CHARLESTON – The recent 2022 primary election represented yet another historic shift in the political landscape of West Virginia.
Republicans are now in the position that the Democratic Party enjoyed for decades in which their primary elections are arguably more impactful on the policy trajectory of the state than the general election.
As West Virginia trends more red, the focus of political intrigue will center on hotly contested primary races.
Huffman
As a result, Americans for Prosperity – West Virginia has doubled down on our engagement in primary elections. While engaging in elections is an important tool toward establishing and growing policy majorities, we remain a policy focused organization dedicated to working with lawmakers of both parties to rapidly adopt policies that we know are proven to break down the barriers holding every West Virginian back from having the freedom to reach their full potential.
We’re uniting people and getting them engaged in the policy process around ideas that are helping to make our state a better place to live, work, and raise a family.
Thanks to principled policymakers’ hard work, our shared goals are already helping West Virginians better live out their version of the American Dream. From adopting the gold standard in the nation for educational freedom through the Hope Scholarship Act, to cutting unnecessary red tape standing in the way of our hometown medical professions serving their communities and adopting a right to work law to ensure that no worker is every fired for refusing to join a union — these policies are working to improve the lives of every Mountaineer.
And we’re just getting started.
But adopting bold, transformational policies is impossible without the votes to do so. This requires us to thoughtfully back candidates who will not only work to change the status quo, but will act as true policy leaders on the issues that matter most and won’t back down to special interests who want to keep the game rigged in their favor.
For too long, special interests have gone largely unchallenged in their efforts to protect a rigged system that benefits them at the expense of every West Virginian. They’ve been enabled by the politicians who put the special interests’ future over our state’s future.
Two such groups stand out in recent policy fights. First, the Republican Labor Caucus emerged with the end goal of repealing the state’s right to work law and reinstating the government price fixing scheme known as prevailing wage. Second, the medical industry lobbyists are enticing support from lawmakers to keep Certificate of Need laws in place to protect their bottom line from competition by keeping patients from having more options when it comes to their care.
That’s because these laws force medical providers in the state to get a permission slip from unelected bureaucrats before they are allowed to improve medical services in their communities, undoubtedly leading to higher cost and lower quality health care in our state. All of the incumbent lawmakers that Americans for Prosperity challenged in their primary races were aligned with one, if not both, of these bad policy outcomes and demonstrated a tendency to put politics over good policy.
On election night, people across this great state joined us in standing up to politics as usual by selecting many truly principled candidates for the general election—folks who have earned Americans for Prosperity’s endorsement because they will fight to transform our state through proven policy solutions that help every Mountaineer thrive.
When lawmakers stand with us on critical issues, we will unite people to stand with them. Likewise, when elected official’s policies put special interest over the future of our state, we will challenge them. Perhaps this is a shock to the political system in West Virginia, but it is a needed one.
There are no longer free passes for unprincipled lawmakers pursuing bad policy simply to further their political careers. By challenging incumbents, we are thoughtfully but firmly changing the political incentives faced by policymakers so that principled policy — not special interests’ desires — are the right political bet.
Huffman is the state director for Americans For Prosperity – West Virginia.
