LEGAL: West Virginian Challenges Ban On Recording Legislative Debate

Senate President Craig Blair
Senate President Craig Blair

CHARLESTON, W. Va. (CN) – The debate over abortion access in West Virginia has spawned a civil suit on the public’s ability to record lawmakers discussing it.

Senate Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, is named as the lead defendant in free-speech lawsuit filed by Tiffani Morgan Walton.  In her suit filed Monday afternoon in Charleston federal court, Walton, 28, of Frankford in Greenbrier County, alleges Blair, along with West Virginia Capitol Police officers not only violated her First Amendment rights, but also the state open-meetings law when they stopped her from recording debate on a bill to ban abortions, then escorting her out of the Senate gallery.

Read more at West Virginia Mountain State News