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Justice in West Virginia?
Business groups target State Supreme Court

Imagine waking up and finding out that Forbes magazine (July 21, 2003) has featured you as a “target” in a “secret election campaign war on judges” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This is exactly what happened to West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw from Wyoming County.

According to the article, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent $100 million since 2000 and will spend $50 million or more this year.

“The prime objective: to vote out judges supported by trial lawyers, labor unions and the Democratic Party and install new judges sympathetic to insurance companies, multinational corporations and the Republican Party. The chamber also is taking aim at state attorneys general, trial lawyers and state legislators,” the magazine wrote.

Justice McGraw was endorsed by the W.Va. State UAWCAP Council in 1998 and has been endorsed again in 2004. He was successful in the primary election held on May 11 despite repeated untruthful attacks by the State Chamber of Commerce, American Medical Association and the insurance industry.

These groups claim that the Supreme Court is the cause of doctors leaving the state even though the number of doctors licensed and living in W.Va. actually increased 9.6 percent from 1998 to 2002.
The insurance industry claims that court decisions have adversely affected the rates paid by those insured in W.Va. is another blatant lie. The Insurance Institute reports that average consumer expenditures for auto insurance went up only .04 percent in W.Va. from 1997 to 2001, while the national average increased 1.75 percent.

Justice McGraw has the full backing of organized labor in W.Va., which sees this election as the most important race in the state this year — one that pits working families against big business.