Local Columns

Reporter’s Notebook: Republican Street Fight

Last week, I noted how shocked I was by the sheer amount of spending by political action committees and independent expenditure committees in statehouse races for this primary period. As I reported last week, just five groups had spent more than $1.6 million in a 30-day period between March and April 22. Well, a mere one week later and those same five groups have spent more than $2.6 million. So, in the span of a week, these groups increased their spending by $953,709 – nearly $1 million in just seven days. The five groups in this total include Americans for Prosperity, Sugar ...

Seeing Green

If you read my weekend story about the spending by five independent expenditure groups and political action committees, then I assume you’re as shellshocked as I am. Quite frankly, I have never seen this amount of money spent in midterm statehouse races in my life. We're talking more than $1.6 million in the span of roughly 30-40 days. This isn't even including the direct spending by the candidates themselves. I can't speak for other parts of the state. But I can tell you here in Charleston where I live, I have mostly received mailers for GOP candidates in the 8th Senatorial ...

Outsiders Buying Elections, West Virginia Families Paying For It

West Virginians already carry one of the heaviest economic burdens in America. Fewer of us work than in almost any other state. Those who do work, earn wages that lag the rest of the country, electric bills among the highest in the region, and the most expensive private health insurance costs in the nation. For 84 years, single-party rule from Charleston made all of that worse. But when conservatives took control of the state legislature in 2014, something changed. Real reforms took hold. Our economy grew. People began moving to West Virginia for jobs, not away from it. Lawsuit abuse ...

Clean Water For West Virginians Is A Congressional Priority

Spring in West Virginia is truly “almost heaven.” Life comes back to our forests, wildflowers scatter across the mountains, and spring rains send cold water rushing through our mountain streams and rivers. Unfortunately, many West Virginians don’t have reliable access to that clean, cold water when they turn on their taps. Indeed, some West Virginians’ water is so filthy that it is not fit for drinking. In some cases, the water even causes blistering when used for bathing. This is completely unacceptable and should not be happening in the United States of America. That is why ...

A Call Home: McKinley Never Lost Touch With The People He Served

It became common practice over a dozen years in this editor’s chair that at least one or two Thursday or Friday afternoons each month were reserved for a phone call from then-U.S. Rep. David McKinley. McKinley, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives during that time, would use at least an hour of his drive from Washington, D.C., back to Wheeling to call this newspaper and speak with either me or my predecessor, the late J. Michael Myer, to get a feel for what was happening in his district. McKinley understood that a politician who truly cares about doing what is ...

Reporter’s Notebook: To The Moon

If you're reading this today, I am in George Town, the capital city of the Cayman Islands in the middle of my third Royal Caribbean cruise. I'm writing this column before shipping off from Port Canaveral in Florida along the Space Coast, a short drive away from the launchpad where the Artemis 2 mission to orbit the moon took off. It seems every time I leave for my annual vacation, which sometimes is a cruise but usually is a week’s stay at my mother-in-law's timeshare in Kissimmee, I miss witnessing a rocket launch of some sort. These days, it's usually a SpaceX launch. In fact, ...