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 “a peeing match.”
The dust up involves legislation (HB 4490)
that would crimp the Attorney General’s 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.
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.
Morrisey said the legislation was unconstitutional and
blamed the Democrats who control the House of Delegates for playing
partisan games.
“There 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,” Morrisey said.
“The legislation sets up a standard that applies to one
person in the state government,” Morrisey said. “It applies to me. It’s
the only instance in the country where an Attorney General is being
shackled the way they are trying to do it.”
“They don’t like the fact that I’ve been fighting for coal, protecting Second Amendment rights and Obamacare access.”
Asked by Kercheval whether the Democrats were lashing out
because Morrisey sought to defeat some of them in the 2012 election,
Morrisey said that “if you are not supporting the interests of the state
you shouldn’t be elected.”
“The fact remains that if I think that someone is a
supporter of President Obama I’m going to point that out to people,”
Morrisey said. “I 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’t used the Attorney General’s office to advance
political goals. We are blind to political affiliation or economic
status. That’s an important point. I’m in a different position than I
was prior to taking office.”
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.
“Patrick Morrisey was involved in setting up a SuperPAC
that was used to attack Democrats in the last election,” Miley said.
“And 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’s what makes politics so
difficult nowadays.”
Miley pointed out the real conflict of interest that Morrisey has in a current case brought by the State of West Virginia against Cardinal Health.
“When there is a conflict of interest, as there is
currently with his office and a case, we need to address how that is
handled,” Miley said.
Miley said the legislation “restricts to some degree how
far an Attorney General can go in performing his or her duties, from the
standpoint of taking on certain causes.”
“Democrats weren’t the only ones supportive in going that
far,” Miley said. “The 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’t 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’s office. Going forward, there will be a successor to Patrick
Morrisey. And they want to make sure that you don’t get a rogue Attorney
General in that office that goes off half cocked on whatever political
soapbox they want to pursue.”
“Now, we have a conservative leaning Attorney General,”
Miley said. “What 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’s restricting to some degree what personal agenda any Attorney
General, not just Patrick Morrisey, should be able to pursue.”
“The 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?”
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