Entries by Neal Barkus

Land Ownership Rights Threatened by the Legislature

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Land in America is generally owned in “fee simple,” meaning that the owner possesses every aspect of ownership and every possible use. But recent efforts around the country by extractive industries and their legislative allies are threatening one aspect of this historic type of land ownership. Industry wants to prevent land protection agreements by which the landowner voluntarily chooses not to develop his property. How a landowner chooses to use — or not use — his property should be up to him not the Legislature.

Making Sense of the Religious Exemption Dispute in West Virginia

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At least five lawsuits are underway in West Virginia challenging the state mandate requiring vaccination of schoolchildren, which allows no religious exemptions. Protection of religion from government intrusion is a fundamentally serious matter, not a culture war issue. But so is the protection of our children against serious and sometimes fatal diseases. The problem is that Governor Morrissey has tried to create religious exemptions where none exist in the law, and a judge in Raleigh County appears headed in the same direction. Protecting schoolchildren from disease should be at the top of our list, and the vaccine mandate has done an admirable job of that for 120 years. What is happening here?

Let’s Revive West Virginia’s Future Fund

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Several states with economies dependent on natural resource extraction have had the foresight to create sovereign wealth funds. These are investments funded by a set percentage of severance taxes or royalties collected by the state. West Virginia had a sovereign wealth fund called the Future Fund, but it died in 2023 with a whimper, not a bang. Legislators did not have the discipline from year to year to build and preserve the Fund. The answer is a constitutional amendment that removes from the legislature any discretion not to make deposits into the Future Fund. The political value of solving this problem with a constitutional amendment is plain.

West Virginia Desperately Needs A Higher Minimum Wage

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West Virginia’s minimum wage has been stuck at $8.75 for a decade. The minimum wage worker today has taken a 35% pay cut compared to the same worker in 2016 because of inflation. Raising the minimum wage will bring many workers and their families out of poverty, reduce deaths of despair, improve the health of newborns and enhance the attractiveness of working. It would be a powerful economic and social policy costing the taxpayer nothing.

Donald Trump, The Occupier

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Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles is unauthorized by the circumstances, and unlawful under the Constitution and federal laws. Using government troops against civilians has been hated in this country since the Boston Massacre in 1770. Trump is wildly out of his lane and, once again, it will require the courts — or the people — to stop him.

Jefferson County’s GOP Legislators Yank Local Control of Data Centers Away from Residents

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Jefferson County’s Republican delegation to the Legislature has just told local people it doesn’t matter what we think. Every one of Jefferson’s Delegates and Senators voted to approve HB 2014 authorizing data centers consuming massive amounts of electric power and water to be located pretty much anywhere in the state. And all this can happen without any local zoning or environmental control of the construction or operation of the data centers. This breathtaking anti-democratic law, dubbed the Power Generation and Consumption Act, is the first of its kind in the nation.

Representative Riley Moore: Trump Toady

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The behavior of Rep. Riley Moore has been embarrassing – both to his constituents and to himself. Since being elected to represent West Virginia’s Second Congressional District in November 2024, Moore has not had an original thought. Instead, he has let Donald Trump do his thinking, eagerly supporting every misguided and dangerous policy spun out from the Trump chaos. But the most shameful thing Moore has done is to fly to El Salvador and pose for gloating photos in front of a cell full of deportees hustled illegally out of the United States.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Senator Rucker’s Anti-Science Bill

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Veteran watchers of the West Virginia Legislature will have noticed the trend to hide controversial bills behind innocent titles. This is the case with SB 599 introduced by Senator Patricia Rucker from Jefferson County on February 26. The title of the bill is Sound Science in Regulations Act, but the bill would impose an anti-science regime that would hobble the regulatory ability of state administrative agencies.

The Folly of Trump’s Tariffs

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Over and over in American history we have tried tariffs to solve economic problems. Over and over tariffs have failed to solve those problems, while creating new ones. Sometimes it takes the passage of years for us to forget how badly tariffs hurt us the last time we tried them. Other times we have a leader who just doesn’t know or care about history and recklessly promotes tariffs to fix an imaginary problem. We have that leader now.