before enacting election-related laws. Of equal concern are new voter identification and photo identification laws that have been passed in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those laws suppress the votes of blacks, students, the poor and the elderly, The Times notes.

While the focus has been on the 15 states covered by Section 5, The Times argues that broader protections are needed for voters in every state.

The recent announcement by President Obama that he is creating a bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration represents an opportunity to begin this work. The group’s purpose is to prevent long voting lines, which in many cases were deliberately created by officials who cut back on early voting or reduced polling places in urban areas. Blacks and Hispanics waited nearly twice as long to vote as whites did last year.

The Times calls for the commission to broaden its mission and make access to the polls a universal American right. Such a federal law could be used to end voter ID requirements and even beat back gerrymandering. The Times notes that it’s difficult to use the current VRA to block discriminatory election practices in states not covered by Section 5. Given Virginia’s voter ID law and its refusal to allow early voting, it’s clear that even Section 5 states aren’t exactly facing tough enforcement.