Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (left) and Doug Reynolds, the Democratic candidate for the office, debate on the south steps of the West Virginia Capitol on Wednesday.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s attorney general candidates, Patrick Morrisey and Doug Reynolds, met for a disorganized and impromptu debate on the steps of the West Virginia Capitol Wednesday afternoon.
As a jeering crowd of several dozen people looked on, the two candidates took turns in the unmoderated debate, rehashing the attack ads that each campaign has been running for the past month.
The debate, which featured sign-wielding supporters of both candidates, came together after Morrisey sent out a message over Twitter that said he was challenging Reynolds to a debate at “high noon.”
As the unwieldy event started, Morrisey, the Republican incumbent, attacked Reynolds for not practicing law in recent years and for running ads about Morrisey’s wife having a home in Virginia.
Morrisey tried to paint Reynolds as part of the more liberal national Democratic Party because, in 2007, Reynolds gave $2,300 to now-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton while she was running against Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary.
“We’ve gone after the good ole’ boy network that Doug Reynolds represents,” Morrisey said, stealing a line that has been used by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Cole. “Let me tell you this: Doug Reynolds represents a return to the past.”
Reynolds, a wealthy Huntington businessman and state lawmaker, attacked Morrisey by saying his office has not been tough enough on opioid addiction in the state and for Morrisey and his wife making money as lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry before and during his tenure as attorney general.
Reynolds also criticized Morrisey’s office for settling lawsuits with prescription drug wholesalers that were sued by then-Attorney General Darrell McGraw for shipping millions of opioid pain pills into the state.
Morrisey responded by saying those settlements were recommended by state agencies, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and the attorneys on the case, and that Reynolds wouldn’t have been able to do anything different.
Jessica Tice, Tomblin’s communications director, said discussions about legal strategy between the attorney general and the governor are “privileged and not subject to public disclosure.”
Reynolds said he is the only candidate who has not received any money from the pharmaceutical industry — a comment meant to play on campaign finance records that show Morrisey has received tens of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies and lawyers who have represented those companies in lawsuits.
The candidates’ campaign financing was a big point of contention, both during the debate and in interviews afterward. The race to become West Virginia’s top attorney might become the most expensive political race in the state this year.
Reynolds complained about his opponent benefiting from millions of dollars in attack ads from the Republican Attorneys General Association. Morrisey criticized Reynolds for inheriting his wealth and spending millions of dollars of his own money to get elected.
Campaign finance records show that Reynolds has paid for nearly all of the $2 million that his campaign has raised as of September. He is the owner of the Huntington newspaper and president of Energy Services of America.
Morrisey has raised a little more than $1 million for his own campaign, but has been boosted by nearly $4 million from RAGA, a national group that federal records show gets money from the pharmaceutical industry, coal companies and some of the best known Republican donors, like Charles and David Koch.
During the debate, Reynolds pointed out a person in the crowd who was working for RAGA and was filming the debate. The person waved in response.
Asked about RAGA’s spending on his behalf, Morrisey said: “It’s because Doug Reynolds is on pace to spend 5-, 6-, 7-million dollars of his own money, and people know there has to be a way to combat the lies.”
The scene on the Capitol steps Wednesday was chaotic at times, with the candidates rambling on for long periods of time and members of the crowd getting frustrated that only members of the news media were given a microphone to ask questions.
Like most debates in West Virginia, the topic of coal mining played large. Morrisey tried to make the argument that Reynolds would not have challenged the Clean Power Plan, the pending federal regulations that are meant to curb carbon emissions from power plants.
Reynolds reiterated that he would continue to litigate against those regulations, which President Obama’s administration has said is the first step in combating global warming.
“Coal runs deep in my veins, and I am an avid defender of our coal industry,” Reynolds said at one point.
When asked if either candidate is concerned about the effects of global warming, Morrisey said those types of questions “divert attention from the matter at hand.”
Reynolds started out by saying that the body of evidence — which now includes 15 of the 16 hottest years on record occurring since 2001 — shows that climate change is a serious concern.
But he went on to suggest that burning coal isn’t contributing to rising global temperatures, even though carbon emissions from power plants make up one of the largest sources of heat-trapping gases nationally and worldwide.
“There is a lot of evidence that there is climate change,” Reynolds said. “The question is, if we all stopped mining coal, would it change that? Absolutely not.”
At another point, Morrisey attacked Reynolds for voting for a bill that would have put tighter ethics restraints on the Attorney General’s Office, something Morrisey said would have prevented him from challenging federal laws and regulations.
The law, which partly stemmed from Morrisey’s announced recusal in a case against drug shipper Cardinal Health, would have meant that the state’s attorney general — no matter who that is — wouldn’t be able to file certain lawsuits without support from the governor or Legislature.
The only way the bill would have prohibited Morrisey from filing lawsuits over federal air pollution regulations, Reynolds said, was if West Virginia’s other elected officials, who almost unanimously support anything that is pro coal, would have disapproved of such litigation.
During his time in office, Morrisey has joined numerous lawsuits that have fought to block federal immigration, regulations on water pollution in small streams and members of the transgender community from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity — something Morrisey said affected “West Virginians and their values.”
“We should all be pulling together on these suits,” Reynolds said. “Not having our own independent whims when we file suits on behalf of the state.”
Reach Andrew Brown at [email protected], 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.
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