Wealthy Coal Exec Hopes to Turn Democratic West Virginia Republican

[Rose Siding]

Mr. Blankenship, the chief executive of the state’s largest coal producer, Massey Energy, has promised to spend “whatever it takes” to help win a majority in the State Legislature for the long-beleaguered Republican Party in a state that is a Democratic and labor stronghold.

In a state where candidates who win typically spend less than $20,000, Mr. Blankenship has poured more than $6 million into political initiatives and local races over the past three years. Mr. Blankenship has spent at least $700,000 in his current effort to oust Democrats, and the state is awash with lawn signs, highway billboards, radio advertisements and field organizers paid for by him.

“Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” said United States Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat whose district includes a majority of Massey’s coal mines. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”
....
Union leaders say Mr. Blankenship, 56, is the main reason that less than a quarter of the state’s coal miners are now organized, down from about 95 percent just three decades ago. And environmentalists describe him as the biggest force behind a highly destructive form of mining called mountaintop removal that involves using explosives to blow off the tops of mountains to reach coal seams......Massey has had more toxic spills of coal waste than any other company in the state, and from January 2000 to December 2005, it received 4,268 citations from state regulators

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/us/22blankenship.html

More on Blankenship-
http://www.wvdemocrats.com/who_is_don/article_archive.html

[Erika]

1. GOP, the party of the evil and the corrupt

Amusing. Wonder what he will say to St. Peter.

[Eric J in MN]

2. West Virginia should have more regulation of this spending.

Millionaires shouldn't be allowed to buy the state legislature of their choice.