CHARLESTON — With 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 oncologist practicing at Marshall Health’s Cabell Huntington Hospital, filed a second lawsuit Friday seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction to halt the department from granting any more religious exemptions through a January executive order from Morrisey. Their first lawsuit was dismissed last month for technical reasons.

The Attorney General’s Office is seeking to combine the Kanawha County case with a case filed by three Raleigh County parents in June. Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Judge Michael Froble granted a preliminary injunction last month for parents Miranda Guzman, Amanda Tulley and Carley Hunter seeking to prevent the Raleigh County Board of Education and the West Virginia Board of Education from enforcing the state’s compulsory immunization law.

State Code 16-3-1 requires children attending school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a medical exemption can be shown. The lawsuits are in response to a Jan. 14 executive order issued by Morrisey citing the 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act to allow for religious and conscientious objections to the state’s school vaccination mandates.

Froble had set a hearing for a permanent injunction against the state board and the Raleigh County board beginning Sept. 10. But the state board filed an appeal last Friday to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals seeking to overturn the preliminary injunction. The state board also filed a motion in Raleigh County Circuit Court seeking a stay of further proceedings while the Supreme Court appeal is pending.

The preliminary injunction granted by Froble only allows the Raleigh County parents that are party to the lawsuit to continue to enroll their unvaccinated children in Raleigh County Schools for the school year beginning in August. The ruling does not apply to all 55 counties.

The state Board of Education voted unanimously on June 11 for a motion requiring State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt to issue guidance to county school systems that they follow the compulsory school vaccination law that does not permit religious exemptions for students, ignoring Morrisey’s executive order.

An effort to codify Morrisey’s executive order failed earlier this year when the West Virginia House of Delegates voted down a heavily amended Senate Bill 460, which would have allowed for a religious vaccine exemption for public schools while letting private and parochial schools to set their own vaccine requirements. With the failure of that bill, Morrisey issued additional guidance to the Department of Health on implementing his executive order.