The candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives District 1 represent the past and the future. Rep. David McKinley has 10 years of experience in the House and a laundry list of legislation to accompany it. But his focus seems very much to be on West Virginia as it is. Natalie Cline, on the other hand, is looking forward and planning for West Virginia’s future. We’re ready to see the Mountain State move forward instead of letting the past keep us tethered in place, which is why The Dominion Post is endorsing Natalie Cline for the U.S. House of Representatives.
As Cline said in her introduction, “It’s going to take an average West Virginian, who knows what it’s like to be an average West Virginian, to make the change that we need.”
Cline shared with us her own personal experience struggling with the affordability of health care. While she was in graduate school, she was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, her life became a series of financial questions: How do I pay rent? How do I pay utilities? How do I pay my medical bills? Someone who has faced that crisis — not wanting to die but not being able to afford staying alive — will fight all the harder for Americans’ right to affordable and accessible health care.
That was another of Cline’s points: Accessible health care. Affording health insurance or coverage is one fight, but West Virginia’s experiencing increasing issues with accessing medical care. She noted the recent hospital closures, including Fairmont Regional, and said we need to fix the system that allows companies like Alecto to buy up hospitals and then dismantle them.
While Cline considers the needs of the present, she also looks to the opportunities of the future. In terms of energy, Cline said she supports coal miners and coal unions — what she doesn’t support is coal barons getting richer while workers struggle. We need to diversify our energy and our economy and should incentivize new companies the way we’ve historically incentivized coal. She appeared to reference a 2019 Forbes article when she said jobs in renewable energy outnumber jobs in fossil fuels 3 to 1, and we need to get those jobs here in West Virginia. She was also adamant about creating job opportunities for our future generations, so young West Virginians don’t feel like they must leave to find work and build a future.
As she is running for a national office, we asked Cline about medical marijuana and other cannabis products. Cline favors medical marijuana and even recreational marijuana to an extent because of potential tax revenue and ongoing research about its impacts on decreasing opioid use. Cline also sees downstream job opportunities with industrial hemp, which can be used to make plastics and a substitute for hardwood flooring. Coal is a finite resource and we desperately need economic diversification. While others are still trying to figure out how to make coal clean (and infinite), Cline is looking forward and making plans to solidify West Virginia’s economic and industrial future.
Cline represents movement forward, rather than the holding pattern the state has been stuck in for centuries. She brings a fresh perspective, personal experience with some of the issues facing everyday West Virginians and a vision for a state that future generations will gladly call home.
