The most important legislation the Senate can pass is voting rights. Republicans in the states have passed new laws that will severely limit the number of seats Democrats can take in future elections—including Electoral Votes in 2024—making it difficult if not impossible to get fair elections.
There is one person who could change this right now, and that is Sen. Joe Manchin. He could do that by changing his position on the filibuster enough for a voting rights bill to pass the Senate. That bill would restore much of the balance between the parties.
Time is up for Sen. Manchin to announce his commitment to filibuster reform. Until he does, I plan to mount a campaign to push him out of the Democratic Party.
Last week, I asked the Democrats in the West Virginia Senate to take a stand. (See here, here, and here.)
This week, I’m asking Democrats in the West Virginia House of Delegates to do the same.
Here are the Democrats who hold office in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Let’s find out if any of them are ready to unfriend Joe Manchin.
Phil W Diserio
District 2 (Brooke and Ohio counties, north spur between PA and OH)
Ballotpedia entry
Shawn Fluharty
District 3 (Ohio county, north spur between PA and OH, includes Wheeling)
Ballotpedia entry
Lisa Beth Zukoff
District 4 (Marshall county, north spur between PA and OH)
Ballotpedia entry
David Lee Pethtel
District 5 (Monongalia, Wetzel counties, northern edge of WV, Monongalia borders PA, and Wetzel, borders OH)
Ballotpedia entry
Sean Hornbuckle
District 16 (Cabell and Lincoln counties, west end of WV at south bend of Ohio river, includes Huntington)
Ballotpedia entry
Chad Lovejoy
District 17 (Cabell and Wayne counties, far west end of WV adjacent to KY)
Ballotpedia entry
Ric Griffith
District 19 (Wayne county, far west end of WV adjacent to KY and near Ohio River)
Ballotpedia entry
Nathan Duane Brown
District 20 (Logan and Mingo counties, southwest WV adjacent to KY)
Ballotpedia entry
Edward Evans
District 26 (McDowell and Mercer counties, southwest WV adjacent to VA)
Ballotpedia entry
Lawrence Brent Boggs
District 34 (Braxton and Gilmer counties, center of state)
Ballotpedia entry
West Virginia is divided into 67 districts. Of these, 47 are one-member districts, 11 are two-member districts, 6 are three-member districts, 2 are four-member districts, and 1 is a five-member district.
I provided the Ballotpedia link for each delegate because Ballotpedia has good information about the politics of these delegates, including a list of the bills they have sponsored. I think this helps us understand how they represent their constituents.
West Virginia might be a good place for progressives to take seats. Progressive values are very supportive of working people. We want to lift coal workers up out of the ground and get them well-paying jobs in renewable energy and local production. We support helping workers who Republicans have ignored and taken for granted for years. We actually care about working people and have supported them for decades.
Workers in West Virginia would be very well served by progressive policy, such as our climate change policy, our healthcare policy, and our minimum income policy.
Over the next week, let’s take stock of how voting rights plays out in Congress. If a substantial bill passes, we can celebrate the win.
If it doesn’t, I’m going to turn to another group of people who have a stake in both voting rights and Joe Manchin’s political career.
There are many groups of people Sen. Manchin needs to consider. I’m going to go through these groups one at a time and urge them to unfriend Manchin until he has no friends left.
Or he gets voting rights through the Senate.