West Virginia legislature vacates lawmaker's seat after his arrest for terroristic threats
In one of the most chaotic developments in a state legislature in months, the West Virginia House of Delegates has vacated a seat of a newly-elected Republican state legislator — and due to a bizarre series of events, Democrats may get to appoint his replacement, despite the seat being in a county that gave two-thirds of its vote to Trump.
Delegate-elect Joseph De Soto, who ran unopposed last year after winning the GOP primary for House District 91, stumbled into an explosive and snowballing controversy even before he was elected. DragLine, a local nonprofit journalism outfit affiliated with the West Virginia ACLU, published a bombshell series of allegations, including that De Soto was not licensed to practice medicine despite claiming to be a doctor on his campaign site, and that while he served in the military, the timeline of his service doesn't line up with some of the roles he claimed to have served.
Then, in December, multiple Republican state delegates questioned him behind closed doors about the truthfulness of his claimed military service and medical practice — which, according to West Virginia Watch, then allegedly led to an enraged De Soto making terroristic threats against GOP lawmakers Wayne Clark and Mike Hornby, and his subsequent arrest.
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"When Republican House members gathered in closed-doors meetings to renominate the current House speaker to remain in the position, several people said that the meeting was mainly used to question de Soto about his background and whether that should result in a possible disqualification to serve in the House. Armed Capitol police officers guarded the doors during the private meeting," said the report at the time. "According to a criminal complaint, de Soto said that Sunday’s meeting had upset him. The complaint said that an email sent by de Soto on Dec. 10 said, 'They play stupid games, they are getting stupid awards … I have only begun … and won’t stop. I had a vision to destroy them from the angel of Moroni.'"
This week, the West Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution formally declaring De Soto's seat vacant, due to his failure to take the oath of office.
In one of the strangest twists in the saga, De Soto formally defected to the Democratic Party in December, after being elected as a Republican. Under West Virginia's procedures for filling a legislative vacancy, the Berkeley County Democratic Party may now get to nominate someone to serve out De Soto's term, even though Democrats didn't even run a candidate in this heavily Trump-supporting area last year.
Democratic officials have already pledged to carry out the process.