MORGANTOWN – Reps. Carol Miller and Alex Mooney have displaced Rep. David McKinley as the wealthiest members of West Virginia’s U.S. House of Representatives delegation, according to their 2020 personal finance disclosures filed earlier this month.
All three are Republicans. Miller, 3rd District, is tops, with an estimated net worth of $75.21 million. Mooney, 2nd District, is second, at $14.7 million. McKinley, 1st District, is third at $10.4 million.
As we reported last week, Sen. Joe Manchin’s estimated 2020 net worth was $8.6 million and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s was $2.53 million.
As we stated last week, The Dominion Post periodically reviews the net worth of the state’s congressional delegation, employing a method used by the watchdog group Open Secrets for all members of Congress.
We total each person’s reported assets and liabilities and subtract the liabilities from the assets.
Members report their holdings in broad ranges: $0-$1,000; $1,001-$15,000; $15,001-$50,000; $50,001-$100,000 and so on.
We total the minimum and maximum values for assets and liabilities. To get the most probable range, we subtract the maximum liability total from the minimum asset total and the minimum liability from maximum assets.
This represents the extremes of what each person could be worth. From those extremes, we take the average as the estimated net worth.
Here’s a look at each member of Congress.
Carol Miller
Miller has an asset range of $15,186,062 to $340,390,006. Her liabilities range from $4,365,006 to $200,800,004.
Using the formula, that puts her range of worth at -$185,613,942 to $336,025,000. From that, her estimated net worth comes to $75,205,529.
Members of Congress are required to report their own and their spouse’s assets. The bulk of Miller’s assets come from her husband’s (Matt Miller) ownership of five Dutch Miller auto dealerships, all valued at more than $1 million. In addition, he has ownership interest, through MFM Realty, of the five dealership properties, with four of those valued at more than $1 million and one valued at $100,001-$250,000.
Open Secrets notes the challenge of estimating spousal assets valued at more than $1 million, because House reporting rules don’t require a maximum range. For those assets, Open Secrets sets a cap of $50 million for its formula, and we used the same figure.
Out of curiosity, we also calculated an estimated net worth by setting that cap at $5 million. Even with that lower cap, Miller still comes in at the wealthiest of West Virginia’s five, with an estimated net worth of $30.2 million.
Miller and her husband also hold a variety of stock assets. They have pharmaceutical stock: Abbott, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CVS Health, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Merck, Pfizer and Viatris.
Their tech holdings include Apple, Microsoft, Cisco and Oracle.
Examples of other holdings are: Altria (tobacco products), Coca-Cola, Dominion Energy, Energizer (batteries), Hormel Foods (Spam), McDonald’s, Yum! (KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut), and Proctor & Gamble.
Stock portfolios are subject to frequent trades and updates, logged on Periodic Transaction Reports; the companies cited here and for the others are on their annual filings.
Miller’s liabilities include two mortgages, a farm loan, two loans for the dealerships and a business floor plan loan.
As we reported last week, Manchin ranked 67th most wealthy for both houses of Congress in 2018 (the last year for which Open Secrets evaluated and ranked all 535 members) and 19th in the Senate. Capito was 169th and 46th, respectively.
Miller wasn’t in the U.S. House in 2018, but plugging her current estimated net worth into the 2018 list would put her at 11th overall and ninth in the House.
Alex Mooney
Virtually all of Mooney’s worth stems from one asset: his wife’s (Grace Mooney) TIAA retirement annuity, valued at $5,000,001-$25,000,000.
Mooney himself holds nine Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plan 401K funds. All but one of those are valued at $1,001-$15,000. The ninth is valued at $1-$1,000.
His combined asset range is $5,009,011-$25,136,000. He reports one liability, a home mortgage, valued at $250,001-$500,000.
Using the formula, Mooney’s range of worth is $4,509,011-$24,885,999. That puts his estimated net worth at $14,697,505.
In 2018, his wife’s retirement annuity wasn’t factored in and his estimated net worth was just $137,005, ranking him 287th in the House and 360th overall.
David McKinley
In 2018, McKinley’s estimated net worth was $6,739,056, placing him second after Manchin and above Capito, Mooney and then-Rep. Evan Jenkins. Jenkins, now state Supreme Court chief justice, ranked fourth among the five, with an estimated net worth of $920,023.
For all of Congress in 2018, McKinley ranked 82nd overall for net worth and 59th in the House.
For 2020, McKinley reported assets of $5,016,118-$15,796,000. He reported no liabilities.
His estimated net worth came to $10,406,059.
He and his wife, Mary, hold a broad array of assets. Stock holdings include Abbott Laboratories, Apple, Costco, Dollar Tree, Home Depot, Intuit, MasterCard, Microsoft, Starbucks, Sysco (food distributor), Tractor Supply and UnitedHealth.
Many of their assets are packaged into IRA accounts and a Black Rock-managed set of exchange-traded funds called iShares.
They own a rental property in Wheeling worth $1,000,001-$5,000,000 and co-own with other family members 90 acres of Preston County timber land valued at $15,001-$50,000.
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