Ethics Official: No Likely Violations in W.Va. Secretary of State Mac Warner’s Staffer Editing Warner’s Wife’s Candidacy Announcement

CHARLESTON -- Mike Queen, deputy chief of staff to West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, likely did not violate any state ethics laws by editing a press release on behalf of Debbie Warner, the wife of Secretary Warner, to announce her candidacy for the House of Delegates.

That's the opinion of Kimberly Weber, executive director of the West Virginia Ethics Commission. Weber said Queen, as a will-and-pleasure employee of the Secretary of State's office, is allowed to campaign for candidates on his private time as long as he was not being paid by the campaign or coerced by a boss.

"Generally, the Ethics Act does not prohibit a public employee from doing whatever they want, including campaigning on their private time," she said. "... I don't think this would be a problem under the Ethics Act based on what I know so far."

Queen, who took Tuesday off work, forwarded an email from his personal email account announcing Debbie Warner's intent to run for public office to a select group of supporters and members of the media Tuesday shortly after noon.

Debbie Warner filed to run for the West Virginia House of Delegates Tuesday at the Secretary of State's Clarksburg office. She is running in the new 82nd District in Monongalia County as a Republican. The Warners have been married for 39 years.

Speaking by phone Tuesday, Queen admitted to editing the press release announcement for Debbie and Mac Warner before the release was slated to go out later Tuesday following Debbie's filing. Queen said he forwarded a preview of the release earlier Tuesday.

"Debbie and Mac Warner have obviously been friends of mine for years," Queen said. "Over the weekend, Debbie and Mac worked on a press release. They asked me if I'd take a look at it just for grammar purposes and so I did."

"I looked at it, I sent it back to Debbie ... so that she could make her own copies of it," Queen continued. "It was on my personal time, my personal email, and I did send it to a few friends in the media to give them a heads up that Debbie was going to be a candidate."

Queen has been with the Secretary of State's Office since 2017.

Despite working in the Secretary of State's Office and his boss being the spouse of a candidate whose press release he helped edit, Queen said he didn't see an issue with being involved on his own time and using no public resources.

"I have friends ask me all the time to look at documents as a personal favor to people," Queen said. "I am off (Tuesday). I did not do anything on state time. I edited a document that was a press release and it was relating to her candidacy for an office. Had I thought that it was anything, I certainly would not have done it. In my mind, all I did was take my own time and help a friend on my own time."