West Virginia House of Delegates Votes to Impeach Entire State Supreme Court

So a Republican judge goes overboard on office decorations and the Republicans collectively punish the Democrats who spent a fraction of the money on office decorations? That sounds fishy.

Well done West Virginia!! This is what needs to happen in at least 20 other states (and Im just talking about supreme courts). Congrats WV for having the smarts and foresight to elect leaders who actually can lead.

West Virginia has learned from President Trump and is draining the swamp. Let's hope the other 49 states take Trump's lead and do the same...

And you wonder why we elected Trump. Look at all this condescension. Maybe we'll do it again to watch you be condescending for four more years.

The art on the floor seems very nice and appropriate for a public office for a judge of the highest court.

Does this seem like a trial run for a conservative take over of the judiciary?

What is with these people, Rs or Ds, and expensive furniture? Don't they have decent furnishings at home?

Political office in these United States has all to often devolved to an Advance Token to Boardwalk. The notion of public service is a poor second to what many in office see primarily as a career, which means the interests of the people that elected them is subsumed by their own interests. Once in office the bulk of their energy is expended posturing for the next election.

Law making attorneys will again make a financial killing, at taxpayers expense,

One wonders whether Don Blankenship has a hand in this somehow.

Corruption in WV is commonplace. What is unusual here is that some politicians actually did something about it. That has never happened before. I wonder what is really going on. I doubt the people of WV care, since they are good slaves to the masters (note their love of Trump), so I wonder what is really going on. Believe me (I know, the start of a sentence that Trump would use) there are no ethical leaders in WV. There is a reason that WV is the poorest state in the union, always have been and always will be. Regardless of how much sympathy money is sent from the federal government, and the American tax payers.

So state Supreme Court Justices can be held to account. I wonder if that concept could be scaled up to the federal court. I would love to see the Republican Supreme Court Justices answer for their totally partisan, ideological and dishonest engineering of the law to benefit the religious right, the republican party and corporate special interests. The individuals who have hidden behind the law to engineer the takeover of the United States. When all is said and done I believe that Donald Trump, yes unhinged, venal, tweeting, lying Donald Trump, should receive The Presidential Medal of Freedom for helping to expose, unwittingly, the criminal takeover of our country by the Russians and the republican party. He can award it to himself before he is impeached and sent to prison.

Congratulations, this is a great start. Wake up, People of West Virginia. Voting for ANY GOP candidates is a vote to degrade and paralyze your extremely beautiful State. Stand up, and join the modern age. Seriously.

They should be ousted for non-savvy procurement habits. This is clearly nowhere near worth $32,000: http://www.bdtonline.com/news/couch-revealed-delegates-get-an-up-close-v...

There's no doubt that this is just what it looks like, a power grab by state Republicans, using the impeachment process to force the election of five Republicans to a court that was the lone institution in the state still dominated by Democrats. It's easy to sling around accusations like "corrupt" in West Virginia, but it's usually easy to find actual corruption when it's deserved. Spending too much on office renovations, or using your state-issued car as your everyday vehicle, are pretty far down on the list of things you can call "corruption". People forget that the last two Republican governors wrecked the state's formerly outstanding Workers' Compensation system by illegally cutting employer contribution taxes, and that one of them went to prison for corruption. It was a Democratic governor who ended the state's regressive food tax, recently reimposed after years of Republican mismanagement of the economy. Republicans who think the most rural state doesn't need clean air, water, arts, culture, or public broadcasting. It's ironic that the most egregious example of questionable spending and use of state assets by the court—among others borrowing a historic desk from out of storage to use in a home office, by an official whose job necessarily involves a lot of working from home—was a staunch Republican. Using your official powers to subvert the rule of law is the very definition of corruption, and that's what the Republicans in the House of Delegates did yesterday.

Wow! This indictment tells, unambiguously, that no one, however high in judiciary power, is immune to justice, and certainly not above the law. If this were applied to the current occupier of the Oval Office, he would have been fired a long time ago. Oh well, our system of checks and balances is flawed at best, but justice's arm is long and no scurrilous despot can escape unhinged for too long.

Nobody comes away from this little contretemps smelling much like roses.

That floor is beautiful, though. If that was a West Virginian artist who created it, WOW, what an amazing artisan.

I wonder if Loughry has one of those $25,000 super secret phone booths installed in his office like "former" HHS Secretary Tome Price? Impeach them all.

No surprise here. The country has been taken over by politicians, many have law degrees, who are nothing more than white collar criminals. It starts in the White House and slithers its way to a local police chief who looks at a video of a guy shooting a person who is walking away and claims it was a clear case of stand your ground; therefore, no crime. This will not end well.

Gee, it would be wonderful if we could apply the same standards to our elected officials in Congress and the White House as is being applied in West Virginia. $32,000 for a sofa. Remind you of anyone in the Trump Administration?

Holy smokes, look at that photo of the legislators! Have you ever seen a group of more disinterested men in your life?! Bench warmers, that's them!

Events like this are the reason that people who have never set foot in a state like West Virginia, or encountered anyone from there, develop negative opinions of the state and its people. Like everywhere else, there is good and bad, but when the bad grabs the headlines - corruption followed by opportunism to use the corruption as an excuse for a partisan power grab - negative opinions are formed about the entire state. Unfortunately a problem that all U.S. citizens face these days.

I hate to make this a personal thing, but I was traveling in WV over the 4th of July holiday, got a speeding ticket for going 72 in a 65 MPH zone, and when I called the following day to find out the fine, the magistrate said it was a $5 violation with $160 in court costs added. I asked where this was written somewhere so I could see it before I paid it; he said it was not, and that they could provide no documentation for this, but I was free to contest it (i.e., go back to court and waste another 200 + mile drive, paying an attorney). I Googled WV's DMV for any laws/statutes--nothing. Paid the ticket, called again, and they said to check with my home state (DC) for what I was required to pay, since had I not paid, they would have turned the ticket over to DC and DC would suspend my license (which is 100% clean, with no points). Among these types, you get the sense that you're in person of color in pre-civil rights Mississippi. At least I know now where my $165 is going--oh and right, I also know not to patronize WV businesses anymore...

Another utterly corrupt, shameless, and undemocratic show of power by republicans. VOTING and organizing others to vote is the only remedy to counter this ongoing destruction of our democracy.

Perhaps if their supreme court justices weren’t elected, there wouldn’t be the incentive toward corrupt practice. A judiciary should be independent.

As a former West Virginian, and now a resident of Alabama, I struggle to keep up with the blatant corruption in both states. It's overwhelming.

If spending taxpayer money like drunken sailors is an impeachable offense then the entire Trump Administration should be impeached.

We should follow this lead and impeach our US Supreme Court. They have attacked the fundamental bedrock of our society without concern for common good, common decency and common democracy. Money talks through the mouth of fanatic right wing despots. But no replacements may be named while there is an administration still led by fiends.

West Virginia, one of the most corrupt states in the nation. Supreme Court Justices are elected in West Virginia. It wasn't so long ago that a power company, that had a case pending before the court, gave a candidate over one million dollars for his campaign. He won. Guess how he voted on the case?

Nothing changes. Republicans challenge others for doing what they themselves do to gain political advantage. Democrats do the same. When do we Americans call for a change to this behavior?

The public demands it? What a joke. We got a guy as president who denigrated our last president for playing a round of golf, locally, once a week. What's our present so-called president doing? Flying to Mar-a-Largo or another of his clubs at our expense whenever he feels like it, which is pretty often. I'm sure the fine people of West Virginia, who went heavily for Trump, have no problem with that. None whatsoever. He's their guy! But, these justices have the nerve to have an inlaid floor put in? Oh, dear God, send them packing!!!! Actually, I'm tired of everyone who decides to live it up on the taxpayer's dime. But, at least in this case, looking at that inlaid floor, it may be that local craftsmen did the work. That would nice, especially since those coal jobs aren't coming back. And, I doubt the furnishings will leave with the chief justice. Maybe the old stuff was really cruddy. Still, a decent soft can be had for a tenth the price. Finally, I fail to understand why public servants set their own budgets for office renovations in WV. Don't you have any oversight? Or is that too much "government overreach." Of course, it's unlikely that extravagant office furnishings and use of a state car once in a while are the real issues here. Normally, I'd do some searches and get some local insight on the issue. But, you know what? It's WV, and, I'm sorry, I just don't care.

Can statehood be revoked? I think we should all agree that West Virginia had a good run, but now the time has come to fold the tent. Maybe Virginia is willing to take the territory back. Or possibly the land can be split between all the surrounding states--they could have good fun carving it up. Or, hey, we could even find a native Indian tribe willing to purchase the land back for six strands of Mardi Gras beads or maybe a slightly used set of water glasses. Whatever they think is fair. While we're rearranging the national map, there are about half a dozen more mountain west and plains states that could also benefit from a return to territory status, or from being combined into a single large state, or from repatriation to the native peoples. Even just stripping these underpopulated states of their US senators would be a big improvement on the current situation. And Texas. We could give Texas back to Mexico as a gesture of decency after the Trump times. That would be nice. Finally, until the GOP is the Party of Lincoln again, let's gather all the bible belt state Republican government officials holding elective office and give them to Russia and Putin. Maybe he could settle them all in a new gulag or three. He can tell them that 'gulag' is Russian for "Club Med." They'd buy it.

As a resident of Western Pa., which borders W. Va., I have often been amazed at the politics of this beautiful mountainous state. It is often racked by politicians doing dumb or illegal things. In recent years many of its governors have ended their reign in jail. So its history is full of skullduggery, but this current foolishness tops all previous folly. We all love your country roads but please don't do more harm to yourselves.

The Democrats were for impeachment if the process had ended before today … so that the posts would have been on the ballot this November. Instead, the GOP "slow walked" the process, and then went to "warp 3" speed once the election deadline passed.

From a reputable West Virginia radio news network: Brad McElhinny June 24, 2018 at 5:21PM CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Over just a few years, West Virginia’s court system built up a budget surplus of $29 million. Almost as quickly, while the Legislature was giving the Supreme Court the side eye, the court spent down the money to a few hundred thousand dollars. Now the state Legislative Auditor is trying to figure out how the money built up and what was the motivation for spending it down so quickly. The Supreme Court oversees the budget for West Virginia’s entire judicial system. “The Legislative Auditor is concerned with the Court’s accumulation of appropriated General Revenue Funds in the majority of the years reviewed, with particular regard to the fact that in five years they had re-appropriated funds that went from $1.4 million in 2007 to $29 million in 2012,” the Legislative Auditor concluded. “There is also concern over how these funds were subsequently spent down.” More spending should correlate to better results for citizens, the Legislative Auditor added. “A focus for an increase in the spending of tax dollars should be on increasing the outcomes for those operations of the Court that benefit the citizens of the State.”

Just a question: shouldn't these proceedings be held against each judge individually? Isn't it possible, and I certainly don't know all the details, that one or more of these judges might not be thrown out if they were able to present their case? Should the entire U.S. House of Representatives be impeached because of what Collins ( and lets face it he was not alone) did? And the others were complicit in not addressing his behavior. Hmm....isn't there someone else breaking the law Republicans are not addressing? How easy would that be....one or two screw up and everyone goes. I don't believe that is how democracy works.

The court here in WV is 3-2 hard conservative so the Republicans don't get much advantage from this. They should have impeached for the corrupt decisions made under conflicts of interest but choose to focus on the spending. Conservative groups like the Chamber of Commerce oppose blanket impeachment. This is not an attempt at court packing.

The states are the laboratories of democracy, the oft-cited saying goes, so watch for this coming soon to the national stage. The Republican party is growing increasingly shameless in its attempts to secure power by any means, whether consistent with awell-functioning democracy or not. Rough road ahead.