This year, West Virginians are #WokeAF. But many WV legislators are still acting as if we’re not paying attention. They may learn differently; scroll down to vote in our poll!

Unfortunately,  rather than working on ways to generate jobs, diversify our state economy, fix infrastructure, help extraction communities, and attract new business, legislators introduced bills to do things like weaken water protections, attack property values, force citizens to lease mineral rights against their wills, eliminate the Women’s Commission, establish the Bible as the official state book, reduce funding for education, and other things that funnel our wealth to industry special interests—those who purchased these politicians in the first place. What were they thinking?

Even budget proposals were all designed to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 20%, while increasing taxes on working people and the middle class. Jim Justice actually toured the state to tell people to tighten their belts, while his own businesses are delinquent in paying 4.4 million dollars in taxes to WV.

It’s as if he said: “Hey, you! Yeah, you, the guy who irresponsibly had a heart attack and now you can’t afford to buy your child shoes that fit? YOU will need to pay 30% more a year in taxes.”

I mean, really?

The best thing that came out of the session—legalizing medical cannabis—was changed at the last minute by the “Shott amendment” into a bill that reduces access for suffering people by forcing them to buy it from a small number of licensed growers. Plus, his amendment made sure that the cost of a license sets barriers to entry for anyone who’s not wealthy.

How do we fix the legislature? Let’s focus on voting out the worst of the worst. Vote for the legislators you MOST want to see unseated in 2018.

Please select as many choices for Worst WV Legislator as you like.

I couldn’t list every reason you might oppose these legislators in the space. If your legislator is listed above but I failed to mention the WORST thing s/he did, please tell your story below. If I missed anyone, let me know who below.

[You will be able to comment on Wednesday on the public page; the poll voting will carry over. UPDATE: someone shared this page publicly before the Wednesday release, so if you have someone you’d like to mention in the comments please visit the official post HERE. I went ahead and published early.]

Are you among the #WokeAF this year? Then get a #WokeAF button here, and wear it to show your legislators YOU’RE WATCHING what they’re trying to do to us.