The state’s top Democrat, Gov. Joe Manchin, appears to be headed toward supporting a proposal to have some, if not all, of West Virginia’s judicial posts filled by nonpartisan election.
He’s got the unanimous support of the executive committee of the West Virginia Judicial Association, the organization that represents the state’s active and retired circuit court judges and Supreme Court justices.
He’s got our backing, too.
We stand strongly behind the concept of choosing not only judges, but every publicly elected official based on who they are and what they stand for, instead of what political party they are affiliated with. Yes, that novel concept of voting for the person who will serve the public the best.
So refreshing you can almost feel the fresh air wafting through your nostrils. But wait, what’s that smell?
Ah, it must be that old yellow dog.
Manchin’s efforting to pursue nonpartisan judiciary elections is already trying to be derailed and by guess who? None other than Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin.
No shocker there. Chafin is as staunch as any Democrat in the Mountain State. His viewpoint on this subject was clear when he fired off a letter a few weeks ago to Democratic Party county chairmen indicating that the plan was nothing more than “a backdoor approach to let Republican candidates hide behind the label of ‘nonpartisan’ because they’re ashamed to let the voters know that they stand for all the GOP principles that Bush and Cheney and their ilk have pushed for decades.”
Chafin also said nonpartisan elections would see Democrats lose because of heavy spending that would be leveled against them by out-of-state special interest groups.
We’ve come to expect nothing different from Chafin; however, we’re willing to offer the notion that his stance isn’t one that most West Virginians would back.
It’s a shame that in a situation in which the leader of our state, and a member of Chafin’s own political party, is obviously trying to do something to better the process, it appears he is going to be bucked.
I guess we’ll just have to consider the source of the venom and let it go.
But it’s really getting old, stale and unproductive for West Virginia.
