Clean Virginia is trying to tell Gov. Abigail Spanberger that her appointment of the president of Dominion Energy Virginia to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors raises “major ethical concerns” because of issues related to political money.
This is the same Clean Virginia, gotta note here, that contributed $1.2 million to the Spanberger gubernatorial campaign, and spent $4.4 million total last year on the statewide Democratic ticket and Democratic House of Delegates candidates.
Making it clear here: I am, generally speaking, on the same side of a lot of issues as Clean Virginia, but somebody needs to point out the hypocrisy of those folks crying about Dominion’s money, when nobody is paying attention to them if they didn’t have money.
“Gov. Spanberger says she removed Rector Rocovich over ethical concerns, but the person she chose to replace him has spent years at the top of a utility that has overcharged Virginia customers by billions of dollars and corrupted our political system,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia.
What he’s referring to there is, Spanberger, on Wednesday, removed John Rocovich, the rector of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, accusing Rocovich, a Glenn Youngkin appointee, of unspecified ethnical misconduct.
ICYMI
The governor then, on Thursday, appointed Ed Baine, the president of Dominion Energy, to complete Rocovich’s term on the Board, which ends on June 30, 2027.
Baine personally donated $5,000 to the Spanberger gubernatorial campaign in 2025, according to the Virginia Public Access Project donor database.
Dominion Energy contributed $100,000 to the Spanberger campaign, per VPAP.
Clean Virginia, in a press release issued on Friday, noted that Dominion “donated a record-breaking $19.3 million to Democratic and Republican-affiliated campaigns during the 2024-2025 election cycle,” and “also spent over $40 million in agenda-driven advertising and $155 million in dues to industry associations that often lobby and engage in political activity between 2013 and 2023.”
“Those investments, paid for directly or indirectly by customers, ensured the failure of energy affordability legislation and the passage of laws that protected Dominion’s profits at the expense of everyday Virginia families and businesses,” the Clean Virginia press release reported.
Gotta point out here: the VPAP database lists Clean Virginia as having doled out $23.0 million in donations to political campaigns in Virginia dating back to 2018 – the bulk of that, $21.7 million, going to Democratic candidates.
For some reason, Clean Virginia also put:
- $215,000 into the State Senate campaign of conservative Republican Dave Suetterlein, who won a tight race for re-election in 2023 over Democrat Trish White-Boyd.
- $160,000 into the House of Delegates campaign of Republican Amanda Batten, who lost her 2025 re-election battle to Democrat Jessica Anderson by less than 3,000 votes.
- $130,000 to the House campaign of Republican Joe McNamara, who retained his Southwest Virginia seat in 2025 over Democrat Donna Littlepage by 2,100 votes.
- $90,025 to the House re-election campaign of Carrie Coyner, who lost her 2025 re-election contest to Democrat Lindsey Dougherty by 1,700 votes.
Looking at that spending pattern, you could say that Clean Virginia tries to use its money to buy a certain, though limited, amount of bipartisan influence itself.
Again, on their side here, but.
And I mean, yes, we all get it – Dominion Energy, ba-a-ad.
And right now, it’s getting ready to ramp up its effort to get approval from state and federal regulators for its sale to NextEra Energy, a Florida-based energy giant that is looking to gobble up Dominion in a $66.8 billion all-stock deal.
ICYMI
“Elevating Dominion’s president to a prominent public appointment in the middle of that review is not a neutral act. It signals to regulators, to the public, and to Dominion itself whose interests this administration will protect when the pressure is on,” Gilmore said.
I’ll be honest here – I don’t know that the act of putting the Dominion Energy Virginia president on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors is, in and of itself, signaling anything to folks about this merger deal.
Any more than Spanberger appointing Carlos Brown, a Dominion Energy EVP, to the UVA Board of Visitors, signaled anything more than, the governor simply knows how her bread gets buttered.
To its credit, Clean Virginia tried to buy its share of butter with its $1.2 million.
It doesn’t look to have been money well-spent.
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Chris Graham
