Delegate Bill Ridenour is Untethered to Reality

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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.

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.

The justification for this is the same tired “jobs and economic development” story West Virginians have been fed for decades now. Governor Morrisey, who was the chief proponent of the Act, declared that enabling data centers would position West Virginia at the center of the artificial intelligence boom. Morrisey insisted on the removal of local control of data centers, knowing that local people who will have to live in the same neighborhood as these monsters wouldn’t willingly go along. And our Legislature, including all the Jefferson County delegation, thought this was a good idea.

What exactly are data centers? Think of large warehouses filled with computer servers. These servers train artificial intelligence. Current and widely used AI models like Open AI’s GPT-4 were trained at data centers that use around 30 megawatts of electricity at a time – roughly as much as 30 Wal-Mart stores use at any moment. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal predicts that by 2030 data centers for training newer AI models will need more than 5 gigawatts of electricity, about what the entire island of Manhattan consumes at a time.

One risk of this, of course, is that electricity will become more expensive for regular consumers. To avoid this, the Act allows the data centers to co-locate with their own power generating plant that would presumably supply all the needs of the data center. Any power source is allowed, including coal, gas or nuclear. Any power plant fueled by coal or gas would emit extensive air pollution.

Our neighbors in Northern Virginia have become plagued by data centers. Things got so bad that in September 2024 Fairfax County passed a revised zoning ordinance creating new setback requirements and noise monitoring. These changes came in response to public pressure and were adopted only after extensive public hearings and comments on the proposed changes. These are the very democratic devices West Virginians are now deprived of.

A controversy is brewing over the plan to locate a data center near the Tucker County towns of Thomas and Davis. A Virginia firm proposes the “Ridgeline Facility,” which if fully built could span 10,000 acres and be one of the largest data center installations in the country. The proposed power plant would operate at 1,000 megawatts.

But the Act renders public opposition powerless. It prohibits:

Counties and municipalities, 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.

What kind of government is afraid of input from the governed? What kind of political leaders think they know better than we do on important matters affecting our lives? Why shouldn’t we have a say in deciding between economic development that benefits the few and quality of life affecting everyone else?

These are all important questions. But now that we elected Governor Morrisey and the Republican super-majority in last year’s election, I guess we’ve had our moment of democracy and aren’t entitled to more. At least for now. But taking local control away from us means these questions will have to be answered, or rather the people responsible will have to answer for them, at the November 2026 election.

Thank Goodness for Jennifer Krouse

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Thank goodness for Jennifer Krouse. While we thought we were only electing her to the Jefferson County Commission, she has grown into so much more. She has become the protector of our children at this critical time when we have so miserably failed in our own responsibilities. We must now recognize her with a new title – Leader of the Jefferson County Morality Squad.

Of course, I mainly write in praise of Leader Krouse for her role in the enactment by the County Commission of an ordinance prohibiting a parent (or anyone else) from taking a child to an “adult live performance,” which everyone knows means drag shows. Drag shows are where men dress up like women and make jokes about it.

I remember reading some Shakespeare plays as an assignment in high school. There were men dressing up like women and women dressing up like men. Oh, the inhumanity! This just shows what we get when we allow artists to run amok.

A friend showed me a letter she had written to the County Commission complaining that there had been no public hearing before the ordinance was enacted. She pointed out that Commissioner Stolipher advocated for holding a public hearing but was overruled.

The Leader responded to my friend’s letter by saying that “Only someone with an irredeemably damaged moral compass would be against protecting children from such material. Given that, there was no need to open this up to an extraordinary level of debate.”

Now that’s what I call enlightened leadership!

I looked up the ordinance and it uses an entire paragraph to define “adult live performance.” The definition was confusing and maybe that’s the point! If parents are unsure what it means, they won’t take the chance of being fined. They won’t dare take a 17-year-old child to entertainment where anything about sex could possibly be mentioned. That’s what we want, right?

I did understand that you can’t take kids to any show that is obscene and lacks serious literary and artistic value – and everyone knows what that means. Don’t they?

I must confess that I once went to a drag show in Palm Springs with some friends. The queens were flamboyant, but they didn’t take themselves seriously. They laughed and made fun of the audience. The whole thing was, well . . . very funny.

I know that this is totally disgusting and that I should be ashamed of myself. Because we know that there is only one way to think about gender and sexuality and you are showing us that way. We were meant to be very strict about these things, and our children should be stopped from thinking that they are humorous in any way.

So, Leader Krouse, the parents of Jefferson County will be forever grateful to you and the other members of the Morality Squad for passing an ordinance that fines us if we expose our children to moral corruption. We have so needed your firm hand on our shoulder. You have helped us identify that corruption even though, in our weakness, we could not see it on our own.

And blowing off a public hearing to discuss the ordinance spared us from unnecessary discussion and irrelevant points of view. Who knows what could have come from that?

But whatever else you and the Squad do, please protect our children from Shakespeare!