High Spending Mine Owner Leads to Calls for Reform:
The high spending political action of West Virginia’s Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Co., is leading to calls for campaign finance reform, according to the Wall Street Journal. Blankenship has spent $6 million over the past two years on “political advertising campaigns, battling Democratic judges and fighting high taxes.” He has helped unseat a State Supreme Court Justice and lower the state’s food tax. Public officials have attacked Blankenship for not spending enough money on worker safety protections at his mines – recently, “four workers have died at Massey-owned mines in West Virginia, two of them in a fire on Jan. 21.”