The WV League of Girls Voters has launched a brand new Legislative Scorecard for 2023, which may be seen at lwvwv.org. This searchable instrument tracks the votes of all West Virginia state senators and delegates on a subset of payments from the 2023 common session that grew to become legislation.
The scorecard is designed to supply voters easy-to-use data on how their elected representatives voted on laws prioritized by the LWV-WV. The scorecard was developed to tell voters and to carry legislators, no matter occasion, accountable for his or her votes.
The whole Legislative Scorecard covers all 134 legislators throughout the state. This yr’s scorecard highlights votes by senators and delegates on 25 payments overlaying the League’s priorities of safeguarding equal rights, defending youngsters and households and making a sustainable future for the State of West Virginia. Of the 333 payments that grew to become legislation, we discovered no payments of adequate substance to characterize the League’s No. 1 precedence of strengthening democracy by making voting extra accessible.
For Monongalia County, particularly, we consider voters must know if their legislators are being aware of their pursuits. It’s a part of the League’s mission to make voters higher knowledgeable in a non-partisan means and, with extra data, we hope extra voters will really feel empowered to vote.
Probably the most widespread causes folks give for not voting is that they have no idea sufficient in regards to the candidates. Non-voters additionally blame the intimidating and nasty rhetoric of unfavourable marketing campaign advertisements which are ceaselessly partisan assaults paid for by particular curiosity political motion committees (PACs) motivated by self-serving agendas. (Trace: at all times search for the “this advert paid for by” assertion in very small print within the advert. In case you analysis that entity, you could be shocked by what that specific PAC seeks to perform or who earnings from their agenda.)
The 25 payments on this yr’s scorecard had been chosen with out regard to their sponsors or which legislators supported or opposed them.
We discovered that Monongalia’s six senators (Districts 2, 13 and 14) and 6 delegates (Districts 77-82) not often voted persistently for or towards the payments the League of Girls Voters prioritized.
Notably, the exception was for payments to safeguard equal rights, the place seven out of 12 Monongalia County legislators voted towards all 10 payments. The seven had been Sens. Clements (2), Maroney (2), Oliverio (13), Smith (14) and Taylor (14); and Dels. Chiarelli (78) and Statler (77).
Just one delegate, Hansen (79), had a rating of 100%, on payments to guard youngsters and households.
To view the language of the payments, go to the scorecard abstract description of payments.
The general scorecard rankings (when it comes to settlement with League positions) for Monongalia County legislators for payments associated to safeguarding equal rights (10 payments), defending youngsters and households (eight payments) and making a sustainable future (seven payments) are as follows:
Senators
- Caputo (13), 60%
- Clements (2), 16%
- Maroney (2), 20%
- Oliverio (13), 16%
- Smith (14), 24%
- Taylor (14), 20%
Delegates
- Chiarelli (78), 20%
- Hansen (79), 84%
- Statler (77), 24%
- Walker (81), 76%
- Warner (82), 20%
- Williams (80), 68%
We encourage all West Virginia residents to go to lwvwv.org and use the scorecard instrument. The searchable pages give helpful hyperlinks to the payments that had been handed, a short rationalization of the 25 payments, in addition to abstract and detailed voting data for all legislators within the state.
We hope this data will assist all voters really feel extra assured in making their selections amongst candidates within the subsequent election and that their representatives are preserving the guarantees made to their constituents. We additionally hope it should incentivize residents who usually are not voters to register and to vote.
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