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Did Hanshaw Violate Ethics in Representing Developer? · Commentary - TJ Meadows

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  Speaker 1: Did House Speaker Roger Hanshaw violate ethics in representing a
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  Speaker 1: data center developer in a word no Late last week,
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  Speaker 1: news surface that Hanshaw's representing the developer behind a controversial
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  Speaker 1: data center project in Tucker County. It's a fair story,
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  Speaker 1: and reporter Dan Parks laid it out well both in
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  Speaker 1: print and when he joined us on talk line. Monday, Hanshaw,
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  Speaker 1: an attorney with the Charleston law firm Bolls Rice, notified
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  Speaker 1: the West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals that he and
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  Speaker 1: two colleagues represent Fundamental Data, a company seeking to build
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  Speaker 1: a power plant to supply electricity to a data center complex.
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  Speaker 1: That filing came just two days after the legislative session ended.
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  Speaker 1: Now Critics say Hanshaw shouldn't represent the developer because he
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  Speaker 1: helped pass legislation last year that deregulated data centers in
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  Speaker 1: West Virginia. But step back and consider the broader context.
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  Speaker 1: West Virginia has a citizen legislature. Lawmakers are here part time,
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  Speaker 1: their teachers, lawyers, doctors, and business owners who come to
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  Speaker 1: Charleston for sixty days, pass laws and then return to
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  Speaker 1: their professions. Hanshaw is no different. The speaker earned just
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  Speaker 1: under forty nine thousand dollars from the state last year,
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  Speaker 1: hardly enough to give up a private career, and this
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  Speaker 1: kind of overlap happens all the time. Teachers vote on
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  Speaker 1: education bills, doctors vote on healthcare policy, energy professionals vote
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  Speaker 1: on energy issues. To deal with that reality, the House
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  Speaker 1: created Rule forty nine, which allows members to disclose potential
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  Speaker 1: conflicts and ask whether they should vote. It's a transparency
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  Speaker 1: mechanism designed specifically for US citizen legislature. Hanshaw also made
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  Speaker 1: the appropriate disclosure in court filings public records anyone can
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  Speaker 1: see at any time. Are the optics perfect, Maybe not,
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  Speaker 1: but opponents of the Tucker County project are understandably raising
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  Speaker 1: every argument they can to stop. It's politics and all
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  Speaker 1: is fair in politics. Calling it an ethics violation, though,
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  Speaker 1: feels more like casting the first stone than identifying a
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  Speaker 1: real infraction. If critics truly want to eliminate these situations,
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  Speaker 1: there's only one real solution. Create a full time legislature
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  Speaker 1: and prohibit outside employment or dramatically increase lawmaker's salaries. Neither
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  Speaker 1: idea has much appetite in West Virginia and in the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Scheme of issues facing the state. This one probably
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  Speaker 1: ranks pretty low on the list.