A Democrat candidate/activist was hustled out of the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday after she began calling out state lawmakers who’d received donations from oil and gas companies.
Lissa Lucas, who is running for a state House seat in West Virginia’s District 7, was at a public hearing opposing a proposed bill that would give oil and gas companies the right to drill on private land when her testimony ventured off course.
But that was predictable.
“I have to keep this short, because the public only gets a minute and 45 seconds while lobbyists can throw a gala at the Marriott with whiskey and wine and talk for hours to the delegates,” Lucas said as she began speaking.
She began reading the names of state lawmakers she claimed were being “paid by the industry” to vote for the bill.
“Miss Lucas, we ask no personal comments be made,” said Republican Delegate John Shott, who was overseeing the hearing, according to The Intercept.
“This is not personal comments,” Lucas replied.
“It is a personal comment and I’m gonna call you out of order if you talk about individuals on the committee,” Shott countered. “So if you would just address the bill. If not, I’ll ask you to please step down.”
Making her own determination of the rules, Lucas proceeded to continue naming lawmakers and Shott was heard telling security to remove her.
Two men quickly arrived at the podium and, with a firm nudge, escorted the candidate out of the chamber.
Lucas later said she agreed with the rule, but didn’t feel her actions constituted a personal attack.
“They said, No personal attacks. Which is a sensible rule to me — you don’t want someone going up there and calling people names,” she told The Intercept.
“I think Delegate Shott made a bad call,” she said noting the publicly available campaign finance data was “not something secret that I came up with.”
“He brought so much more attention to it by having me thrown out than he could have if he had read off the list of donors himself,” she said.
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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