Delegate Bill Ridenour is Untethered to Reality
On August 10, 2026, the group We the People held a debate between the candidates for Delegate in the 100th District, covering Shepherdstown, Harpers Ferry, and surrounding territory. This group is the remnant of the Tea Party from Obama Administration days. The debate pitted Democrat Jenny Thacker, a retired government geographer, and Republican Bill Ridenour, a retired Marine and incumbent Delegate. Thacker was earnest, but initially uncomfortable with the debate format as a first-time candidate. On the other hand, Ridenour’s answers to key questions were disturbing in their lack of candor and disconnection from reality.
The debate was well-conducted, and We the People should be commended. There were around 60 people in attendance. The proceedings were generally respectful of views, except Ridenour repeatedly insulted our neighboring states, calling them the “The People’s Republic of Maryland” and the “Commiewealth of Virginia.” This reveals the prism through which he views the world.
Thacker got predictably tough questions and did well explaining her views. She was asked what she would do about assault weapons. She answered that she has owned and used guns, and her family hunts, but that she thinks assault weapons are killing machines that should be regulated, as they have been before. Her approach involves gun safety, not confiscation.
The issue that generated the most enthusiasm from the right-wing members of the audience was preventing biological males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Really? When our house is burning, this is what people are concerned about?
Thacker said that this issue had been decided by the Supreme Court, so it didn’t matter much what the West Virginia Legislature did. Furthermore, the issue affected only a tiny slice of the county and state. Ridenour got applause for his claim that the issue is a big deal with his constituents and that some on the left needed to go back to basic biology class. In the next few months, Democratic candidates should polish up their approach to this issue.
Ridenour voted for HB 2014, the wildly unpopular bill that created an easy glidepath for data centers in West Virginia and removed local control from any aspect of their construction or operation. Members of the audience repeatedly challenged him on this. He defended his action, claiming that data centers would generate millions of dollars in revenue for the state, and that if we didn’t welcome them, China would. One wonders whether, as a child, he feared that Communists were under his bed – or does so now.
But Ridenour was plainly wrong, and perhaps consciously dissembling, about local control of data centers. He asserted that if the County Commission didn’t want a data center in Jefferson County, then they could prevent it. Surely, he has read this part of the bill where counties and municipalities are forbidden:
whether by ordinance, resolution, administrative act, or otherwise, from enacting, adopting, implementing, or enforcing ordinances, regulations, or rules which limit, in any way, the creation of, and acquisition, construction, equipping, development, expansion, and operation of any certified microgrid district or certified high impact data center project.
Most likely, Ridenour’s comments are an example of a legislator running for the exit after making a huge mistake that is unpopular with voters.
But Ridenour showed he is untethered to reality when questioned about HB 5533, a bill he introduced in 2026. This bill would establish a mechanism for the Legislature and the Governor of West Virginia to review decisions of federal courts, and to declare null and void those they consider unconstitutional. The bill would also create a felony crime for West Virginia public officials who comply with or enforce federal court rulings declared null by this process.
When asked why he thought this was such a good idea, Ridenour said that the federal government is nothing more than a compact among sovereign states, and each state retains the right and authority to declare certain actions of the federal government unconstitutional. He then cited the 1857 Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court declared that enslaved blacks were not citizens, as an example of a decision that might have been declared unconstitutional under his scheme.
Ridenour is wrong as a matter of law and history. The state compact theory, in which states claim the right to nullify actions of the federal government, has been rejected several times in our history. A main proponent was John C. Calhoun, who advanced the theory because he foresaw that the federal government might one day seek to abolish slavery.
Andrew Jackson backed down the state of South Carolina in 1832 when it declared a federal tariff null and void within that state. And if there is one lesson we learned from the Civil War, it is that states are part of a legal union, not independent sovereigns joined in a compact that can be dissolved at their will. Even resisting federal judicial rulings turned out badly for the Southern states in the desegregation struggle.
If decisions of federal courts are wrong, then we will learn that when they are appealed within the judicial system. There is no constitutional off-ramp for state legislatures or executives to meddle in this process. But don’t expect Del. Ridenour to make sense of law and history. He is apparently not concerned with them.
