West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Research Podcast

Carrie Clendening
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Politics

West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Research. This Substack publication is dedicated to tracking the flow of political money into West Virginia’s elections and policy-making process. carrieclendening.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    My Journey: From Public Service to Political Evolution

    The Foundation: A Decade of Nonpartisan Service (2010-2022) My political evolution began in an unexpected place: outside of politics entirely. For ten years, I served as the legislative liaison for the Kanawha County Commission, registered as “no party affiliation” from 2010-2022. This wasn’t a statement of apathy—it was a commitment to understanding how government actually serves people, unfiltered by partisan loyalty. During those years, I watched both parties from a unique vantage point. I saw which elected officials delivered for constituents and which ones just talked. I understood budgets, policy implementation, and the technical machinery of governance that most political volunteers never see. My political science education had already created an automatic distrust of political parties—I saw them as obstacles when trying to pass meaningful election laws. This decade of nonpartisan observation confirmed that instinct. The Infrastructure Void: Joining the Democratic Party In 2022, I made a decision that would further illuminate the crisis in American politics. When West Virginia’s Republican supermajority passed an abortion ban criminalizing doctors and others who help women obtain abortions, I switched my registration to Democrat. This wasn’t about partisan loyalty—it was simply the only available vehicle to oppose legislation I found morally abhorrent. What I found in the Kanawha County Democratic executive committee shocked me. The infrastructure was gone, extracted by national organizations since the early to mid-2000s. The VAN database—supposedly the nervous system of modern Democratic organizing—was awful, limited to county boundaries and full of outdated information. The 2021 redistricting had chopped legislative districts so badly that some lines ran through rooftops, making field organizing nearly impossible. The county committee was divided into three groups: old-school Democrats trying to run things like 1968, political wannabes who didn’t know what they didn’t know, and energized young people who wanted to help but had no idea how. None had the tools or knowledge to rebuild what had been lost. Seeking Knowledge: The Lincoln Project Experience Recognizing the infrastructure gap, I sought knowledge from an unexpected source: The Lincoln Project’s The Union. Unlike MomsRising, they were transparent from the start. Two phone interviews, an application process, and a nondisclosure agreement that clearly explained FEC regulations. I knew exactly what I was contributing to—a sophisticated political operation connected to a presidential campaign. This wasn’t exploitation—it was education. The Union demonstrated that even within existing political structures, organizations could choose transparency over deception. I learned high-level campaign strategy, modern field operations, and the technical skills needed to rebuild political infrastructure. Most importantly, I learned that cross-partisan collaboration based on competence was possible. The Walls of “Leadership”: Being Shut Out Armed with technical knowledge from my redistricting work, strategic understanding from The Union, and innovative solutions like adapting Virginia’s “power packs” for GOTV operations, I returned to the West Virginia Democratic Party ready to help rebuild. I was blocked at every turn. Despite having more practical knowledge about modern political operations than most of the “leadership,” I was labeled an outsider. Those clinging to positions in a hollowed-out structure saw my knowledge as a threat, not an asset. They would rather preside over decay than step aside for renewal. This rejection crystallized everything I’d learned. The problem wasn’t just extraction by national organizations or infrastructure abandonment—it was active gatekeeping by those who benefited from dysfunction. Every person like me who gets blocked reinforces the narrative that “nothing can be done” in places like West Virginia. Creating the Alternative That rejection freed me to think bigger. If existing leadership wouldn’t let competent people rebuild, then rebuilding had to happen outside their control. I transformed my anger into action, my disillusionment into education. I created comprehensive political education materials—the resources MomsRising should have provided, the knowledge the Democratic Party hoarded, the skills The Union taught me. When I shared these materials with another Hub Leader, she called them “gold” and said I should publish them. But charging money would replicate the very exploitation I was fighting. So I made them freely available. I wrote my resignation letter from MomsRising not just as a personal goodbye but as a documented exposé of exploitation. I created the Political Evolution Project to share everything I’d learned about building authentic political power. The Vision: 100% Access to Political Education My journey from nonpartisan public servant to exploited volunteer to blocked reformer to political educator taught me crucial lessons: * Political parties have become obstacles to democratic participation rather than vehicles for it * Organizations across the political spectrum extract value from volunteers while hoarding knowledge * Geographic extraction creates sacrifice zones where communities are drained of resources * The gatekeeping of political knowledge maintains systems of exploitation * Cross-partisan learning based on competence is more valuable than partisan loyalty My goal now is simple but revolutionary: 100% access to political education. I want every person—regardless of location, party, or resources—to understand how political power actually works. My materials don’t use partisan labels. They teach political theories and concepts that anyone can apply according to their own values. This isn’t about converting people or building another organization that might become extractive. It’s about democratizing the tools of political analysis and action. It’s about proving that another way is possible—where knowledge is shared freely, where communities build their own power, where political evolution transcends partisan constraints. My journey continues, but now it’s not just mine. Every person who learns from these materials and teaches others, every community that builds power outside traditional structures, every act of political education shared freely—all of this is part of the political evolution we desperately need. The infrastructure in West Virginia is still broken. The exploitation continues in organizations nationwide. The gatekeepers still hoard their positions. But something has changed: more people can see it now. And once you see the patterns of extraction and exploitation, you can’t unsee them. You can only choose what to do with that sight. I chose to teach others to see. What will you choose? Thanks for reading West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Research! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carrieclendening.substack.com

  2. 2d ago

    October 2025 Publication: To My Fellow Parents - They're Dismantling Our Schools While We're Too Busy Surviving to Notice

    NOTE: I’ve decided to republish this piece because it sets the stage for a podcast recording that will be released on Friday, July 17, 2026. This article has not been updated since its original October 2025, publication date. I know you don’t have time for this. You’re working full-time, shuttling kids to activities, doing homework help at 9 PM, and trying to figure out what the hell a “Hope Scholarship” even is because your neighbor mentioned it at the bus stop and you nodded like you knew. I get it. I’m doing it too. I’m a single-parent with two kids in West Virginia public schools. I work full-time. I have a college degree in public policy analysis and 15+ years of government experience, which is a fancy way of saying I can read policy briefs without falling asleep and I know when politicians are lying. In the video below, State Board of Education President Paul Hardesty perfectly illustrated what policy analysts call asymmetric regulation. It’s a classic managed-decline strategy. You don’t actively destroy your target—you just rig the game so it can’t possibly compete. Impose crushing compliance costs on one player while letting competitors operate with zero constraints. The Funding Trap: Policy Malpractice 101 Let me put on my nerd glasses and explain the con at the heart of this whole scheme. West Virginia funds schools through the Public School Support Plan (PSSP)—an enrollment-based model. Simple concept: money follows students. Enrollment up? Funding up. Enrollment down? Funding down. Sounds fair, right? Here’s the trap: This only works if costs are variable. If expenses scale directly with student numbers, enrollment-based funding makes perfect sense. But most school costs are fixed, not variable. Let’s break down what school districts actually pay for: * Infrastructure: Buildings, maintenance, utilities (fixed) * Transportation: Buses, routes, drivers—especially in rural areas where you can’t just cancel a 40-mile route because three kids left (fixed) * Administration: Principals, superintendents, support staff (fixed) * Debt service: Bond payments on capital projects (fixed) Only a slice of costs—mainly teacher salaries and instructional materials—actually vary with enrollment. So when a school loses students, it loses proportional funding but cannot reduce its fixed costs proportionally. The result? A structural deficit that can only be “solved” by cutting teachers and programs or closing schools entirely. This is what we call policy malpractice. Any competent first-year policy student would flag this model as unsustainable. The legislature knows this. They’ve been told. Repeatedly. By the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy and others. They’ve done nothing to fix it. * West Virginia Must Modernize School Funding Formula to Prioritize Community Schools and Student Needs * Tracking Public School Closures in WV * The Perfect Storm: Limited Oversight and Accountability Contribute to Growing Costs of the Hope Scholarship The ALEC Playbook: Starve the Beast When President Hardesty named ALEC—the American Legislative Exchange Council—as the architect of West Virginia’s school choice strategy, I wasn’t even slightly surprised. I’ve tracked ALEC’s model legislation for years. When he said, “If you bankrupt the school system, change can occur,” he was describing a strategy ALEC has deployed across multiple states. It’s called “starve the beast.” Here’s the playbook: Step 1: Create alternatives (charters, vouchers, ESAs) that siphon students and funding from public schools. Step 2: Maintain crushing regulations on public schools while exempting alternatives, ensuring public schools can’t compete. Step 3: Underfund the public system while pointing to “declining enrollment” as justification, manufacturing a fiscal crisis. Step 4: Point to the crisis as “proof” that public schools are “failing” and must be replaced with privatized alternatives. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it’s devastatingly effective. The Competitive Rigging I See Every Single Day Here’s where my policy and mom brain really start screaming at each other. As policy analyst, I can explain regulatory capture and asymmetric compliance burdens. As a mom, I live the consequences. My son’s elementary school principal spends hours every week on compliance paperwork: * Special education documentation * Teacher evaluation protocols * Attendance reporting * Nutrition program requirements * Safety drills The list is endless. Meanwhile, the charter school that opened last year? “Exempt from many regulatory constraints.” They hire and fire at will. Set their own curriculum. Establish enrollment “preferences” that—surprise, surprise—let them cherry-pick students. This is textbook competitive disadvantage imposed by regulation. And it’s deliberate. The legislature could have: * Reduced regulatory burden on public schools when they created charter alternatives * Applied equal accountability standards to all schools * Leveled the playing field They did none of that. Because fair competition was never the goal. Managed decline was always the plan. The Numbers They Hope You Won’t Notice Let me show you what the data actually reveals—because this is where policy expertise becomes most valuable. State Funding Trends (inflation-adjusted): * FY 2009 baseline: 100% * FY 2026: 83% (down 17%) Enrollment Trends: * 2009-2026: Down 14.7% See the problem? The funding decline (17%) exceeds the enrollment decline (14.7%). That means per-pupil funding is actually decreasing, not just total funding. Per-Pupil Spending (2023): * West Virginia: $14,575 * National average: $16,526 * Difference: -$1,951 per student * Regional ranking: Dead last among all neighboring states. Now here’s the question any policy analyst has to ask: Is this because West Virginia is poor? Can’t afford education investment? Nope. West Virginia has run budget surpluses in recent years. The state has money. The legislature is choosing to underfund public education while simultaneously pumping $245 million into programs designed to drain students from those schools. This is a policy choice, not fiscal necessity. MY KIDS: Why This Isn’t Academic For Me I need to tell you about my kids, because this isn’t abstract policy analysis for me. This is my family’s future. My oldest started kindergarten in Fall 2013. They’re graduating high school in Spring 2026. That means they’ve watched West Virginia public education transform from 2013 to 2026—the entire arc of their K-12 experience. They’ve spent their middle school and high school years watching programs shrink, teachers leave, class sizes grow, and opportunities disappear as funding gets diverted to subsidize private school tuition for families who already had money. My fourth-grader has ADHD and a high IQ. They’re in the gifted program, which provides exactly the kind of specialized, individualized support that makes the difference between a kid who thrives and a kid who struggles. I am terrified that program will be cut. Because here’s what happens when $52 million gets diverted from public schools: specialized programs disappear first. Gifted programs. Advanced courses. Arts. Music. The “extras” that aren’t actually extras—they’re what makes education work for kids whose brains work differently. Private schools don’t have to replicate these services. They don’t have to accept kids with IEPs. They don’t have to provide the same level of special education support. They can be selective in ways public schools legally cannot. So when families with resources leave public schools via Hope Scholarships, the students who remain—the ones who need the most support, the ones with learning differences, the ones whose families can’t afford alternatives—get fewer services with less funding. My fourth-grader, who needs that gifted program? They’re not going anywhere. We can’t afford private school even with a $4,921 subsidy. I can’t homeschool because I work full-time. We’re staying in public school. And that public school is getting gutted to fund scholarships for other people’s kids. Tell me how that’s fair. Tell me how that’s “choice.” Tell me how that helps my child. I’ll wait. The Money Behind the Machine: Koch Cash and Dark Money Pipelines Here’s where we follow the money—because understanding who’s funding this dismantling matters. Behind the deliberate strategy to bankrupt public education sit powerful organizations operating in close coordination: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) The model legislation factory. They write the bills, lawmakers copy-paste them into state law. Americans for Prosperity West Virginia (AFP-WV) The ground-level mobilization arm. They organize, lobby, and campaign for the policies ALEC designs. Both are funded extensively by Koch family foundations—Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch Charitable Foundations among others. These foundations channel millions through donor-advised funds like DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, which serve as dark-money conduits for politically aligned campaigns supporting both ALEC and AFP. The Stand Together network acts as an umbrella funneling resources to grassroots advocacy and model legislation strategies. This funding supports lobbying, organizing, and promoting school choice legislation that siphons money from public schools to privatized alternatives. AFP-WV operates as the key state-level mobilizer, campaigning for education policies aligned with ALEC’s model legislation while obscuring funding sources and coordination. This isn’t conspiracy theory. It’s documented funding flows and organizational relationships. The question isn’t whether this network exists—it’s why more people aren’t talking about it. The Constitutional Violation Nobody’s Prosecuting West Virginia Constitut

  3. 2d ago

    When Money Drowns Out People, Democracy Stops Feeling Like Ours

    The West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Substack publication and podcast exist to track the flow of political money into West Virginia’s elections and policy-making process. This work is not only about transparency. It is about whether ordinary people can still participate on equal terms in their own democracy. In West Virginia, people know what it feels like to be overlooked. Not always in some dramatic or headline-making way. Often it is quieter than that. It is the feeling of showing up, speaking up, voting, calling an elected official, and still wondering whether anybody with real power is actually listening. That feeling matters because democracy is supposed to mean more than being allowed to cast a ballot every few years. It is supposed to mean having a real voice in the decisions that shape everyday life. That is why Political Action Committees, or PACs, should be understood not only as a campaign finance issue, but as a human-rights issue. The United Nations recognizes political participation as a human right. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says everyone has the right to take part in the government of their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives, and says the will of the people is the basis of government authority. Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says every citizen has the right and the opportunity, without unreasonable restrictions, to take part in public affairs, to vote, and to be elected. If participation is a right, then politics should not be designed to reward the people who can afford the loudest megaphone. Those rights are not abstract; the UN handbook on elections says meaningful participation depends on equality, non-discrimination, access to information, peaceful assembly, freedom of movement, and a safe environment for making political choices. That idea may sound abstract at first. But in practice, it is not abstract at all. The Difference Between Voting and Being Heard Most people already know, deep down, that money has too much influence in politics. That does not require a law degree or a policy seminar to understand. It is visible in the constant ads, the carefully managed talking points, and the feeling that some people can get close to power much more easily than others. That is what makes PACs such a serious problem. They do not just raise money. They help shape the entire political atmosphere around a candidate, an issue, or an election. They amplify some voices far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. And once that happens, democracy begins to feel less like self-government and more like a competition between people with resources and everyone else. Yes, ordinary people can still vote. But voting is not the full measure of democracy if wealthy people and organized interests can still buy a louder voice, better access, and more influence over the rules than everyone else. A system can preserve the ballot and still leave people feeling shut out. A system can hold elections and still make ordinary citizens feel as if the real decisions are being shaped elsewhere. That does not mean elections are meaningless. It means democracy is incomplete. Why This Hits Hard in West Virginia This issue lands hard in West Virginia because many people here already know what it feels like to be treated as an afterthought. People in small towns and rural counties know what it means to be remembered during campaign season and forgotten after Election Day. Working people know what it means to stretch a paycheck across rent, groceries, gas, medicine, and school clothes. Parents know what it means to worry about childcare, healthcare, and whether the next emergency will push the family over the edge. When you live with that kind of pressure, it becomes very easy to see when politics is responding more quickly to money than to people. And when PAC money begins to dominate the political space, it does not feel like some distant technical problem. It feels familiar. It feels like one more reminder that access to government is not equal, and that some voices carry more weight because they come with more money behind them. The Human-Rights Question The real question is not whether PACs are legal. The real question is whether a democracy that gives amplified access and influence to money is living up to the principle of equal political participation. I’m sick of watching the First Amendment get dragged out every time somebody wants to defend PAC spending. Let’s cut through the noise: this is not some sacred free-speech crusade. What PAC money does in the real world is drown out regular voices, tilt access toward the wealthy, and make democracy feel less like self-government and more like a rigged auction. That is a human-rights problem, plain and simple, and it is past time to talk about it that way. If participation in public affairs is a human right, then the public must be able to participate in a way that is meaningful. A right that exists only on paper, but is weakened in practice by unequal influence, is not fully protected. The right to vote matters. But so does the right to be heard, the right to have a fair chance to shape public debate, and the right to approach government as a citizen rather than as a donor. That is the human-rights piece so many people already understand instinctively. They may never say “political participation” out loud or use the textbook terminology. But they know what it feels like to be talked over. They know what it feels like when decisions are being made in rooms they were never invited into. They know what it feels like when their lives are shaped by people who have more access, more reach, and more protection than they do. Human rights are not only about what governments stop people from doing. They are also about whether people can stand on equal civic ground. When politics consistently rewards the people who can afford the loudest megaphone, equal civic ground starts to disappear. What Equal Participation Should Mean Equal participation should mean that a citizen matters because they are a citizen, not because they can fund a political operation. It should mean that a teacher, a miner, a nurse, a parent, a small business owner, a service worker, a retiree, or a young person just starting out has a real chance to influence the public conversation. It should mean that government is accessible to ordinary people, not only to donors, consultants, industry groups, and the well-connected. That is not some radical standard. It is the bare minimum of a democracy worthy of the name. If the will of the people is supposed to be the basis of government authority, then the people must be more than spectators while money does the talking. What a Better System Would Require If democracy is going to feel real again, it will require more than frustration. It will require rules that make the public matter again. That means stronger transparency so people can see who is funding what. It means tighter rules that prevent moneyed interests from dominating the political environment. It means public financing and reforms that give ordinary citizens a more realistic chance to compete, organize, and be heard. And it means refusing to pretend that flooding politics with money automatically strengthens freedom. Speech matters. But so does political equality. The point is not to silence anyone. The point is to stop allowing wealth to speak so much louder than citizenship, and to make the path from money to influence visible enough that West Virginians can judge it for themselves. Why Tracking This Money Matters for Human Rights The West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Substack publication and podcast are dedicated to tracking the flow of political money into West Virginia’s elections and policy-making process because that flow is not neutral. It shapes who gets heard, who gets access, and whose priorities move through the system. If participation is a human right, then transparency and accountability are not optional extras. They are the minimum conditions for a democracy that takes equal participation seriously. The point of this work is not to lament the presence of money in politics. It is to make that money visible, traceable, and subject to public judgment. When people can see where the money comes from, where it goes, and what it buys, they can begin to challenge the system that produces it. The right to vote matters. But the right to be heard matters too. And if participation is truly a human right, then politics should not be designed to reward the people who can afford the loudest megaphone. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Articles 1 - 27 HUMAN RIGHTS AND ELECTIONS A Handbook on International Human Rights Standards on Elections Handbook United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carrieclendening.substack.com

  4. 4d ago

    Remembering Doug Skaff’s legacy with Sen. Rupie Phillips, former del. Doug Reynolds and Josh Stowers

    Thanks for reading West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Research! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carrieclendening.substack.com

    Remembering Doug Skaff’s legacy with Sen. Rupie Phillips, former del. Doug Reynolds and Josh Stowers

  5. Jul 9

    Conversation with Ramon Perez @ Digital Democracy Project

    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carrieclendening.substack.com

    Conversation with Ramon Perez @ Digital Democracy Project

  6. Jun 28

    My Warning for November

    Mountaineer Conservative Action: 1 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 2 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 3 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 4 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 5 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 6 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 7 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 8 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 9 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 10 Mountaineer Conservative Action: 11 Mountaineer Conservative Coalition: 1 Mountaineer Conservative Coalition: 2 The texts messages (verbatim) Reproduced exactly as received, including punctuation, emoji, formatting, and one typo. Each message is preceded by the sender name and phone number as it appeared in the recipient’s inbox. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Defending girls’ sports should be simple common sense. But Sen. Tom Takubo voted against HB 3293 (4/18/21) that would protect female athletes, putting their opportunities at risk. Call Sen. Takubo TODAY at 304-357-7990 and tell him to “Stop Endangering Our Girls!” Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 We must protect our children from the radical woke left agenda. Chris Pritt has proven he’ll do that by: ✅ Voting for record tax cuts to create jobs and put money back in working families’ pockets ✅ Passing a ban on gender surgeries for minors ✅ Voting to ban men from playing women’s sports ✅ Voting to prevent illegal aliens from stealing our jobs Call Chris Pratt TODAY at 304-573-9980 and thank him for protecting our children! Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Tom Takubo is too liberal for West Virginia! Takubo called banning puberty blockers “dramatic overreach” and voted to give puberty blockers to children. These are not West Virginian values. Call Tom Takubo TODAY at 304-357-7990 and tell him to “Stop Endangering Our Children!” Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: The Associated Press, 3/2/23; The Register-Herald, 3/29/23; SB 471, 2018; HB 3293, 2021 Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Tom Takubo said it was TOO EXPENSIVE to protect your children. Takubo voted to allow men to play in women’s sports (HB 3293, 4/8/21), putting young female athletes at risk. West Virginia families deserve better. Call Tom Takubo and let him know he doesn’t share our values. ☎️ 304-357-7990 Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: Metro News. “Push from Senate President’s political action committee targets a GOP colleague” 3/24/26; HB 3293, 2021 Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Tom Takubo isn’t being honest. Takubo claimed to support girls’ sports, but voted AGAINST protecting them (HB 3293, 2021). Tell him West Virginia families expect better. 📞 Call now: 304-357-7990 Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Watch our new video 📺 Tom Takubo is misleading West Virginians. What’s real is that Tom Takubo voted AGAINST protecting girls’ sports (HB 3293, 2021). Call Tom Takubo and tell him to “Stop endangering West Virginia’s girls!” 📞 304-357-7990 Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc. 304-990-0480 Tom Takubo voted to put men in women’s sports and give puberty blockers to children. These are not close calls. These are basic commonsense values that every West Virginia parent understands. Takubo failed that test. Badly. Call Tom Takubo TODAY at 304-357-7990 and tell him to stop endangering our kids! Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: The Associated Press, 3/2/23; The Register-Herald, 3/29/23. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 Don’t be misled by Tom Takubo. Takubo voted to give puberty blockers to kids, and the record proves it. West Virginia families deserve the truth. On May 12th, 𝗿𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝘂𝗯𝗼. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, 3/8/23; The Register-Herald 3/29/23. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 Tom Takubo fought tooth and nail to pump puberty blockers into West Virginia children. When conservatives stopped it, Takubo called it the most anti-Republican bill he had ever seen. He is endangering our kids and lying about it. 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝘂𝗯𝗼 on May 12. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: Charleston Gazette-Mail, 3/8/23; Register-Herald, 3/29/23 Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 Tom Takubo supports an extreme agenda: ❌ Voted to allow men to play in girls’ sports (HB 3293, 2021) ❌ Called banning puberty blockers “Dramatic Overreach” (Health and Human Resources Committee) Woke liberal Tom Takubo has a reckless record that endangers West Virginia children. 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝘂𝗯𝗼 on May 12. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 May 12 is coming. Senate District 17 cannot afford to get this wrong. ✅ 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁: Pro-Trump conservative. Banned puberty blockers. Banned gender surgeries on minors. Protected girls sports. Protecting our kids, our families, and our values. ❌ 𝘛𝘰𝘮 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘶𝘣𝘰: Woke Liberal. Voted for puberty blockers for kids. Called banning them “Dramatic Overreach.” Voted to allow men in girls sports. Pushing woke liberal policies that endanger our children. 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲. 𝘛𝘰𝘮 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘶𝘣𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘬𝘪𝘥𝘴. Vote Chris Pritt on May 12. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: HB 3293, 2021; AP, 3/2/23; HB 2998, 2021 Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 Election Day is May 12. Vote early if you can! As a Delegate, Chris Pritt has a record of putting West Virginia families first, voting to ban puberty blockers and to ban gender surgeries for minors. As your State Senator, Chris Pritt will fight for our children, our values, and our families every single day. 𝗩𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟮. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 Did you know? Steven Eshenaur backed DEI policies, partnered with radical left activist groups, and supported needle exchange programs. West Virginia values are on the ballot. Steven Eshenaur’s record is clear-too liberal, too woke. 𝗢𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟮, 𝗿𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗘𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗮𝘂𝗿. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Sources: Kanawha-Charleston Health Department Website, “About” Page, Accessed 3/10/26; 2. Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, Press Release, 8/26/22. 3. The Daily Yonder, 12/19/22 Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservative Action 681-867-0840 📽️Watch our new video about Radical Liberal Michael Antolini. Michael Antolini is the head of an organization backing abortion on demand (1) and is bankrolled by radical liberal donors (2). We don’t need this woke agenda in West Virginia. 𝗢𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟮𝘁𝗵 - 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗥𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗶. Paid for by Mountaineer Conservative Action, a registered political organization. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Source: 1. WBOY, 6/28/22; 2. West Virginia Secretary of State Reply STOP to stop. Mountaineer Conservati

  7. Jun 21

    Why I’m Telling My 18‑Year‑Old To Wait Before Registering To Vote

    My daughter just turned 18. She’s smart, opinionated, and absolutely ready to vote. And I did something that feels almost sacrilegious for a parent who cares deeply about democracy: I told her to wait. Not forever. Not to disengage. Just to hold off on registering until we’re closer to the deadline this fall. Why? Because right now, our voter registration systems are a mess — a political battlefield where our personal data is being treated like a weapon, passed around between governments and third‑party vendors, and routinely left hanging out on the open internet like a forgotten file on someone’s desktop. I don’t want my kid’s full name, address, date of birth, and partial Social Security number sitting in some unsecured cloud bucket or in the hands of a contractor who treats “security” as an afterthought. And that is not a hypothetical fear. It’s exactly what has already happened, over and over again. This is not about discouraging her — or anyone — from voting. It’s about the adults in charge of this system behaving so irresponsibly with voter data that I don’t trust them with my freshly 18‑year‑old’s information right now. When Your Voter File Becomes a Political Weapon Over the last couple of years, the federal government has been on a crusade to get its hands on complete, unredacted statewide voter registration lists from almost every state and Washington, D.C. These aren’t just the public records versions that include name and address. They want the whole thing: full legal names, residential addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license or state ID numbers, and pieces of Social Security numbers. The Department of Justice has sent demands to at least 48 states and D.C., and has sued Washington, D.C. and 30 states that refused to turn over their full statewide voter registration lists with driver’s license and Social Security information. Some of these lawsuits target states the administration lost in 2020, and the stated justification is “we just want to check whether your rolls are accurate.” Let’s be clear: there is a world of difference between auditing election systems and hoovering up the most sensitive information on tens of millions of voters into federal hands, to be processed by contractors we know almost nothing about. Election officials from both parties have raised alarms because the federal government has never had full, unredacted voter lists at this scale before. Some states have said no. Illinois, for example, refused to hand over dates of birth, driver’s license or state ID numbers, and Social Security information, citing state law and privacy protections, and instead sent a more limited file like the one it shares with political committees. The DOJ wrote back and said, essentially, “Not good enough. We want the entire database, all fields, including full name, date of birth, residence, driver’s license, and last four of the Social Security number.” Other states have been sued and then vindicated in court. A federal judge in California dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit that sought to force the state to turn over its full, unredacted voter registration list, including addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. In total, at least eight of these cases — including ones against California, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oregon, Maine, and Wisconsin — have already been dismissed, and the DOJ is appealing several of them. So from my vantage point as a parent, here’s how this looks: the federal government is in a legal knife fight with dozens of states trying to pry loose as much sensitive voter data as possible, while courts are saying, “Hold on, you may not be allowed to do that.” That is not a stable, trustworthy environment for me to casually toss my daughter’s data into. The Grown‑Ups Left the Door Wide Open If this were just a theoretical debate about who could access what, I’d still be uneasy. But this isn’t theoretical. We have a long, ugly history of voter data being leaked, misconfigured, and left exposed — not by some movie‑villain hacker, but by the very entities that collect and monetize this information. A few greatest hits: * A tech contractor in Illinois left at least 13 databases with about 4.6 million records on the open internet — no password protection — containing names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, voter registration history, absentee and early voting records, even death certificates from multiple counties. * Security researchers found a misconfigured database sitting online that contained information on about 191 million U.S. voters — including names, addresses, birth dates, party affiliations, phone numbers and emails — accessible to anyone who knew where to look. * A huge dataset compiled by Deep Root Analytics, a political data firm that worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, exposed personal information on roughly 198 million Americans due to a misconfigured Amazon S3 server. Again: names, demographics, political data, all sitting out there. * In Alaska, a cyberattack on the state’s online voter registration system exposed personal information — names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, party affiliation — for about 113,000 people. * Another leak involved about 593,000 Alaska voter records associated with a national voter file compiled by TargetSmart; the data was exposed because a third‑party AI software company that licensed the data failed to secure its database. These are not minor slip‑ups. These are systemic failures: misconfigured servers, unsecured cloud storage, and contractors who don’t lock the damn door. And every time this happens, we get the same bland apology: “We take security very seriously.” No, they don’t. If they did, the personal information of millions of voters wouldn’t keep ending up on the internet like someone’s forgotten public Dropbox folder. The Third‑Party Vendor Problem Nobody Wants to Own Here’s the part that really sets me off: when states and the federal government collect this data, they don’t just keep it in some mythical, perfectly secured government vault. They share it. They license it. They hand it to third‑party contractors — data analytics firms, consultants, vendors — who then store, copy, and manipulate it on their own systems. That’s how you end up with situations like: * Deep Root Analytics compiling a massive trove of voter data for campaign work and leaving it exposed because of a misconfigured S3 bucket. * TargetSmart’s licensed data being left unsecured by Equals3, an AI software company, leading to the leak of hundreds of thousands of Alaska voter records. * Illinois counties’ data sitting in unsecured cloud storage run by a technology contractor, with Social Security numbers and full personal details just hanging out for anyone who finds the server. It doesn’t matter which party these vendors are aligned with. I don’t trust any of them if their idea of security is “remember to maybe set a password later.” Yet these are exactly the kinds of entities the federal government and the political parties rely on to store and process the giant voter files they’re currently fighting over. So when I picture my daughter registering to vote, I’m not just picturing our local elections office. I’m picturing a diffuse, poorly governed ecosystem of contractors and data firms that have already demonstrated, time and again, that they are fully capable of screwing this up on a massive scale. “Mom, Are You Saying I Shouldn’t Vote?” No. I’m saying I don’t trust the people holding the keys to the system right now. When I tell my daughter, “Let’s wait until October before you register,” I’m not telling her to sit out democracy. I’m telling her that her information has value, and that the adults who designed and run these systems have not earned our blind trust. I’m also acknowledging something we usually gloss over: once your data gets sucked into one of these giant voter databases, you don’t really get it back. You can’t un‑expose a Social Security number. You can’t un‑leak a birth date and home address that have already been scraped, copied, and sold fifty times. So yes, I am asking my daughter to delay — strategically. I want to see: * Whether more courts push back against these sweeping federal data demands. * Whether our state clarifies what exactly it is sharing, with whom, and under what security controls. * Whether there are any new breaches, “misconfigurations,” or “contractor errors” in the months ahead that change the risk picture. Do I think the system will magically become safe by October? No. But I’d rather not reward ongoing, active recklessness with my kid’s data while the lawsuits are still flying and the breaches are still being disclosed. What I Want Before I Hand Over My Kid’s Data If I’m going to feel even moderately comfortable telling my daughter to go ahead and register online, I want to see three basic things. * Data minimization and clear limits I want my state to say, in plain language: “Here’s what we collect when you register. Here’s what we do not collect. Here’s what we share, and with whom, and here’s what we will never share.” If you don’t need driver’s license numbers or pieces of Social Security numbers to run a secure, accurate election, stop hoarding them. * Vendor accountability with teeth If a contractor exposes voter data — like the firms involved in the 191 million‑voter exposure, the 198 million‑record Deep Root leak, the Alaska voter file mess, or the Illinois county databases — there should be real, painful consequences. Not “we’re sorry and we updated our settings,” but termination of contracts, fines,

  8. Jun 20

    Hunger in West Virginia and the Morrisey–McCuskey–Scott Will Machine

    Hunger in West Virginia is not an accident. It is what happens when the same small circle of men controls the budgets, the lawsuits, and the money machine behind our elections—Governor Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General JB McCuskey, and consultant Scott Will. Have you ever been hungry? Not the kind of hungry that nudges you toward the fridge between meals. Not the kind of hungry that has you scrolling through a takeout app on a Tuesday night. I mean truly, stomach-aching, nothing in the cabinet, kids going to bed without dinner hungry. In 2026, the wealthiest country on earth is quietly letting millions of families go without food. At what point did hunger stop being a moral crisis and become just another policy argument? The distance between a full refrigerator and an empty one is the same distance between our leaders and the people they’re supposed to serve. I’ve been thinking about that question a lot lately. Because while lawmakers in Washington and right here in Charleston debate budgets, score political points, and protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, real people—your neighbors, your coworkers, the family down the street—are going without food. This isn’t a hypothetical. This isn’t a distant problem. This is happening right now, in 2026, in the wealthiest country on earth. And when you follow the decisions and then follow the money, you keep landing on the same three names. If you’ve been reading my work on this Substack, you know this isn’t a standalone story. In “Your Attorney General Doesn’t Work for You Anymore,” I laid out how RAGA and DAGA turned the AG’s office into a national partisan litigation machine. In “Your Help Really Makes a Difference,” I showed how Patrick Morrisey’s donor world operated at the Greenbrier. And in “Sugar Maple PAC may be buying the ads, but the real story is the small circle of operatives routing, reporting, and managing the machine behind West Virginia’s 2026 Republican primaries,” I traced the same pattern through Scott Will, SW2 Political, Matchstick, Bulldog, Red Curve, and the PAC infrastructure behind West Virginia’s Republican primaries. This piece sits on top of that groundwork. It is about what happens when that same machine meets something as basic as whether kids in West Virginia eat dinner. The Numbers Are Staggering — And They Should Shame Us A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis found that food insecurity in America has reached levels higher than during the COVID-19 pandemic. One in ten American households reported not having enough food to eat, or that their children missed meals—more than double the share who said the same in June 2020, at the height of the crisis. More than a third of households are now dipping into their savings just to buy groceries. Meanwhile, food prices in April 2026 were about 3.2 percent higher than a year ago, the fastest monthly spike in nearly four years. Overall inflation has climbed to roughly 3.8 percent, the highest in almost three years. People are not imagining this. It is real, and it is relentless. And yet, Congress passed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” slashing around 186–187 billion dollars from SNAP—food stamps—over ten years. That’s about a 20 percent cut to the one program millions of families depend on to keep food on the table. Before the cuts, children made up roughly 39 percent of SNAP recipients, and older Americans around 20 percent. These are the people lawmakers decided could afford to go without. The Trump administration actually celebrated removing people from SNAP—as if hunger is a victory condition. Right Here in West Virginia: Patrick Morrisey’s Hunger Budget West Virginia already knows what hunger looks like. We live it. According to Feeding America, 1 in 5 children in our state faces hunger. In fiscal year 2025, about 272,800 West Virginians—15.4 percent of our entire population—relied on SNAP benefits just to eat. Our state consistently ranks among the most food-insecure in the nation. And now, on top of federal cuts to SNAP, WIC, and school nutrition programs, our state is facing its own budget crisis—one that threatens the programs quietly holding West Virginia families together. Governor Patrick Morrisey recently revealed a 40 million dollar structural gap in West Virginia’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding. His early suggestions for closing that gap? Cutting childcare assistance. Cutting the clothing allowance that helps low-income families buy school clothes for their kids. Putting the futures of 58 Family Support Centers across our state in jeopardy. These aren’t just buildings. Family Support Centers are places where families get parent education, child-development support, after-school programs, GED classes, food and hygiene pantries, and a hand when they need it most. In a single recent year, just four of these centers served nearly 5,000 individuals statewide. They are lifelines—and they are now staring down an uncertain July with no guarantee of continued funding. The Department of Human Services scrambled to send a letter on June 11, 2026, extending Family Support Center grants for a “fifth quarter” to buy time. A fifth quarter. That’s the language of crisis management, not a government that has its priorities straight. No one forced Patrick Morrisey to start balancing his TANF books on the backs of childcare, school clothes, and community supports. In a state where 1 in 5 kids is already hungry, choosing children’s clothing vouchers and Family Support Centers as the first place to cut is not prudence. It’s a statement of values. JB McCuskey: The Fights He Chooses and the Hunger He Ignores If Patrick Morrisey’s budget tells you who he is willing to sacrifice, Attorney General JB McCuskey’s docket tells you what he thinks is worth fighting for. On May 20, 2026, McCuskey filed a sweeping consumer-protection lawsuit against Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy-advisory firm based in Rockville, Maryland, accusing it of deceptive trade practices and claiming its climate and diversity policies harm West Virginia investors. This lawsuit didn’t materialize out of thin air. It closely tracks the playbook pioneered by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office has been at the center of the national anti-ESG crusade and who has repeatedly targeted proxy advisers and climate-related investing. McCuskey’s wife, Wendy, is from Texas, and instead of writing his own script for West Virginia, he is following Paxton’s lead—importing that culture-war agenda into a state where families are more worried about their grocery bill than about whether a proxy-advisory firm graded Exxon’s climate plan too harshly. He can marshal outside lawyers and national Republican AG figures to go after a company in Maryland, but when it comes to standing up for the most basic interest his constituents have—being able to feed their families—his pen goes dry. On twenty-three attorneys general from across the country signed a letter to the U.S. Senate urging it to restore SNAP protections in the Farm Bill. They called the cuts economically shortsighted and morally wrong. They warned that some states may have to consider withdrawing from SNAP altogether because the cost-shifting is so severe. They asked Congress to reverse the damage before millions more Americans lose the ability to feed their families. West Virginia’s Attorney General, JB McCuskey, was not among them. That omission is extraordinary in a state like ours. In one of the hungriest states in the country, with one in five children facing hunger, our attorney general stayed silent on the program that keeps many of them fed. Analysts estimate that the Farm Bill changes will shift more than 80 million dollars in new costs onto West Virginia by the end of 2026, straining a state budget that already struggles to meet basic needs. Twenty-three of his peers looked at that reality and said, “not on our watch.” Our attorney general looked at the same crisis and stayed quiet. I know JB McCuskey. He comes from a family with means. His wife is from Texas. I would be willing to bet he has never once opened a refrigerator and felt that particular kind of dread—the kind where you already know it’s empty before you look. That’s not an insult. It’s an observation about how distance from struggle shapes the decisions people make. When you’ve never been hungry, hunger is a statistic. When you have, it’s a memory that never fully leaves. McCuskey’s record makes that distance visible: he will pick up the pen to protect corporations from environmental advocates and climate-conscious shareholders, and to echo Ken Paxton’s anti-ESG crusade, but he put it down when it was time to protect hungry families in one of the most food-insecure states in America. Twenty-three attorneys general from across the country looked at what is happening to hungry families and said “not on our watch.” West Virginia’s top law-enforcement officer looked at the same crisis and said nothing. That silence has a cost. And families across this state are the ones paying it. Scott Will and the Machine Behind Them If Patrick Morrisey and JB McCuskey are the faces, Scott Will is part of the wiring behind them. Scott Will isn’t some random D.C. consultant. He managed Patrick Morrisey’s first successful campaign for attorney general in 2012, then followed him into the world of Republican attorneys general politics as Morrisey rose to chair the national Republican Attorneys General Association. That same world raises and spends millions of dollars to elect and protect Republican AGs—including here in West Virginia. Now, Will’s name shows up on the boards of American Prosperity Group and West Virginia Prosperity Group and at SW2 Political—the small circle of consultants, media buyers, and compliance firms that keep

See All (26)

About

West Virginia Policy and Campaign Finance Research. This Substack publication is dedicated to tracking the flow of political money into West Virginia’s elections and policy-making process. carrieclendening.substack.com

Information