In last week’s column (“The question of ethics,” The Tidewater News, Sept. 28, 2014) I wrote about ethics reform in state government, the fact that clear and decisive policies should be swiftly implemented, and that Governor Terry McAuliffe’s decision to tout ethics reform as part of his campaign platform seemed questionable given his own ethical lapses.

Fast forward to this past Thursday, when The Washington Post reported that McAuliffe’s chief of staff, Paul Reagan, had left a voicemail for then-state Senator Phillip Puckett in which he suggested there might be a top state government job available for Puckett’s daughter if he remained in the senate and helped the governor in his attempt to push for Medicaid expansion. Puckett had previously announced in June that he planned on quitting the senate over concerns that his position and the senate’s anti-nepotism policy were standing in the way of his daughter’s appointment as a judge. His resignation would have paved the way for Republicans to take control of the senate. Puckett resigned anyway, Republicans indeed gained control of the senate, and McAuliffe’s Medicare plan now faces an even steeper uphill battle.

On Friday morning, Reagan issued a press release, in which he said, “In the fight to expand health care to uninsured Virginians, I was overzealous and acted with poor judgment. I certainly regret this and will always try to achieve the high standards demanded by Governor McAuliffe.”

Later in the day, in a phone interview with The Associated Press that was published in a story on the website of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, McAuliffe stated, “Paul acted hastily and made an error in judgment — he acknowledges that and recognizes that it was inconsistent with the way I run my administration.”

For purposes of not relying on other news outlets as a primary source of information, I spoke with the governor’s communications director, Jamie Radice, late Friday afternoon. She not only confirmed McAuliffe’s phone interview with the AP, but also backed up McAuliffe’s claim that he knew nothing about Reagan’s phone call until Thursday evening.

If it is in fact true that McAuliffe knew nothing about the phone call, which essentially amounts to bribery on the part of the governor’s chief of staff, at the very least Reagan should have been immediately terminated by the governor rather than merely escaping with a verbal chastising. If it is discovered that the governor did know about the call, the fallout should make the McDonnell scandal pale in comparison. Either way, it will be interesting to see how McAuliffe deals with the question of ethics now that it is his administration, not his predecessor’s, which has come under scrutiny.

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TONY CLARK is publisher of The Tidewater News. He can be reached at tony.clark@tidewaternews.com