I haven’t seen this blogged by anyone else here at dkos, so I have taken it on myself. My sources are here (www.wvgazettemail.com/...), and here (www.alternet.org/...).
The Judiciary Committee of the WV House of Delegates has filed articles of impeachment against all sitting state Supreme Court judges. The articles of impeachment will now be considered by the full House of Delegates.
In total, there are 14 articles of impeachment on charges of maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty and “certain high crimes”: two indictments against Justice Beth Walker, four indictments apiece against Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justice Robin Davis, and eight indictments against Justice Allen Loughry. The fifth SC justice Menis Ketchum was not indicted because he had resigned/retired last month in the midst of a corruption scandal.
At issue is “unnecessary and lavish” spending of public money by the Supreme Court. The state SC is given the power to create its own budget. The justices are accused of extravagant office renovations and padding expense accounts: Justice Davis is accused of spending $500,000 to renovate her own office. Davis and Workman are charged with signing documents authorizing that senior status judges be paid in excess of what’s allowable in state law.
Justice Loughry is also accused of moving priceless, historic state office furniture to his home for personal use, and enlisting a state-contracted moving company to do it. He even improperly billed the state for his own book-signing tour in support of his non-fiction book about political corruption in West Virginia — this guy literally wrote the book on corruption (!). In June, a federal court indicted Justice Loughry with 16 counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, three counts of lying to federal law enforcement and one count of witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Justice Loughry has pled not guilty to these charges.
Some delegate members have pushed back against the effort to impeach the SC justice enmasse. Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, suggested the grouping all of the justices into one set of articles of impeachment appeared to be an attempt to allow Republican Gov. Jim Justice an opportunity to appoint four of the five Supreme Court justices for at least two years on the bench. In the event that any of the justices are impeached, Republican Gov. Jim Justice would then be empowered to make interim appointments to replace the removed justices.