Montani Semper Liberi, Latin for “Mountaineers Are Always Free,” is West Virginia’s motto. To that motto, the Mountain State’s attorney general would like to add a coda: “Where woke policies and federal overreach go to die.” This is the stated aim of Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s thrice-elected Republican chief legal officer, soon to be entering his 10th year in office, as he revealed in a recent interview.
Morrisey has engaged in sustained litigation against the federal government, while jousting with the executive branch particularly over its embrace under the Obama and Biden administrations of ESG – Environmental, Social, and Governance – principles, and their efforts to codify and impose them by administrative fiat. In Morrisey’s view, efforts to institutionalize ESG – “the weapon of choice for the woke left to destroy the free market”– not only punish West Virginians but undermine America’s national interest and constitutional order.
