Short Excerpt from the Preface
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
–Robert F. Kennedy
From the rushing waters of Blackwater Falls to the healing waters of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia is a burst of fresh air that breathes life into the very soul of all who experience her. And it only takes one visit to her to see why the State is known as “Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.” People all over the world have heard of the State through John Denver’s song Country Roads, which begins, “Almost Heaven, West Virginia.” Unfortunately though, in spite of its wealth in beauty, the citizens of West Virginia have been subjected to never-ending political corruption and money dominance over a government that has pervaded the culture of its national, state, and locally elected officials.
People of the State are traditionally known as Mountaineers. A Mountaineer, by definition, is not only a native of a mountainous region, but also one who climbs mountains, and indeed, West Virginians are a strong, hardworking, proud people who have emerged from the dark and dirty coal mines and have risen to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. West Virginians almost universally have a cynical view of politics and after reviewing the history of political corruption in the State at all levels of government, it is easy to understand those feelings, for if political corruption were an Olympic event, West Virginia would be the favorite contender for the Gold Medal.
Notwithstanding such a dismal past, recognizing and accepting the State’s history of plutocracy and corruption will provide the incentive as well as the framework for reforming the State’s politics. The result will be that West Virginia will provide the supreme model for national reform. With the countless examples of corrupt politicians throughout West Virginia’s history, the State has also had its share of nationally recognized and exceptional politicians who have worked diligently to improve the lives of many of its citizens. For instance, United States Senator Robert C. Byrd has been a champion for constitutional rights while former United States Senator Jennings Randolph authored the twenty-sixth amendment to the United States Constitution which gave eighteen-year-olds the right to vote.
At the outset, I certainly recognize that every state in the Union has low level political hacks who are doing a little bit of chiseling. Unfortunately though, West Virginia has had much more than its fair share of corrupt political felons as countless state, county, and city elected officials have spent time in federal penitentiaries. West Virginians have also witnessed generations of well-intentioned elected officials getting their voices squelched by the countless corrupt politicians who have abused their positions for personal gain. I often try to imagine the opportunities that have been lost by citizens of West Virginia in so many areas of concern such as education, health care, and infrastructure as a result of a long line of corrupt elected officials. The people of the State who proudly call themselves Mountaineers have never been truly free from the depredations of political and financial corruption.
Amazingly, while my research demonstrates that West Virginia elections have been among the most corrupt in America, peculiarly, the vast majority of the citizens there are not corrupt; they are honest people seeking to make better lives for their families. Nonetheless, these same straightforward and sincere people seem to have become so desensitized to corruption that many of them laugh at the thought of the countless elected officials who later became felons. Many simply ignore the State’s unfortunate long line of felons which only serves to condone, promote, and perpetuate such behavior. I have heard so many times during my career from numerous politicians that “everything in West Virginia is political except politics and that’s personal.”
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER ONE
John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Primary Election and a Culture of Corruption in
Southern West Virginia
Wally Barron, then-Attorney General and later Governor, also weighed in on the 1960 election by assigning an Assistant Attorney General to investigate. The extent of Barron’s investigation is unknown given the fact that he was reported to have been heavily involved with slating during his own election for Attorney General. Barron’s credibility was further tainted in 1968 when he was charged and acquitted on bribery and conspiracy accusations involving kickbacks he and his aides had taken while Barron was Governor. However, a few years later Barron was sentenced to a five-year prison term for tampering with the jury that had earlier acquitted him of the corruption charges.
Logan County was described as being like “hungry hogs going to the trough” with regard to the amount of money being spent buying votes. The day after the Primary, the Logan Banner described the election as a spree of “flagrant vote-buying, whiskey flowing like water, and coercion of voters . . . . You name it and we just about had it.” Soon after the Primary, John F. Kennedy joked that he had received a telegram from his father pleading, “Don’t buy another vote. I won’t pay for a landslide.”
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER TWO
The Birth of West Virginia and the Controversy that Surrounded
The new Governor declared in his first inaugural message to the Legislature: “In the midst of the great rebellion we all deplore so much, we rejoice in the fact accomplished of separate statehood. For 30 years and more, the people west of the mountains in Virginia have justly complained of bitter wrongs done them by the governmental majority, in the East.” In light of the turmoil during that time period, Governor Boreman, recognizing both present and future troubles proposed that, “citizens organize themselves into squads of 12 or 15 armed men ‘on duty in every neighborhood in the State all the time . . .’ to ‘keep down guerilla warfare or major raids by the rebels.’”
West Virginia was a state born during the Civil War as the Union side was carved from the western counties of Confederate Virginia. However, its unique history began well before the War.
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER THREE
The Hatfields and McCoys
Following the news that the arrested Hatfields would not be returned to West Virginia and would have to stand trial in the Kentucky courts, the Hatfields believed that they needed to kill anyone who might testify against them. Thereafter, on January 1, 1888, the West Virginia Hatfields traveled to Kentucky with the intention of killing Randolph McCoy, the head of the large McCoy family, and his son George. After Randolph and his family had gone to bed for the start of a new year, his small log house was surrounded by the West Virginia natives, including Johnse Hatfield, Ellison “Cotton Top” Mounts (illegitimate son of the murdered Ellison Hatfield), Valentine “River Wall” Hatfield, Cap Hatfield, Robert Hatfield, Selkirk McCoy, as well as several other Hatfield sympathizers who demanded that Randolph come outside of his cabin and surrender. When Randolph did not leave the cabin, his house was repeatedly fired into from both sides, and finally set on fire. Then, according to the Kentucky Supreme Court, “when his family were finally driven out by the flames, one son [Calvin], in an attempt to escape, was shot and killed, and his daughter [Alifair], while begging for mercy and perfectly defenseless, was shot down. His wife [Sarah] was most cruelly beaten, and the escape of the father from death seems almost miraculous.” Randolph testified that “by the light of the moon and the flames of his burning dwelling he distinctly recognized [Johnse Hatfield] as one of the party which surrounded his house, and that as he came out he was shot in the shoulder with a shotgun, and that this diversion enabled him to escape.” Sarah was found the next morning with broken ribs and her head frozen to the ground by her own blood.
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER FOUR
Mother Jones and the Bloodshed in the Southern West Virginia Coalfields
When Mother Jones was put on the stand, Judge Jackson asked her if she gave such advice to the miners telling them to use violence. She replied, “You know, sir, that it would be suicidal for me to make such a statement in public. I am more careful than that. You’ve been on the bench forty years, have you not, judge?” When Judge Jackson said “Yes,” Mother Jones proceeded to ask him, “And in forty years you learn to discern between a lie and the truth, judge?” Following the exchange, the United States Attorney jumped to his feet shaking his finger at her and said, “Your honor–there is the most dangerous woman in the country today. She called your honor a scab. But I will recommend mercy of the court–if she will consent to leave the state and never return.” Mother Jones replied that she didn’t come into the court asking for mercy, but that she came there looking for justice, adding, “And I will not leave this state so long as there is a single little child that asks me to stay and fight his battle for bread.”
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER FIVE
Nineteenth Century History of Political Corruption in West Virginia
The year after the Faulkner-Lucas United Senate seat battle, Governor Wilson again found himself in the middle of a quagmire as the election of the West Virginia Governor was so tumultuous it became a story that even today is simply too perplexing to imagine. The result of the November 6, 1888, gubernatorial election, sometimes referred to as “A Tale of Four Governors,” remained in limbo until February 6, 1890. The gubernatorial contest began as a contest between candidates Aretus Brooks Fleming and Nathan Goff. Before it was over, no fewer than four men claimed the Governor’s Office, including two men who weren’t even on the ballot running for Governor that year. This infamous election included West Virginia Legislature intervention, State Supreme Court decisions, and the calling of the National Guard as E. Willis Wilson, A. B. Fleming, Nathan Goff, and Robert S. Carr claimed the Governor’s Office. As “Goff took [the] oath of office, claiming election by 110 votes, Fleming [also] laid claim to the governorship, [while] Carr insisted that the Senate president should be in charge, and the outgoing governor, Wilson, refused to step out of office until his successor was legally determined.”
. . . .
According to William MacCorkle, who four years later became West Virginia’s ninth Governor, sixteen men were placed in the vaults in the Governor’s Office with loaded rifles protecting Governor Wilson, while “[t]hree or four hundred of Goff’s friends were there armed, and it looked like a clash, where many men would be killed, but better counsel prevailed.” The Beckley Post-Herald, reported that: “Wilson called out the West Virginia National Guard and stationed the men in the Capitol with rifles and live ammunition. They had orders to resist attempts of any man or group of men to take forcible possession of the governor’s office.”
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER SIX
Early Twentieth Century Corruption and the Beginning of the Rule of Coal
Fearing Democrats would win both United States Senate seats, all fifteen Republican State Senators locked themselves in Republican Governor William Glasscock’s office, preventing the State Senate from convening and choosing the Senators. The Republicans decided this was the only way to stop the appointments as the Senate would not be able to form a quorum and the appointments would have then been left to the Governor, who would certainly choose two Republicans. “For 48 hours the Governor’s Office was a virtual boarding house and jail. The situation became tense and nationwide attention was attracted,” as the fifteen Republicans seized refuge in Governor Glasscock’s office, with the assurance that the National Guard would step in if necessary.
When the Democrats were poised to use State law to compel the absent Republicans’ appearance in the Legislature, Glasscock’s security officer secretly transported the State Senators by horse-drawn cabs to Cincinnati, Ohio, as high-level Democrats followed them after learning of the Republicans’ plan. When twenty armed Kentucky woodsmen appeared at their plush hotel, the Republican State Senators feared West Virginia Democrats had conspired to kidnap them and agreed to negotiate....
....Chafin was running the Mud Fork Precinct polling place that election day and was assisted by seven or eight of his armed deputy sheriffs. Deputy United States Marshal Hugh Deskins, a Republican, was at the polls in an attempt to prevent some of the violations of the law that commonly occurred in Logan County on election day. Sometime between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., Sheriff Chafin arrived at the precinct and announced that he was in charge. When Marshal Deskins announced his presence, Chafin struck him in the face in the presence of potential voters as Chafin’s deputies were standing in full view with their weapons drawn. Deskins did not resist Chafin’s attack; however, he later deputized four citizens and gave each a pistol. Chafin promptly arrested the four appointed deputies and put them in jail in spite of their federal authority to be there.
Following the arrival of Chafin, the vote totals for Democratic candidates increased significantly. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court found that Chafin’s actions inside the election room destroyed the opportunity for secret balloting. The Court also ruled that Logan County officials violated the State Constitution in requiring voters to cast open ballots in another precinct, the Shamrock Precinct. Voters were brought in pairs and forced to sit at school desks located one in front of the other while the ballots were marked openly at the desks. W.F. Butcher, one of the Democratic Commissioners, testified that “practically all the ballots were marked by the clerks [and] that when the voters came in they would either call for a ticket or would be handed one, and then the clerks would complete the ballots [instead of the voters].” The Court rejected the precinct’s entire vote, finding that it was “conducted in such a way as to prevent the free expression of the will of the voters.”
Short Excerpt from CHAPTER EIGHT
Arch A. Moore, Jr.,
“Corruption–with a Capitol C”
Moore’s campaign violations were yet another instance of a West Virginia politician demonstrating a manifest lack of respect for both the law and the citizens. Johnnie Owens, the former political boss in Mingo County who was convicted for selling his job as Sheriff for $100,000, said, “Arch laid down in the back seat of my car holding $12,000 up in his hand like a common criminal and he begged me to take it” to buy votes in Mingo County. Moreover, H. Paul Kizer, a millionaire coal executive, outlined another despicable act when he explained that while his company was expecting a $2.3 million refund from the State Black Lung Fund with the possibility of payment nowhere in sight, Governor Moore promised to “slice through a lot of red tape, for a twenty-five percent cut of the dough.”
Moore could have been sentenced to thirty-six years in prison and could have been forced to pay fines totaling $1.2 million. Nonetheless, he was sentenced by a federal district judge to just five years and ten months in prison and fined $170,000. He served only thirty-three months of his sentence at a minimum security federal prison camp and then served four months of his sentence in home confinement in Glen Dale, West Virginia; Moore was paroled one year later.
Short excerpt from CHAPTER NINE
Senators Byrd and Rockefeller
“The Aristocracy of the Money Bag”
Then, as explained by Richard Grimes, former Charleston Daily Mail reporter and Capitol bureau chief as well as author of the book Jay Rockefeller, Old Money, New Politics, “[t]here sat Jay Rockefeller, probably the State’s most prestigious governor, with hardly any lights, no phones, no paper, no pencils, no files, no toilets, no coffee and a room-full of furniture he was too big to use.” Grimes, who began covering politics at the State Capitol in 1968, said:
[Governor] Moore took most of the furniture and left Rockefeller with odd pieces from surplus that didn’t match. The desk was far too small for Rockefeller. The pictures were stripped from the walls. Moore didn’t even leave a scratch pad for his predecessor. All the file drawers were empty. There weren’t any pencils. Even the light bulbs in the outer offices were unscrewed. It was like someone had taken a ladder and loosened them.
Grimes continues:
The governor’s office had a 10-line phone system. But even it was disconnected. Every time Jay wanted to talk to his secretary, he had to get up and walk out of the room. Jay said that he had never felt so isolated in his life. There is an elaborate emergency alert system that sounds off if an unauthorized person enters the corridor leading to the governor’s office. Even that had been disconnected. When some of the Rockefeller staffers tried to plug in a coffee pot, they found that someone had stuffed the outlets, so that an electrician had to be called to clean them out. Female employees complained that the toilets had been stuffed with newspapers, so they overflowed when flushed.
The newly appointed Rockefeller staff members even discovered that the ribbons had been removed from the typewriters, and that most desks were completely empty.
. . . .
As Senate Majority Leader in the late 1980s, Byrd pushed for a vote on legislation to overhaul the campaign finance system eight times, more than any other Senate leader. He believes raising money is “the most demeaning thing” he has had to do in his half-century of public service. He says that candidates’ hands are “manacled by the shackles of money.” Recalling his own experiences in campaigns, Byrd states:
The current system is rotten, it is putrid, it stinks. The people of this country ought really to know what this system is giving to them and what it is taking from them. This system corrupts political discourse. It makes us slaves, makes us beholden to the almighty dollar rather than be the servants of the people we all aspire to serve. . . . It already costs tens of millions of dollars to run an effective campaign for the Senate in many States. What do we tell a poor kid from the hollows? What do we tell a poor kid from the coal camps? Forget it. Yet, that person may have the capacity and the drive to be a good Senator. A campaign for the Senate will be beyond his or her personal means and beyond the means of friends and associates.
Byrd also says had he faced the same challenges that money in politics places on candidates today when he first ran for public office, he would not have been elected to office. He said,
If 55 years ago, when I started out in politics, we had had the current system of funding campaigns, somebody else would be standing at this desk. It wouldn’t be I. I came from the very bottom of the ladder. There were no lower rungs in my ladder. There weren’t any bottom rungs in my ladder. I came out of a coal camp. What did I have? If I might, for a moment, tinker with grammar, ‘I didn’t have nothing,’ as they would say. ‘I ain’t got nothing.’ All I had was myself and my belief in our system. I believed in a system, then, in which a person who didn’t have anything, a person who was poor, a person who came from lowly beginnings but who could pay his filing fee, could run for office. . . .
Short excerpt from CHAPTER TEN
The McGraw Brothers, Warren and Darrell
Another campaign advertisement attacking Warren also focused on his brother, Attorney General Darrell McGraw. The advertisement featured cartoonish music and portraits of the McGraw brothers side by side while a narrator said,
Brothers Warren and Darrell McGraw say they have family values. Their values? Justice McGraw refused to step down when the court heard a case benefitting his brother. Then Attorney General McGraw spent public money to promote the family name. Over $100,000 on pens and trinkets. . . another $600,000 on TV ads. That’s your money they’re wasting. The McGraws. Supporting their family values with your family’s money.
Short excerpt from CHAPTER ELEVEN
“A Judicial Hellhole”
Judge Troisi yelled, “Bring Mr. Witten back here now!” Troisi then pointed to the area in front of the bench and ordered Witten, who assumed he was about to be found in contempt of court, to stand there. Troisi walked off the bench, unzipped his robe and “angrily” dropped it on the courtroom floor. The judge then taunted Witten, who said the judge “got in my face and backed me up against the bench.” Then, “Troisi continued yelling at Witten, who said he stuffed his hands in his pockets and told the judge, ‘You know I cannot touch you.’” Witten said Troisi then told him, “When you get out of the penitentiary, you look me up.” Witten responded, “I’ll make a point of it, Your Honor,” as Troisi then “butted [him] two or three times with his chest, forcing [him] against the bench.” Witten said Troisi “was trying to provoke me into hitting him.” As Troisi snapped at him twice with his teeth, Witten “could hear his teeth clicking together.” Witten said the bites “happened real fast [and] one of them caught my nose.” “As Witten stood with blood running down his face, he heard the trooper say, ‘Come on. Bill,’” and led Witten away from Troisi and the courtroom. After he bit Witten, Troisi told him twice to, “Do something about your nose,” and then spat a piece of flesh from his mouth onto the courtroom floor. Witten said Judge Troisi then spat again, put on his robe, and returned to the bench. “On the bench, the judge spat yet a third time, and then called for the next case.”
Short Excerpt from Chapter Twelve
Bribery, Kickbacks, and Conspiracy
The jury foreman agreed to save Governor Barron’s hide in the jury room by securing his acquittal after the foreman’s wife had received $25,000 in cash in a brown paper bag delivered by Governor Barron’s wife, Opal Barron, with the instructions “not to spend large amounts of money.” Joe Perry, Barron’s attorney in his original trial, was forced to stand trial himself as he was accused of being the chief architect in the juror bribery scheme. Perry was acquitted; however, Barron, the jury foreman, and many other friends and colleagues of the Governor were convicted for various crimes and spent many years in prison. Perry later asserted that Barron stole more than $7 million during the course of his public service in West Virginia.
Short excerpt from CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gambling
Attorney General Lee said the Logan City Council was opposed to the gambling machines and ordered the Chief of Police, Lon Browning, to arrest “all persons who have such gambling devices on their premises.” The Chief of Police quickly resigned, stating that he was not ready to die. A new Chief, Roy Knotts, was hired. Upon his appointment, Knotts entered a local pool hall to purchase cigarettes and was shot five times in the back. The warrants for the arrest of slot machine operators were later found in his pocket soaked with his blood. The Logan County Prosecutor would not enforce the gambling laws as he feared that he would suffer the same fate as Chief Knotts. According to Logan County Circuit Court Judge Jackson, the Prosecutor was “grossly incompetent and drunk most of his waking hours.”
Short excerpt for CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sex Scandals
The incidents surrounding sexual misconduct of West Virginia’s politicians has the same effect as much of the other inappropriate conduct exhibited by West Virginia’s elected officials. The violators more often than not receive little or no punishment for their actions often leaving voters with the impression that elected officials actions are above any recourse. When it becomes politically incorrect to question a Governor about an affair with a State employee, when a State Legislator simply receives probation for having anal intercourse with his teenage legislative page, when a circuit judge is surrounded by sexual harassment allegations against many of his employees yet receives his full judicial pension and has his law license returned to him, what are people supposed to conclude? They conclude that those in high political positions rarely are held accountable for their actions.
Short excerpt from CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Stealing Our Children’s Futures and Confiscating Our Seniors’ Golden Years
Graham’s $457,872 state and federal compensation in 2003 included: base pay of $185,001; time-and-a-half pay for approximately 330 hours of overtime at a rate of $133.41 per hour for a total of $44,180; a Christmas bonus of $34,000; $34,598 for cashed-in personal leave; and $160,093 for cashed-in sick leave. In addition to Graham’s salary, he also receives: 54 days of paid vacation, three personal days, and 24 sick leave days, all of which may be converted to cash if not used; 18 paid holidays; 100 percent paid health insurance coverage for life under the Public Employees Insurance Agency; $100,000 worth of life insurance, an Individual Retirement Account paid to Peoples Bank at 15 percent of gross wages; Jefferson Pilot Disability Insurance; Concord Heritage Life Insurance; AFLAC Intensive Care and Cancer Insurance; and dental and eye care; and full reimbursement for a minimum of two out-of-state trips a year. Graham’s salary increased significantly throughout the years as indicated below by the year followed by the actual salary received for that year.
5. 1989 salary of $22,825
6. 1993 salary of $50,127
7. 1999 salary of $152,761
8. 2001 salary of $217,175
9. 2002 salary of $301,728
10. 2003 salary of $457,872
To put it into perspective, in 2003, Graham’s $457,872 compensation was more than the salary of the President of the United States, more money than any member of Congress, and more money than any West Virginia statewide elected official. In fact, if you combine the salaries of every single statewide elected West Virginia executive branch constitutional officer, you would only slightly exceed Graham’s salary.
Governor $95,000 +
Attorney General $80,000 +
Auditor $75,000 +
Commissioner of Agriculture $75,000 +
Secretary of State $70,000 +
State Treasurer $75,000 +
(Total combined salaries) = $470,000 v. Bob Graham’s $457,872
Short excerpt from CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Follow the Money
Another example of improper allocations funded by the Budget Digest was the $2,950 sent to the town of Davis in 1995, 1998, 1999, for a Blackwater 100 festival. The problem is that the Blackwater 100 was a motorcycle-ATV race that was last run in 1992. Nonetheless, the town of Davis knowingly cashed the “Blackwater 100” checks and used the money for other purposes. I know about this specific situation because it was brought to my attention when I was working in the Attorney General’s Office during a time when I was conducting an investigation for the Attorney General. Through a Freedom of Information request I obtained copies of all of the contracts from the Department of Education and the Arts which were signed by the mayor and recorder of Davis and used to deceptively receive the money for the non-existent event. The contracts were one page and were clear and concise documents that included “Blackwater 100” in bold on several occasions as the stated purpose for which the State was giving the money and for which the town of Davis was accepting it.
When I reported this illegal expenditure to the proper authority at the Department of Education and the Arts, who oversaw the distribution of Budget Digest money to various festivals, she simply told me, . . . .
Short excerpt from CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Legally Buying Elections and Perceptions
Prior to the 2004 Democratic Primary, Hechler sent a “Letter to the Editor” to newspapers throughout the State. Hechler proclaimed:
My April 2 campaign spending report confirms that I am spending over $400,000 for the primary nomination for secretary of state. Questions have been raised as to why, with name recognition, I am spending so much. In 1976, I left a safe seat in Congress because I wanted to shine a searchlight on the big spending of Jay Rockefeller in his race for governor. Rockefeller rolled over me like an Army tank. I finished a dismal third, and completely lost the opportunity to advocate campaign finance reform, which I had been championing in Congress. Then in 2000, I was way ahead in all polls in a race for Congress until Jim Humphreys unleashed his TV ads. Despite wide name recognition, I finished a dismal third.
At the age of 89–17 years older than George Daugherty, more than twice the age of Natalie Tennant and Mike Oliverio, and 41 years older than Roger Pritt, I face a serious handicap. I must advertise to prove I am mentally and physically capable of handling the job.
I have signed the Code of Fair Campaign Practices, which I designed as secretary of state, and included a spending limit of $150,000 for the secretary of state’s office. In signing the code, I have noted “except for the spending limits.”
I have been labeled a ‘hypocrite’ for this action while I walked over 530 miles on behalf of campaign finance reform. I strongly support the state Clean Elections bill providing for public financing of elections. Like Sen. Russ Reingold, co-author of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill, who is raising more than $2 million for his re-election campaign, I believe that we can serve the cause of future campaign finance reform if we succeed in getting elected in 2004.
Hechler’s Republican challenger Betty Ireland criticized him for spending more on his campaign than the spending limits he championed as Secretary of State. Ireland said, “You championed the fair campaign practices act . . . and it’s almost as if you’re saying, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ I have a real problem with the reformer attacking the reforms instead of seeing them through.”
Short excerpt from CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Attempts and Obstacles to Reform
The Ethics Commission and Statewide Prosecutorial Power
The West Virginia Ethics Commission has become a joke throughout the country. A few years ago, the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity found that after nearly five years of existence, the Commission had not cited a single legislator for any ethical infraction. The group said that this “defie[d] imagination.” The lapse in activity made the West Virginia Ethics Commission the “only such body in the nation that had not cited a legislator in the past five years.” Unless the Legislature and Governor are serious about legitimate ethics enforcement, the entire Ethics Commission should be disbanded. It is disingenuous to the people of West Virginia to continue this charade.
The Governor should call a special session of the Legislature as soon as possible to deal with nothing but ethics reform. Everything should be placed on the table and openly debated. Among the changes should be . . . .
Short excerpt from CHAPTER NINETEEN
Reforming West Virginia Politics
Due to West Virginia’s laundry list of political problems, I have outlined numerous avenues to reform the State’s politics and include at the end of this chapter a contract for reform to be used by individual voters. The contract represents a written agreement and commitment by a candidate to a voter to support specific reforms to clean up West Virginia politics. Voters will now have the ammunition to help them make better choices during elections by taking a photocopy of the “Contract With The Voter” and having political candidates sign it, thereby agreeing to do everything possible to achieve such reforms or to agree not to run for re-election.
. . . .
The problem of wasted tax money used to put names on vans, key chains, magnets, and millions of other trinkets, letters, television and radio commercials under the guise of public service announcements and constituent education, must immediately be stopped. It is not good enough to regulate or limit this corruptive and wasteful practice, it must be ended entirely and any violations of this new law must result in a felony for misuse of State funds and violators should immediately be removed from office.
. . . .
This type of dirty scummy campaigning should not be tolerated and one way to bring some accountability to a politicians deceitful actions is to place “None of the Above” as a choice on all ballots for all candidates for State political offices during all West Virginia General Elections.
Short excerpt from CHAPTER TWENTY
Final Thoughts
People cite incidents of corruption that have occurred in their states and say, “Corruption in politics happens everywhere and West Virginia is just another corrupt State.” If corruption truly is as prevalent in every state to the extent it is in West Virginia then there is no hope for Democracy to survive. Clearly, it is not as bad in other states and my book shows the outrageousness of West Virginia’s political corruption, an area in which the State, unfortunately, is unrivaled! For instance, among some of the charges against West Virginia’s elected officials during merely the last two decades include:
• stealing
• cheating
• gambling
• bribery
• ballot box/poll tampering
• corrupt real estate transactions
• insurance sales fraud
• tax evasion
• extortion
• mail fraud
• filing false tax returns
• obstruction of justice
• fraud
• accepting illegal cash contributions
• illegally distributing cash to influence elections
• making illegal campaign promises
• failing to report income
• receiving money through illegal actions
• lying
• covering up unlawful acts
• countless campaign violations
• selling political offices
• selling cocaine
• failing to pay State bills
• concealing State bills
• violating the public trust
• numerous sex offenses
• falsifying documents
• defrauding the government
• drug racketeering
• judicial nose biting
• jury tampering
• threatening witnesses
• soliciting prostitution
• liquor sales racketeering
• perjury
• federal securities law violations
• illegal withdraw of public funds
• embezzlement
• forgery
• larceny
• assault
• battery
• public drunkenness
• police brutality
• civil rights violations
• falsifying State Police laboratory test results
• “election-rigging”
• blackmail
• illegal gambling
• illegal wiretapping
• sexual harassment
• robbery
• arson
• drug usage
• child abuse
. . . .
Clearly West Virginia has been a hotbed of political corruption since its untidy birth, and that is precisely why it can become a laboratory for making politics honest throughout the nation. Massive reform of the nation’s most corrupt system of government will show how the lessons of West Virginia can transform the way politics is practiced in every state in the country. West Virginia has bred corruption in the past, but can now become a model for how politics can be practiced in the United States. Because of West Virginia’s, notorious history of corruption, it actually provides the potential for nationwide reform. The national implications for successful reform in West Virginia are that if reform can work in that State, it can work anywhere.
The first step to reforming this system is the realization that it will not occur overnight, for it is a system that has been corrupt since its inception. West Virginians must see their enslaved past with open eyes. Understand that West Virginians and citizens from other States can only be victimized and forced quiet by their elected officials if that is what they allow. Reform will not be without effort, it will not be without controversy, but most importantly, it must not be without success. It is time for West Virginians to finally bring truth to their official State Motto and prove that indeed: Mountaineers are Always Free.