I don’t intend to waste a lot of time or space on delegates Joe Jefferies, R-Putnam, who is not a worthy subject for comment, but I’ll say Jefferies is not the problem. It’s a symptom of the problem. It is a symptom of an ongoing decline in government policy.
Not so long ago rude, vulgar, immature, intellectually uninterested extremists like Jefferies and Delegates Derrick Evans, R-Wayne and Eric Porterfield, R-Mercer, would not have been elected to the legislature.
Even if they survived the Republican primary, the general election once acted as a moderating influence, making extremists from both parties unlikely to win in November.
However, in recent election cycles this gatekeeping effect has not worked, which has allowed Jefferies, Evans and Porterfield to win. The legislature has become a rougher, more vulgar, intolerant, less demanding, less enlightened institution in recent years.
(This has evolved over the past few years if we remember today’s Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, trudged out of a session of the House Congressional Committee a few sessions ago with a goodbye message to the House of “F — you.”)
I suspect the phenomenon was due in part to the exodus of more educated, progressive young people from the state, causing the rest of the electorate to move further to the right.
The legislature is a reflection of the voters who put lawmakers into office.
(Granted, back then, occasionally Randy Schoonover sneaking into office, a legislature who barely graduated from high school but stood up to a challenge from a Harvard Law School graduate with a “He’s Not One of Us” campaign. However, in the recent election, our legislature was flooded with a slew of Randy Schoonovers.)
Hopefully the 2020 election will prove to be an anomaly as dozens of West Virginians are fooled into voting by social media and right-wing cable news Donald Trump in the presidential election and then for everyone with an “R” after their name.
Perhaps the fact that Trump was at the head of the party has also temporarily encouraged some lawmakers to be rougher, more vulgar, immature, and intolerant than they normally would be.
As someone who has overseen the legislature and respected the institution for more than three decades, it has been painful to watch the standards of courtesy and propriety erode in recent years.
My biggest concern is that after the 2022 election cycle we will look back on today as a period of comparative education under the control of the GOP and that we will be relatively moderate Republicans like speakers. will see Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay and Chairman of the Senate Justice Department Charlie Trump, R-Morgan, removed from their leadership positions in the House and Senate, will be replaced by extremist ideologues.
If things don’t improve, it’s not just Jefferies, Evans, Porterfield, Robert Karnes and Brandon Steele If they win the legislature election, they will most likely rise to leadership positions.
While it is commendable that Hanshaw disciplined Jefferies, even in the most humble of terms, it also reminds us of how reluctant Hanshaw has been in the past to take similar disciplinary action in cases of racist acts outside the House of Representatives and homophobic comments from members. It seems that it took sexually explicit material to finally push Hansshaw over the border.
I hate to say I told you, but legislators and Gov. Jim justice, I told you.
Last week, CNBC released the 2021 edition of its Americas Top States for Business annual report. (In this case every six months, as there was no report for 2020.)
How is West Virginia doing after six and a half years of supposedly pro-business Republican control?
The state fell from 45th place in 2019 to 47th place this year, ahead of Maine, Alaska and Hawaii. (As the report notes, the latter states are constantly hampered by extremely high cost of living because of their remote locations.)
West Virginia fell from 6th to 21st in business expenses, 33rd to 35th in business, 42nd to 45th in education, and 35th to 41st in infrastructure – despite Justice with its $ 1.6 billion Roads to Prosperity Road Bond program has tied the hands of future generations, liability for the next 30 years for any significant road construction work.
The state continues to receive an “F” for workers and ranks 44th in 2019 and 2021.
West Virginia improved from 21st to 15th place in the cost of living.
CNBC’s summary: “West Virginia has low costs, but poor education and lack of innovation leave it in a deep hole … West Virginia ranks low on technology and innovation, access to capital, business friendliness and education.”
And which state was rated as the best state for companies? That would be our neighbor and my birthplace Virginia.
CNBC said, “A strong workforce and a solid education system have made Virginia its second straight win in CNBC’s state competitive rankings.”
Virginia employers reap the benefits of having one of the most educated workforces in the country – nearly 39% of workers have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the US Census Bureau. Virginia also has the third highest concentration of employees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The CNBC report also praised Virginia’s pro-business efforts to promote inclusion: “This year alone, the state passed laws requiring all agencies to develop diversity, equity and inclusion plans within their ranks. And in April, Virginia bucked the trend among many other southern states with a package of laws to extend voting rights, repeal voter ID laws, and make Election Day a national holiday.
“In 2020 [Gov. Ralph] Northam Signed the Virginia Values Act, which expands anti-discrimination laws to make Virginia the first state in the south to fully protect LGBTQ residents.
Can we all agree that lowering corporate taxes and passing a number of anti-union laws have not made West Virginia a great place to be for business?
If Virginia is the example of how to be a business friendly state, West Virginia is doing almost everything completely wrong.
While Virginia invests in education, West Virginia has been defusing education – including the passage of this session of the largest single law defining public education in the state’s history in the form of Hope Scholarships – and the state has been systematically defusing higher education for years.
Virginia has a well-educated, well-educated workforce. West Virginia ranks last in the country for the percentage of employees with college degrees and has one of the lowest labor force participation rates in the United States
Virginia has taken steps to become a more welcoming, inclusive state. Companies and their employees find this attractive. The West Virginia legislature and judiciary have gone out of their way to make it clear that unless you are a white, conservative Christian heterosexual, your kind is not welcome here, an attitude that responsible businesses and employees find repulsive.
(Oh, and while Virginia’s income tax rates of 2% to 5.75% are technically lower than West Virginia’s 3% to 6.5%, the highest tax bracket starts at $ 17,001, making virtually everyone in Virginia the highest Tax class pays.)
And it doesn’t help to hold on to the delusion that West Virginia is on a “rocket ship” and is kind of the envy of the nation.
The legislature should spend intermediate legislative sessions doing an open and independent analysis of what is wrong with the state’s business climate and what corrective action can be taken.
However, our legislative leaders, and certainly our governor, don’t seem to want to know the truth. You can’t handle the truth.
When we finally spoke of Justice’s aversion to the truth, we caught Big Jim last week with an obvious invention. He had said at his COVID-19 briefing on July 8th that he had driven from Fairmont to Clendenin the day before to give away luxury pickups. In fact, King Air’s flight logs show that he flew from Clarksburg to Charleston.
The logs also cleared up a mysterious flight from Lewisburg to Morgantown and back on the evening of June 22nd for which no official business purpose was given.
We now know that the passenger list for that flight included Justice, First Lady Cathy Justice and former senior advisor Bray Cary.
Two days after that flight, members of the Senate Confirmation Committee received news of Cary’s appointment to the Board of Governors of West Virginia University.
In the meantime, Justice continued to use the state plane for his shameless self-promotion on Wednesday and personally presented the prizes for vaccination incentive competitions.
King Air flew to Clarksburg so Justice could hand over a check for $ 1 million Timothy Jackson from Bridgeport.
After that, the plane didn’t fly to Charleston, but to Lewisburg to drop Justice off at his cute home.
As mentioned last week, you have to hand it over to Big Jim because he has the chutzpah not even to bother pretending to be up against his court settlement in which he agreed to abide by the constitutional requirements of the State in which the governor must reside Charleston.