Primary Colors

February 9, 2026

When it comes to contesting statewide and legislative races, the West Virginia Democratic Party should be commended for its candidate recruitment efforts heading into the 2026 elections. I don’t say that because I have a specific bias one way or another. But I do believe that a healthy two-party system is important to making our democratic republic work, because the political parties hold each other accountable. According to the state Democratic Party, there are 22 Democratic candidates seeking nomination to 17 of 19 state Senate seats on the ballot for the May primary, some of ...

A 10% Tax Cut That Puts West Virginians First

February 7, 2026

West Virginia is proving something powerful right now: when you focus on the basics, tighten the budget, and let the free market work, good things happen. That progress puts us in a position to do what the government too often forgets to do: return money to the people who earned it. That’s why I am calling on the State Legislature to pass a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut. Over the past year, my administration has made difficult but necessary choices. We tightened spending, restructured government, reduced costs, and focused relentlessly on fixing our state budget. Those ...

Child Care Is Vitally Important To Economic Development

February 7, 2026

Childcare sits at the crossroads of economic growth, community stability, early childhood education, and family well‑being. Reliable and available daycare is not a convenience for many working parents. And affordable daycare in all 55 counties has become a major issue that affects economic and community development throughout the state. When families cannot access affordable, quality childcare, businesses lose workers, communities lose productivity, and children lose crucial early‑development opportunities. West Virginia, like much of the nation, faces profound childcare ...

Media Literacy

February 2, 2026

I’ll be the first to say that I, as a reporter, am not perfect. No one is. I can sometimes make mistakes in stories, both grammatical and factual. I can sometimes read a bill or a study too quickly and miss something important. If I get something wrong, I work as quickly as I can to send up a correction to my copy desk. Sometimes mistakes escape me and my copy desk. When you write as many words as I do in a week and you read as many words as my editors do, sometimes mistakes fall through the cracks. But when they are pointed out, we try to fix them. I believe the same goes for my ...

Fixing Hancock County Schools Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

January 31, 2026

By now nearly everyone has most likely seen the dire financial situation that the Hancock County school system currently finds itself in. Years of inadequate personnel management, overspending, and a lack of thorough financial oversight finally caught up with them when it was recently announced that the school system is facing a budget shortfall of approximately $8 million. All of this occurred over the stretch of multiple superintendents and numerous county board members, and was finally brought to light this past fall when then-superintendent Dan Enich notified the West Virginia ...

We All Need To Figure Out How To Disagree Better

January 31, 2026

Over 225 years ago, in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” I find myself thinking about that quote often lately, especially as we approach America’s 250th anniversary and look honestly at how we talk to each other today. At 22 years old, my experience of national events has almost entirely come through a phone screen. “Doomscrolling” became a common phrase during the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic my generation lived through. I watched an attempted ...