CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With two lawsuits pending in two different counties involving whether Gov. Patrick Morrisey can use an executive order to allow for religious exemptions to West Virginia’s compulsory immunization law, state officials are seeking to consolidate the cases now that one of them has been appealed to the state’s highest court.

In an emergency motion filed Tuesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court, the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office – representing the state Department of Health – is asking Eighth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Bailey to transfer a case filed last week by the ACLU-WV and Mountain State Justice on behalf of two parents to Raleigh County.

Kanawha County parent Marisa Jackson and Dr. Joshua A. Hess, a parent and pediatric hematologist and oncologis

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