Opinions
Cyber terrorism strategy important to safeguarding W.Va. elections
CHARLESTON – The most challenging war we may need to fight in the future will be in cyberspace. It’s a fight I am preparing for as your Secretary of State.
On the court and in the court, Judge O'Briant accused of playing favorites
Anyone who ever played organized sports as a child or has watched offspring play is familiar with that scourge of athleticism: the bad ref.
A call to action for West Virginians
CHARLESTON – We are in a crisis, one that can only be solved with a great deal of hard work and engagement from citizens across our state. Opioid addiction continues to decimate West Virginia, reducing our workforce, tearing apart families and ultimately, claiming lives day after day.
West Virginia's latest epidemic: opioid lawsuits
West Virginians first had to face the epidemic of addiction to opioids. Now there’s an epidemic of opioid lawsuits. Who's responsible for the first epidemic, in addition to the drug abusers, is subject to dispute. The ones responsible for the second epidemic are known.
Lawsuit reform helps small businesses across West Virginia
CHARLESTON – Small and local businesses are a major contributor to the livelihood of local communities across West Virginia. They are often the places we shop with family, celebrate over a meal with good friends, or prepare the car for a long summer beach trip. Unfortunately, many of our small businesses have become a favorite target of abusive lawsuits.
Secretary of State Mac Warner deserves his own team
Personnel is policy. If members of a public office holder's staff are not like-minded and supportive of his policies, they're not going to implement those policies. They may not resort to open rebellion, for fear of losing their positions, but they will not make energetic efforts to put policies they oppose in place.
Focus on elections, business sparks results for West Virginia
CHARLESTON – Laser focus on election integrity, customer-oriented service for businesses, and protecting our state’s most vulnerable citizens are the core strengths of the Office of the Secretary of State during the first six months of this administration.
A life lesson missed!
There are lots of lessons to learn in life, and the sooner you learn them, the better. Ideally, your parents and other adults gave you some pointers while you were young, and that saved you some of the trouble of having to figure things out for yourself.
Local officials right to seek recovery of lost tax dollars
MARTINSBURG – According to the Centers for Disease Control, opioid overdose deaths in 2015 killed West Virginians at the rate of 41.5 per 100,000 residents. Lost lives. Shattered families. An estimated millions of dollars in state, county and municipal debt thanks to the highest overdose rate in the country – one that’s three times the national average.
West Virginians get the last laugh
President Obama and his bureaucrats laughed at the citizens of West Virginia and our representatives for eight years as they waged their wicked war on coal (on behalf of other energy interests, foreign and domestic), but who's laughing now? We are, and so is U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins.
AG's office is ready, willing and able to help consumers
CHARLESTON – Most businesses are reputable, but when a home repair, a vehicle sale or other transaction goes wrong, our office looks out for consumers.
Blaming Republicans for 80 years of Democratic folly
Republicans in the majority in our state legislature are solely responsible for all of West Virginia's economic problems. So says Democratic Gov. Jim Justice.
Justice Davis' ethical lapses continue
CHARLESTON – Leading up to and following the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia's decision in Leggett v. EQT Production Company, there was much attention given to the fact that newly elected Justice Beth Walker’s husband had held some energy stocks before the Court’s rehearing of the case. In response, Justice Walker notified the court that her husband had divested himself of ownership of shares of stock of any company engaged in the business of producing coal, oil, natural gas, wind, and solar energy.
It's time for Richard Cordray to go
Last year, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and other state AGs expressed concern that a rule on arbitration agreements proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “exceeds the CFPB's statutory authority and fails to advance consumer protection or the broader public interest [and] should be withdrawn.”
2018 GOP primary for U.S. Senate race heats up early
MORGANTOWN – West Virginia’s political migration from blue to red means the Republican Party increasingly faces prospects of contested Primary Elections. Last week, West Virginia Wesleyan Political Science Professor Robert Rupp wrote, “As recently as a decade ago the idea of a contentious Republican primary was unthinkable given the weak state of the GOP state party.”
Caleb McDonald’s quest for football injury payday
High school sports can be dangerous – especially high school football, which accounts for nearly half of severe sport injuries for teenagers. Knees, shoulders, and hands are the body parts adolescents most often injure on the gridiron, with fractures and ligament sprains being the most common types of injury. Head injuries are less often but can be more severe.
Millionaire lawyers using old tricks for jackpot justice
CHARLESTON – For too many years, West Virginia’s leaders have worked to attract jobs, small businesses, and spur economic growth while facing the stiff headwinds to much-needed lawsuit reforms from greedy personal injury lawyers and corrupt politicians.
Thanks to POTUS, maybe WOTUS won't go to SCOTUS
A good headline may give readers a concise summary of the content to come or it may pique curiosity just enough to entice a further read, but a really good headline does both. How about that one above? It's a real humdinger, isn’t it? Probably you have no idea what the headline says.
Savings are a good start in fighting disability fraud
CHARLESTON – One of life’s little pleasant surprises is reaching into an old coat pocket and finding a few misplaced dollars. Even better is keeping millions of dollars in the pockets of taxpayers, which is exactly what my office’s Social Security disability fraud unit was created to do.
The Clean Power Plan is a 'government knows best' power play
Last year, West Virginia State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and peers from other states successfully challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan (CPP) in court and delayed its implementation.