In the wake of the OxyContin settlement, Attorney General Darrell McGraw has given various and inconsistent reasons as for why he chose to keep $10 million in state settlement funds for himself and his personal injury lawyer friends, instead of sharing the funds with the named plaintiff state agencies on whose behalf McGraw filed suit.

McGraw’s numerous stories include the following:

1. Chief Deputy Attorney General Fran Hughes has said that the settlement was
intentionally structured so as to allow West Virginia to keep as much of the money as possible. In a 2007 finance committee hearing, Hughes told legislators, “We have arranged a methodology that has prevented the federal government from coming back and seizing the money,” West Virginia Record, August 17, 2007.

2. One year later, Attorney General Darrell McGraw appeared to change his office’s tune somewhat. During a January 2008 Senate Finance Committee Hearing, McGraw told legislators that his office reached a last-minute “courthouse steps settlement” on the very day the OxyContin case was set to go to trial. McGraw went on to testify that his office basically had no choice but to take the settlement as it was being offered by the Judge and defendants in the case.

McGraw’s statement seems completely inconsistent with Fran Hughes’ previous statement to legislators that the Attorney General’s office specifically structured the settlement to avoid any payments to the Federal government.

3. In an appeal of the Federal government’s decision to withhold more than $4.1 million in state Medicaid funds as a result of McGraw’s actions in the OxyContin case, the Attorney General’s office has argued that they had “abandoned the causes of action” in which the plaintiff state agencies were entitled to participate.

This statement is also inconsistent with McGraw’s testimony that the plaintiff state agencies were never dismissed from the OxyContin lawsuit.

4. In McGraw’s latest appearance before the House Finance Committee, the Attorney General went so far as to testify that his office wasn’t representing the plaintiff state agencies at all! That statement flies in the face of court documents filed in the case, which show that Attorney General McGraw and his appointed counsel were the only lawyers representing the plaintiff state agencies.

Clearly, the Attorney General’s office is having trouble keeping its’ stories straight.

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Click here to listen to Fran Hughes’ testimony before the House Finance Committee

Click here to listen to Attorney General McGraw’s testimony before the Senate Finance Committee

Click here to listen to Attorney General McGraw’s testimony before the House Finance Committe

For those who don’t think a state’s business climate matters, just look to the Northern Panhandle where a long-time West Virginia business is willing to move across the river for lower business expenses. News out of Wheeling is that Huffner Contracting, which has been headquartered in West Virginia for more than 40 years, is moving across the Ohio River for a better deal. One of the reasons cited for the move is a “huge reduction in business operating expenses in the state of Ohio.”

Can you blame Huffner Contracting? West Virginia ranks as the worst state in the nation in which to do business. Until our Legislature enacts much needed reforms, including civil justice and tax reforms, West Virginia will continue to lose jobs to our neigbhor states. If a company located in West Virginia for decades is willing to move just across the border for a better business climate, imagine the deterring effect our state’s broken business and legal climates have on employers looking to bring good-paying jobs to a state.

Click here to read more on Huffner’s decision to relocate.

In the face of much criticism, Governor Manchin has temporarily yanked his proposed changes to West Virginia’s Promise Scholarship. Several critics attacked the Governor’s proposal to force Promise scholars to either stay and work in West Virginia after their graduation from college, or pay back their Promise scholarship to the State. Many current Promise scholars also questioned the proposal, noting that it is still quite difficult to find good-paying jobs in West Virginia. Perhaps Governor Manchin will take this as yet another indication that more work must be done before our state is truly “Open for Business.”

Click here to read more on the Governor’s decision.