Despite having 10 full-time attorneys on staff, the Senate paid Flaherty, Senasbaugh & Bonasso $20,667.50 to draft a friend of the court brief for Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, in the state Supreme Court hearing over the vacancy created when Sen. Daniel Hall, D-then-R-then-NRA, resigned in January.
Not clear why it took the law firm so long to file the invoice from a case heard back on Jan. 19, except that it goes into great detail for each billable hour (and portions of hours). Examples:
n Reading the petition from the state Democratic Party seeking writ requiring that a Democrat fill Hall's vacancy, took 7/10ths of an hour, costing $157.50.
n Analyzing W.Va. Code 3-10-5 took another 7/10ths of an hour, costing another $157.50. (3-10-5, filling vacancies in the state Legislature, is three paragraphs long.)
n Analyzing the legislative history of 3-10-5, and analyzing other provisions of the state Code regarding vacancies in office took a total of 3.5 hours, for $787.50.
n Reading the scheduling order from the Supreme Court, 2/10ths of an hour, $60. (In other words, it took 12 minutes to read the four-paragraph, 173-word document, or about 35 cents a word. For reference, studies show the average adult reads 300 words a minute.)
n Legal research RE: "will of the voters" issue, 2.8 hours, $630; drafting portion of amicus brief RE: "will of the voters" issue, 2.7 hours, $607.50. (In other words, $1,237 for four paragraphs basically declaring that the will of the voters is irrelevant.)
n Three entries simply stating, "Working on amicus brief," totaling 15.2 hours, for $5,190.
n Telephone call with Richie Heath (counsel to President Cole) regarding outline of arguments, half-hour, $112.50; preparing email to Heath RE: issuance of rule to show cause, 12 minutes, $60; taking telephone call from Heath, six minutes, $30; reading order granting stay and forwarding same to Heath, 18 minutes, $90; reading Supreme Court opinion and sending email to Heath, 36 minutes, $180.
n Attending (but not participating in) oral arguments, 1.5 hours, $450.
Granted, most of the full-time Senate attorneys are assigned to committees, and were busy drafting legislation at the time, but couldn't Heath ($98,000 salary) and/or Donnie Adkins, counsel to the majority leader ($85,000 salary), have saved the taxpayers 20-large by drafting the amicus brief themselves?
Likewise, the Senate could have saved the state $20,000 by opting not to file an amicus brief at all, and agreeing to abide by the judgment of the Court.
In Cole's case, however, the brief arguably was worth its weight in gold, to any extent it influenced the Court's decision that Hall's vacancy should be filled with a Republican, assuring the 18-16 Republican majority that became the margin in the Senate to ram through such divisive issues including right-to-work and prevailing wage repeal.
nnn
Speaking of Cole, it is perhaps unprecedented that the Republican Governors Association PAC has spent more than $500,000 to date to run pro-Cole ads, particularly considering Cole is running unopposed in the Republican primary.
Meanwhile, a poll put out last week by the gray money group Americans For Integrity in Government Officers, which is running anti-Jim Justice spots apparently in advocacy of Booth Goodwin, shows Goodwin running ahead of Cole head-to-head. (Several statewide polls have Justice ahead of Cole.)
I'm generally dismissive of early polls, particularly from candidates or PACs, but the onslaught of RGA ads suggest the party is also seeing polling numbers that aren't favorable to Cole. After a terrible regular session, and with the lack of leadership in addressing the ongoing budget impasse, the RGA may well have determined Cole's image is in need of $500,000-plus of rehabilitation.
nnn
Couple of quick observations:
One of the arguments made by opponents of raising the tobacco tax to help balance the budget is that a large percentage of smokers are low-income, and a tax increase on cigarettes would hit them disproportionately.
Of course, that ignores the fact that smokers are literally burning up somewhere between $2,000 to $4,000 or more each year, raising the question, are they low-income because they waste so much of their money?
A recent WalletHub study found that the average lifetime cost of being a smoker in West Virginia is $1.25 million. About $91,000 of that is total cost for cigarette purchases, with increased health care costs and lost work hours totaling about $300,000 over a lifetime.
The biggest cost - $856,000 per smoker - was for Financial Opportunity Cost, essentially, a calculation of how much money each smoker would earn over a lifetime if the money spent on cigs had been invested in the stock market.
Thus, one could argue smokers have chosen to pass up the opportunity to be millionaires.
Meanwhile, whimsy sometimes works in political ads, and sometimes it doesn't. Consensus is it works in the Bill Wooton "grandchildren" spots; not so much with the Goodwin "birthmark" ad, which suggests Goodwin's affection for the state is manifest in a skin condition.
(I was born with a birthmark, but we'll never know if it was in the shape of the state, since in those days, they used radium to erase such flaws.)
nnn
Finally, many candidates probably assume nobody bothers to read the "issues" link on their campaign websites. Which may explain why no one copy edited Mark Hunt's Congressional campaign site, which includes such gems as:
"Prior to sending our men and women of the armed forces into a conflict or war torn area, we must ensure that the security of our nation is vulnerable."
And, "The ever growing income equality in today's workforce is deeply concerning."
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.