WV-Gov: Supreme Court Orders Special Election This Year

All of a sudden, we seem to have an answer on when that mysterious special election for West Virginia Governor (to replace the resigned Joe Manchin) will be. It’ll be this November, according to the state Supreme Court.

West Virginia will hold a special election for governor by Nov. 15, or within one year of when state Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin began acting as chief executive, according to a ruling Tuesday by the state Supreme Court in the resulting legal dispute.

Tomblin had concluded that the West Virginia Constitution and state law did not set the next vote for the governor’s office until 2012. Tuesday’s ruling sides with the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and lawyer Thornton Cooper, who challenged Tomblin’s stance….

The Supreme Court said a new statewide election “shall be held as soon as practicable” whenever a vacancy in the governor’s office occurs before the first three years of the term have expired.

I can’t tell if this is truly the last word in the matter or if there’s any wiggle room left for Earl Ray Tomblin (the acting Gov., who had been the main voice agitating to push the election back until 2012)… but this looks pretty conclusive, bringing this strange period of uncertainty to an end.

33 thoughts on “WV-Gov: Supreme Court Orders Special Election This Year”

  1. The DGA will have to choose between backing what it sees as the best horse in the race, the bluest horse in the race, or just the horse in the race who wins the nomination with no national involvement. For a guy who is probably looking at a 2016 run for the presidency, that’s a bit of early pressure; I suspect how the governor handles the situation will influence how seriously he’s taken as a potential candidate by Beltway insiders and party officials.

  2. I think this might explain Ireland’s strange comment about having spoken to Capito and not running if she was.

    I remember seeing a quote that Capito would NOT run in a special election for Governor, but would look at making the race in ’12. It would make sense for her then to have told Ireland to go ahead and get ready to run…the missing piece of info being THIS YEAR. Thus, “if you win, congrats if you lose, maybe I’ll run next year”

    If you figure a Governor run isn’t in her plans then I’d have to expect her to take a long look at the Senate race, her committee assignments are rather pedestrian (infrastructure and banking, with 1 pretty crappy sub-committee chairmanship) and she’s going to get a ton of pressure from the NRSC to take on Manchin.

  3. but John Raese announced he would not run for Governor, with Capito confirming she would not run in a special election it look like Ireland get the GOP nod by default.

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