Democrats are crying foul after Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced over the weekend that he had chosen two GOP politicians to temporarily fill vacancies on the state’s Supreme Court, Think Progress reported Sunday.
In making the announcement that West Virginia House Speaker Tim Armstead and Rep. Evan Jenkins will serve on the court, Justice said the state needs, “without any question a conservative court.”
The move comes a week after West Virginia's House of Delegates voted to impeach all four justices on the state's Supreme Court of Appeals, including Chief Justice Margaret Workman, Justices Allen Loughry, Elizabeth Walker and Robin Davis.
Workman, Loughry, Walker and Davis were all impeached for failing to carry out their administrative duties, among other issues.
Armstead and Jenkins are replacing justices who were elected to the court as Democrats. Davis resigned one day after the impeachment vote and Menis Ketchum resigned at the end of July before being charged with federal wire fraud.
Armstead and Jenkins will serve until November’s midterm elections, when voters will then elect new justices from a list of 20 candidates, including Jenkins and Armstead.
The three other Supreme Court justices are to face impeachment trial next month in the state Senate. If they are found guilty, Justice can appoint their replacements, who would serve until the 2020 election.
Although disgust at the allegations against the Supreme Court justices, three of whom are Democrats and the other two Republicans, crossed party lines, it is the GOP that has led the calls for impeachment.
Democrats have said the move by the governor is an attempt to alter the court, with state legislator Mike Pushkin telling The New York Times that, “they’re going after everyone because it’s the balance of the court."
Other Democrats said the calls for impeachment were nothing less than “a coup.”
Justice has explained his appointing of true conservatives “with honor and integrity [as a way] to restore the trust from the blow to the stomach we’ve suffered in the last few months.”
However, Democratic Party state chair Belinda Biafore pushed back at that narrative, saying in a statement that “Justice’s picks to fill the Supreme Court means more corruption and political positioning from Republican Leadership in West Virginia.”
She emphasized that “not only do Armstead and Jenkins lack necessary experience, but by aligning with Justice they have proven that they are nothing more than political peas in a pod and will continue to make decisions based on politics and not people.”
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