State of W.Va. ex rel. Biafore v. Earl Ray Tomblin

J anu ary22,201 6 W.Va. Code § 3-10-5 (2013) (emphasis added). While the Court need not consider the legislative history of this unambiguous statute,1 such history makes clear that the statute accommodates, and specifically contemplates, the issue presented. When West Virginia Code § 3-10-5 was enacted in 1863, and for the following sixty years, there was no reference to political party affiliation because any vacancy in the state senate that occurred during that period was filled through a “writ of election.”2 In 1925, the statute, then codified as West Virginia Code Chapter 4, §7, was…