Monday morning words from Stephen L. Hall
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For the year 2016, there was no Democrat candidate who filed to run for the Kanawha County Clerk office against the incumbent Republican. So, a former state Senator Erik Wells, seeking public office again decided to vie for the position.
The West Virginia Supreme Court recently ruled that Eric Wells could not legally file as an independent or third party candidate, under section 23 (WV Code §3-5-23), with a June 30th deadline, by leaving blank his party affiliation because he was a well known Democrat being a former state Senator, thus should have filed back in January, under section 7.
In her dissent, Democrat Justice Robin Davis was rather scathing against the decision of the majority stating, “the majority’s opinion is wholly unsupported by the applicable law and completely fails to follow the express statutory language . . . .” “While the majority attempts to sweep this inherent freedom under the rug, simply minimizing its existence does not obviate the importance of this fundamental constitutional right.” The right to which she is referring is the Freedom of Association.
It is odd that when I had a case before that same Supreme Court, Justice Davis did not appear to care about the state’s failure to follow the express statutory language or sweeping my clients’ Freedom of Association under the rug.
So one is left to wonder about her motivation for such a scathing dissent. One could hypothesize that it was some sort of partisan reaction, what with her being a Democrat as well; but the majority of the WV Supreme Court is Democrat as well. Justice Davis has been widely criticized regarding her own ethics, but I’m not sure how that relates to the present case.
What does seem far more relevant is what would to an outsider appear a very odd reaction of the WV Secretary of State. The Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant, took this decision against Erik Wells and applied it to all of the independent and third party candidates who had not filed by January 30th, 2016. That might seem oddly vindictive and spiteful to take out a disagreement with a court’s decision and apply it far beyond the decision itself.
U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers determined that Natalie Tennant’s actions violated the Constitutional rights of people like Darrell Castle and Naomi Daly by ordering their names taken off of the ballot. So why would the WV Secretary of State make such an obviously erroneous move?
Well, to put it simply, Natalie Tennant is the wife of Erik Wells. This decision against her husband’s political career was a personal affront to her. What kind of person would be so petty? Well, let us look at her background. How did she become WV’s Secretary of State? She was a news caster on television. She got the news reading job because she was the WVU Mountaineer in college, the school football team’s mascot. Those are her qualifications.
So let us look at some of the other political figures of my state. Darrell McGraw was a Justice on the Supreme Court, before becoming the state’s Attorney General, there known for his channeling civil cases to his campaign contributors and for spending over $130,000 in an election year on trinkets with his name one it, not called campaign swag, but “to promote the office”. He was running for Supreme Court again this year in the “non-partisan” primary.
One former Governor, who was also a U.S. Representative, Bob Wise, chose not to run for reelection after his affair with a married employee was made public. Of course, it was only after the woman’s husband, Phillip “Icky” Frye, decided to run for Governor just to keep the issue in the public eye that Gov. Wise made that decision.
His brother Warren was also a Supreme Court Justice as well. It appears to be a family job. Speaking of family jobs, our current US Senator, Shelly Moore-Capito, keeps that Moore in her name because it remind people that her father was formerly governor of the state, one Arch Moore, who had to leave office after the discovery of $50,000 in case in his desk drawer in the Governor’s office.
Out other US Senator, Joe Manchin, appointed himself to the position after being elected to Governor; but the reason that he was elected Governor was because of the name recognition from his uncle A. James Manchin, who was famous mostly for embracing the stereotypes of West Virginians being a yokel. But Sen. Joe Manchin’s daughter also enters the picture being at the center of the pharmaceutical company Mylan Inc., which has recently been at the center of the Epipen controversy.
As amusing as these local family business of politics is, it is hardly unique to WV, but family political dynasties abound throughout the country. Nor is WV the only state where personal relations trump the law and politics whether in scandal or abuses of offices and favoritism.
On the national level, we have a Presidential candidate who has gone through a series of trophy-wives with a long history of bragging about infidelity and more recently discussing how fame could enable him to sexually assault women, in some rather crude and vulgar language.
On the other side of the same race, we have a woman widely reputed to have had numerous lesbian affairs, whose husband was already President who himself had allegations of both affairs and sexual assaults.
One of the main speculations of the presidential candidate’s lesbian affairs is married to a man who has been caught sending pictures of his genitalia to fifteen year olds. Both a former President and current presidential candidate have allegedly been connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Island, without getting into what they both have been alleged to have done there.
But this is not new to politics, both criminal and lascivious behaviors have been attributed to Senators like Bob Packwood, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank and many others have been involved in sexually, often perverse or illegal, scandals. John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy both having illicit affairs with the same Norma Jeane Mortenson.
Once upon a time, the electorate considered such blatantly immoral scandals as, by themselves, a disqualification for holding public office. Even back in the day of our early presidents, men like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton dealt with scandals of affairs and mishandling money.
Also disturbing is the very fact that these people want political careers rather than a stint in public service. The narcissist is drawn to such jobs of fame and popularity. Think about this, these are the narcissists who couldn’t act or sing, so they became politicians.
So what is the point of this, other than the idea that politicians let their personal relationships dominate their actions far more that any concern over public policy? Is it any wonder that these politicians care more about a personal insult than they do about the idea that their policies are foolish and destructive? Just remember who they are.
It is not the engineer, the scientist, or the philosopher who become politicians; rather it is the popular kids from high school, the drunken fratboys, the pretentious sorority sisters, even the school mascot. These scandals are just the result of the fact that while we imagine that people grow up and become adults, the reality is that the behavior they exhibited when they were teenagers and college students is the same behavior they exhibit in Congress, as President, or Justice, and on the campaign trail.
There is a reason that high school class presidents are not given any real power; because the election goes to the popular not the skilled. The very idea of limited government is based on the recognition by the founding fathers that a society’s “leaders”, being popularly elected, will gravitate to those who live for drama and ostentation.
