The Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates and the West Virginia Attorney General had it out on statewide radio this morning in what Talkline host Hoppy Kercheval called \u201ca peeing match.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dust up involves legislation (HB 4490)<\/a> that would crimp the Attorney General\u2019s powers by, among other things, imposing a conflict of interest policy requiring the Attorney General to step aside from a case if he or any member of his family had ever received compensation or worked for a defendant.<\/p>\n The legislation would also prohibit the Attorney General from filing friend of the court briefs without the approval of the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate and the Governor.<\/p>\n Morrisey said the legislation was unconstitutional and blamed the Democrats who control the House of Delegates for playing partisan games.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot partisanship and a growing sense of desperation that they are about to lose control of the House of Delegates for the first time since about 1930,\u201d Morrisey said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe legislation sets up a standard that applies to one person in the state government,\u201d Morrisey said. \u201cIt applies to me. It\u2019s the only instance in the country where an Attorney General is being shackled the way they are trying to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t like the fact that I\u2019ve been fighting for coal, protecting Second Amendment rights and Obamacare access.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked by Kercheval whether the Democrats were lashing out because Morrisey sought to defeat some of them in the 2012 election, Morrisey said that \u201cif you are not supporting the interests of the state you shouldn\u2019t be elected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact remains that if I think that someone is a supporter of President Obama I\u2019m going to point that out to people,\u201d Morrisey said. \u201cI think we can do that in a civil manner. I have been active in the past in Republican politics. One thing no one can accuse me of is — we haven\u2019t used the Attorney General\u2019s office to advance political goals. We are blind to political affiliation or economic status. That\u2019s an important point. I\u2019m in a different position than I was prior to taking office.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaker of the House Tim Miley, appearing a few minutes after Morrisey on Talkline, admitted that there was bad blood between the Democrats and the Attorney General.<\/p>\n \u201cPatrick Morrisey was involved in setting up a SuperPAC that was used to attack Democrats in the last election,\u201d Miley said. \u201cAnd then his chief of staff Dan Greear started running that SuperPAC. That SuperPAC went after certain Democratic candidates. Then you get into office and you have to work with the person who tried to destroy your character and your reputation. That\u2019s what makes politics so difficult nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n Miley pointed out the real conflict of interest that Morrisey has<\/a> in a current case brought by the State of West Virginia against Cardinal Health.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there is a conflict of interest, as there is currently with his office and a case, we need to address how that is handled,\u201d Miley said.<\/p>\n Miley said the legislation \u201crestricts to some degree how far an Attorney General can go in performing his or her duties, from the standpoint of taking on certain causes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats weren\u2019t the only ones supportive in going that far,\u201d Miley said. \u201cThe Chamber of Commerce expressed some concern over a Supreme Court case decided last year that said the Attorney General has common law authority unless restricted by statute. You can\u2019t encroach upon any inherent authority found in the state Constitution. But they went further and said that the Attorney General has broad common law authority. That causes the Chamber of Commerce and others a lot of anxiety. It may not always be Patrick Morrisey in that Attorney General\u2019s office. Going forward, there will be a successor to Patrick Morrisey. And they want to make sure that you don\u2019t get a rogue Attorney General in that office that goes off half cocked on whatever political soapbox they want to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow, we have a conservative leaning Attorney General,\u201d Miley said. \u201cWhat happens if you get an extremely left leaning Attorney General who may go out there and take opposing views of what the Governor is taking or what the state of West Virginia wants to take? It\u2019s restricting to some degree what personal agenda any Attorney General, not just Patrick Morrisey, should be able to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Attorney General is the attorney for the state. What happens if you have a Republican Governor and a Democratic Attorney General and they have different views on an issue? What position does the state take? We believe that the Attorney General is the attorney for its client, that being the state of West Virginia, which is represented by the Governor. The Governor, whether a Democratic or Republican Governor, ought to be the one to decide what position the state takes on any issue. What happens if you have a Republican Governor taking a hard right position and a very liberal Attorney General taking a hard left position?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates and the West Virginia Attorney General had it out on statewide radio this morning in what Talkline host Hoppy Kercheval called \u201ca peeing match.\u201d The dust up involves legislation (HB 4490) … Continue reading