MEDIA RELEASE: WV Can’t Wait Movement Begins to Enshrine its “New Deal” Into More than a Dozen Pieces of Legislation
 
Charleston, WV -- In 2019, working class West Virginians began to lay out a vision for what government would look like if it were run by them, instead of wealthy elites and the politicians they own. Calling themselves WV Can’t Wait, they came together at 197 Town Halls, open to the public. They conducted over 11,000 one-on-one conversations at fairs, festivals and community meetings. Teachers got together to write an education plan. Miners wrote their own “bill of rights.” Small businesses re-wrote the tax code to keep our wealth here.
 
They called their policy platform a “New Deal for West Virginia.” This New Deal did the opposite of Governor Justice’s new plan; it shifted more than $2 billion per year from the pockets of wealthy and out-of-state interests into the pockets of working West Virginians. It heralded Broadband as a Public Utility. Full Cannabis Legalization, a State Bank. Dozens of WV Can’t Wait Candidates signed on across the state, and national news outlets hailed their work as “the most important election of 2020.” 
 
Now the New Deal is being translated into groundbreaking legislation at the Capitol, thanks to the leadership of Delegate Cody Thompson (43rd District, Randolph County) and other WV Can’t Wait-backed officials and allies. Some of the highlights include: 
 
✔️HB 3124 - A first-time bill to grant collective bargaining rights to Public Employees, once and for all shifting power to teachers and other public employees who remain underpaid and undervalued, plus a pay raise for teachers and school service personnel (HB 3109) 
✔️HB 2841 - A first-time bill to end election buying, the practice of wealthy candidates dumping unlimited cash into their own campaign coffers 
✔️HB 2850 - A first-time bill to start a corporate crime unit in the state police. For the first time in WV history shifting police dollars to the investigation of corporate criminals and corrupt politicians and away from West Virginians who are poor, sick, or Black ✔️HB 2148 - A first-time “Facebook tax” bill to charge companies that “mine consumer data,” and end the practice of Silicon Valley monetizing our personal information without paying their fair share 
✔️HB 2839 - A first-time bill to start a Recovery Can’t Wait program of, by, and for people in recovery that would ramp up the state’s Naloxone distribution and include leadership of people with substance use disorder in all aspects of drug policy. 
 
More bills are on the way, including a bill that would enshrine food as a right protected by the state constitution (lead sponsor Delegate Danielle Walker) and legislation to fully legalize cannabis. (Bill texts for the above can be found at the state legislature’s website, wvlegislature.gov.) 
 
Delegate Thompson--a public school teacher from Randolph County, who helped organize the 2018 teacher and school service personnel strike--has spearheaded the effort to start translating the WV Can’t Wait platform into legislation. 
 
“West Virginians don’t want more tax breaks for out-of-state corporations. And they don’t want symbolism,” Delegate Thompson said. “They want real, bold change they can feel in their bank accounts, and in their workplace. That’s what they sent me here to do.” Del. Thompson and WV Can’t Wait leaders argue that this is a “long game.” 
 
“Our goal is to win a people’s government here in the mountain state--where the people who work the hardest and bear the most are also the people who write the laws,” said WV Can’t Wait co-chair Katey Lauer. “One important step along the way is to turn the will of the people into legislation. Better wages, policing corporations, an end to our opioid crisis -- these are the things that everyone wants but rarely get acted on by the legislature. It’s shocking to most people that many of these common sense bills have never been introduced.” 
 
Some have questioned whether these bills can succeed, given the current make up of the legislature. “If you only write bills that appeal to the wealthy Good Old Boys Club that already runs the show, nothing will ever change. That’s what they’re counting on,” said WV Can’t Wait co-chair Stephen Smith. “These may or may not be the bills that make it out of corporate-controlled committee hearings. But these are the bills that will recruit the next generation of candidates and county captains.”
WV Can't Wait is a movement to win a people's government in the Mountain State. For more information, visit wvcantwait.com.