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4 - West Virginia

Change and Chaos

from Part I - Change as an Exercise in Partisan Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2020

Herbert M. Kritzer
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota School of Law
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Summary

West Virginia is the most recent state to have changed from partisan to nonpartisan elections for its judges, with the first nonpartisan elections occurring in 2016. Impetus for change came in significant part after controversial elections for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, one in 1988 and another in 2004. However, those controversies were not enough to produce the change; it took the capture of the West Virginia legislature by the Republican Party, which had long advocated for nonpartisan elections, to produce the 2015 legislation that made the change. Democratic legislators were divided about the change, with some voting in favor and some opposed; the Democratic governor signed the legislation. Unrelated to the change in election format, in 2018 the justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals became embroiled in allegations of misuse of government property and extravagant expenditures on their offices. These allegations led to three justices resigning, one of whom pled guilty to criminal charges, and a second being convicted at trial and sentenced to prison.

Type
Chapter
Information
Judicial Selection in the States
Politics and the Struggle for Reform
, pp. 75 - 98
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • West Virginia
  • Herbert M. Kritzer
  • Book: Judicial Selection in the States
  • Online publication: 06 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108866941.007
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  • West Virginia
  • Herbert M. Kritzer
  • Book: Judicial Selection in the States
  • Online publication: 06 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108866941.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • West Virginia
  • Herbert M. Kritzer
  • Book: Judicial Selection in the States
  • Online publication: 06 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108866941.007
Available formats
×