Supreme Court orders election for governor this year (WV)

[The Straight Story]

Supreme Court orders election for governor this year

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia will hold a special election for governor by Nov. 15, or within one year of when state Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin began acting as chief executive, according to a ruling Tuesday by the state Supreme Court in the resulting legal dispute.


Tomblin had concluded that the West Virginia Constitution and state law did not set the next vote for the governor's office until 2012. Tuesday's ruling sides with the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and lawyer Thornton Cooper, who challenged Tomblin's stance.


Each cited how then-Gov. Joe Manchin had more than two years left in his term when he joined the U.S. Senate in November. Manchin had won a special election prompted by the death last year of Sen. Robert C. Byrd.


The constitution has the Senate president act as governor when that office becomes vacant. It calls for a "new'' election for governor when at least a year remains in the vacated four-year term.

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201101180902

[doc03]

1. There goes another Democrat n/t