“The President cannot decide major economic and political questions, or significantly alter the balance of power between the states and federal government, without clear authorization from Congress.”

Those are the words of then-West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey back in 2021, when he was rightly continuing his fight against the illegal federal efforts and executive overreach of the Clean Power Plan. He was able to make his point because he understood then, “Thankfully, our Constitution stands in the way of (then-President Joe) Biden unilaterally pushing the country down this terrible path.”

Morrisey earned his reputation because he understood the damage done when an overzealous executive ignores the will of the people’s elected representatives.

Now he seems all too willing to engage in his own executive overreach and ignore the will of lawmakers who voted down a change to state law during this year’s regular legislative session.

Instead, the law on the books in West Virginia continues to require children attending public or private school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a MEDICAL exemption (from a real doctor) can be shown. Period.

Morrisey, however, decided to significantly alter the balance of power between counties’ health departments and school districts and the executive branch of state government by issuing his own order that they must comply with his religious vaccine exemption.

Now the issue has become so confused that he has welcomed the federal overreach of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. That federal agency has chosen to take a page out of the playbook against which Morrisey fought so diligently, and threaten West Virginia with the loss of $1.37 billion in funding from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services if it doesn’t comply with orders.

Remember, of course, just as was the case with Obama, Biden and the Clean Power Plan, this is all a matter of Morrisey’s interpretation of state law. Imposing that interpretation on those whose elected representatives in the state House of Delegates have already spoken to the contrary on their behalf is executive overreach in exactly the same way.

Members of the state Board of Education understand that, for our county school districts’ (and our kids’) sake.

“This Board will continue to uphold its duties as outlined in the West Virginia Constitution and laws as established by the West Virginia Legislature,” the board said in a statement last week.

Should a majority of constituents convince their elected representatives in Charleston that it is the will of the people to change the law, that will be another discussion entirely. Next year.

For now, Morrisey knows better than to think calling in the help of federal agencies and unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will sway West Virginians and the state Supreme Court of Appeals.

If constituents ever do decide there is good reason for the law to be changed, they will let their state lawmakers know. WE will decide.