Former state Attorney General Darrell McGraw wants one of his old jobs back.
According to the West Virginia secretary of state’s website, the 79-year-old McGraw filed on Saturday to run for the state Supreme Court.
McGraw spent one term on the court from 1976-1988 and served five terms as attorney general. He lost the 2012 attorney general’s race as the Democratic incumbent to Republican Patrick Morrisey.
The Supreme Court election will be nonpartisan for the first time in 2016. The election will be held during the May primary.
Incumbent Justice Brent Benjamin is seeking re-election. Others who have filed for the race are Wayne King, Beth Walker and Bill Wooton.
McGraw’s brother, Warren McGraw, previously served on the Supreme Court.
Republicans will maintain their majority in the state Senate after the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued an order Friday morning.The order…
Republicans will maintain their majority in the state Senate after the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued an order Friday morning.
The order calls on Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to appoint a Republican to replace former Sen. Daniel Hall who resigned this month.
Hall was a member of the GOP when he resigned the seat, but was elected to the chamber as a Democrat. He switched party affiliations after midterm elections in 2014, giving Republicans an 18-16 majority in the Senate.
The West Virginia Democratic Party brought the case after Hall’s resignation, asking Justices to order Tomblin to appoint a Democrat to fill the vacancy. Democrats claimed the code was ambiguous on the issue of appointing a replacement from the party Hall was a member of at the time of his resignation or at the time of his election.
The party’s attorney, Anthony Majestro, argued before the court a Democrat should be appointed to protect the will of the voters.
Justices denied the writ Friday. Justice Brent Benjamin had recused himself from the case.
Tomblin said in a written statement Friday he will abide by the court’s ruling and appoint a Republican to the chamber.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments in the case over replacing a state Senator who resigned earlier this month.
Sen. Daniel Hall of Wyoming County resigned from his seat on Jan. 3. Hall, a Republican, had switched his party affiliation after the 2014 mid-term elections giving the West Virginia GOP a majority in the upper chamber for the first time in more than 80 years.
Republicans maintain Hall’s seat should be filled by a member of their party, but the West Virginia Democratic Party argues since Hall was a Democrat at the time of election, the governor should choose from a list of Democrats to replace him.
The state Democratic Party filed a petition with the Supreme Court Friday asking for an answer to the question, saying West Virginia code is ambiguous on the issue.
The Justices will hear oral argument Tuesday on the matter. Justice Brent Benjamin has recused himself from the case, leaving Chief Justice Menis Ketchum to name a replacement.
When asked Wednesday if he would follow an order handed down by the Supreme Court, Senate President Bill Cole said he had no comment on the matter before it was decided.
The West Virginia Attorney General’s Office, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the local Republican Executive Committee, and Senate President Bill Cole all filed briefs on the issue this week.
UPDATE: Watch the recording of the oral arguments here.
As West Virginia lawmakers head to the state Capitol Wednesday morning for the first day of the Legislative Session, it’s still unclear if the GOP will maintain its majority in the Senate after Republican Sen. Daniel Hall resigned from his seat earlier this month.
Hall, elected to the Senate in 2012 as a Democrat, switched his party affiliation after the 2014 mid-term elections, giving the GOP a majority in the Senate for the first time in more than eight decades, but his resignation is now causing both parties to question who will be appointed to take his place.
The West Virginia Democratic Party is asking the state’s Supreme Court of Appeals to answer that question. Democrats say because Hall was a member of their party when elected, a member of their party should also replace him.
“We believe that what the statute is trying to do is preserve the mandate of the voters,” Anthony Majestro, a Charleston attorney representing the state Democratic Party in the case, said Tuesday.
Majestro explained the state’s election statutes are ambiguous on the issue, not clearly stating if an appointee should come from the party a politician belonged to at the time of election or at the time of resignation, because lawmakers likely didn’t contemplate affiliation changes when they wrote the law.
Still, Majestro maintained the intent of the law is to replace the politician with an appointee most like the one the voters elected, one of the same party. So, in this case, a Democrat.
Republicans, however, disagree with the stance.
“This is the last gasp effort of a party trying to hold on to the vestiges of power,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael said of the pending litigation.
In fact, Carmichael believes it is not the Supreme Court’s place to decide who should replace Hall at all, unless, he said, Governor Tomblin attempts to seat a Democrat.
“Then we will call upon the Supreme Court to follow the law,” he said.
Credit Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler says the intent of the state’s elections laws are clear: lawmakers who resign from their posts should be replaced by a member of the party they belonged to at the time of election.
Response briefs were filed in the case Tuesday and both parties have asked the court to come to an expedited decision because the Legislative Session begins Wednesday.
Justice Brent Benjamin has rescued himself from the case, likely because he’s the only justice up for re-election this year.
Should the Justices side with the Democrats, though, Carmichael said there are other ways to prevent a Democrat from taking the seat.
“We judge the qualifications of the members and we do not believe that a Democrat in that seat after it’s being vacated by a Republican is qualified to hold it,” he said.
It takes just a simple majority vote, according Carmichael, to determine an appointed Senator is not qualified, but Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler said Tuesday disqualifying an appointee just because there’s a D after his or her name is a dangerous precedent to set and also leaves an entire senatorial district with only one of its two constitutionally provided Senators.
“If he’s ordered by a court to do it, I’d be interested to see him try to disobey a court order,” Kessler added.
Menis Ketchum will serve as the chief justice on West Virginia’s highest court in 2016.
The West Virginia Supreme Court announced Ketchum’s selection on Monday in a news release. The position of chief justice is determined annually by a vote of the court.
Ketchum previously served as chief justice in 2012. He was elected to a 12-year term on the court in 2008.
A West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals candidate has officially announced he will use public campaign financing in his re-election bid.
Justice Brent Benjamin is only the second candidate for the West Virginia Supreme Court to use the public campaign finance program put in place by lawmakers in 2010. Justice Allen Loughry was the first to use the funding and won his seat in 2012.
In previous months, Benjamin told West Virginia Public Broadcasting he was considering using public funds, but made his official announcement at a meeting of the Eastern Panhandle Business Association Friday.
Candidates can receive up to $525,000 in public financing for their races. The funds come from election-related civil penalties, donations and other revenue sources.
So far, Benjamin, the incumbent, has only one challenger for the 2016 race, Morgantown attorney Beth Walker.
2016 also marks the first time judges will run in West Virginia without party affiliations.
