Today State Senator Ken Cuccinelli launches his campaign for the 2009 Republican AG nomination and in a shocking move, violates state law with his campaign website. Misdemeanor Cuccinelli took the seal of the commonwealth, a seal reserved exclusively for the official business of Virginia and loaded it onto the header of his campaign website.

The Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth's website clearly states:

Section 1-505 of
the Code of Virginia provides that the seals of the Commonwealth are
deemed the property of the Commonwealth; and no persons shall exhibit,
display, or in any manner utilize the seals or any facsimile or representation
of the seals of the Commonwealth for nongovernmental purposes unless
such use is specifically authorized.

As an elected official Cuccinelli should know by now that you are not allowed to stamp unofficial and especially campaign materials with the Seal of the Commonwealth. It's a sign of inexperience or poor judgement to slap an image onto a website without the authority of its owner. Cuccinelli is a patent attorney he deals with copyright, trademark and technical law all day long, doesn't he know this?

Some might say "well the state seal is on the state flag, can't he use it on his website? It's in the public domain for crying out loud!" Yes, the state flag has the Seal of the Commonwealth and if he wanted to show his Virginia credentials he should have displayed a representation of the Virginia flag. This rendering displays the seal on a red background obviously not a legal implementation of the seal from a flag based image.

As a citizen of Virginia I call on Sen. Cuccinelli to remove the official seal of Virginia as soon as possible. If he continues this campaign illegally utilizing the commonwealth's property I should hope the Commonwealth's Attorney of Fairfax County launches an investigation.

UPDATE 8:45: I just spotted a document on the Secretary of the Commonwealth's website noting: 9. The Seals shall not be used in any matter that might resonably be considered as being for a political purpose.