78 W. Va. 259 | W. Va. | 1916
This is the seeopd application which has been made tó this ■court, at the presént term, by relator S. P. Smith, as Chairman of the [Republican County Executive Committee of Ka-nawha County, for a writ of mandamus to compel Grant Co-penhaver, one of the members of the county court of said county, the third member being absent from the State, to act with M. P. Malcolm, another member of said court, and appoint, as registrars of the voters of said county, certain persons whose names were certified for such appointment by relator, acting under authority of such committee.
On the previous application the writ was denied for reasons set forth in the written opinion handed down on the 11th day of this month. On the facts, as they then appeared, relator did not show a clear legal right to the writ. A controversy between rival factions of said county executive committee then existed, involving purely political questions: first, as to whether relator was a properly constituted member and the chairman of such' committee; and second, whether the action of the committee was regular and lawful, in declaring vacant the place of S. A. Fogarty, who had been elected a member thereof in 1912, but who had thereafter moved to the state of Ohio and taken up his residence there, and filling such vacancy by appointing W. S. McAfee in his stead. Being of the opinion that these were questions which should be determined by the higher political tribunals of the republican party, we refused to grant the writ, because they had not been so determined. Since then the State Republican Executive Committee has met and settléd those questions in favor of the contention of relator, basing its decision on the customs and" usages of the republican party. After that decision was.
Writ ¡awarded.