The WV League of Women Voters has released a new Legislative Scorecard for 2023, which can be viewed at lwvwv.org. This searchable tool tracks the votes of all West Virginia state senators and delegates on a subset of bills from the 2023 regular session that became law.
The scorecard is designed to offer voters easy-to-use information on how their elected representatives voted on legislation prioritized by the LWV-WV. The scorecard was developed to inform voters and to hold legislators, regardless of party, accountable for their votes.
The complete Legislative Scorecard covers all 134 legislators across the state. This year’s scorecard highlights votes by senators and delegates on 25 bills covering the League’s priorities of safeguarding equal rights, protecting children and families and creating a sustainable future for the State of West Virginia. Of the 333 bills that became law, we found no bills of sufficient substance to represent the League’s No. 1 priority of strengthening democracy by making voting more accessible.
For Monongalia County, in particular, we believe voters need to know if their legislators are being responsive to their interests. It is part of the League’s mission to make voters better informed in a non-partisan way and, with more information, we hope more voters will feel empowered to vote.
One of the most common reasons people give for not voting is that they do not know enough about the candidates. Non-voters also blame the intimidating and nasty rhetoric of negative campaign ads that are frequently partisan attacks paid for by special interest political action committees (PACs) motivated by self-serving agendas. (Hint: always look for the “this ad paid for by” statement in very small print in the ad. If you research that entity, you may be shocked by what that particular PAC seeks to accomplish or who profits from their agenda.)
The 25 bills in this year’s scorecard were selected without regard to their sponsors or which legislators supported or opposed them.
We found that Monongalia’s six senators (Districts 2, 13 and 14) and six delegates (Districts 77-82) rarely voted consistently for or against the bills the League of Women Voters prioritized.
Notably, the exception was for bills to safeguard equal rights, where seven out of 12 Monongalia County legislators voted against all 10 bills. The seven were Sens. Clements (2), Maroney (2), Oliverio (13), Smith (14) and Taylor (14); and Dels. Chiarelli (78) and Statler (77).
Only one delegate, Hansen (79), had a score of 100%, on bills to protect children and families.
To view the language of the bills, visit the scorecard summary description of bills.
The overall scorecard ratings (in terms of agreement with League positions) for Monongalia County legislators for bills related to safeguarding equal rights (10 bills), protecting children and families (eight bills) and creating a sustainable future (seven bills) are as follows:
Senators
- Caputo (13), 60%
- Clements (2), 16%
- Maroney (2), 20%
- Oliverio (13), 16%
- Smith (14), 24%
- Taylor (14), 20%
Delegates
- Chiarelli (78), 20%
- Hansen (79), 84%
- Statler (77), 24%
- Walker (81), 76%
- Warner (82), 20%
- Williams (80), 68%
We encourage all West Virginia citizens to visit lwvwv.org and use the scorecard tool. The searchable pages give useful links to the bills that were passed, a brief explanation of the 25 bills, as well as summary and detailed voting records for all legislators in the state.
We hope this information will help all voters feel more confident in making their choices among candidates in the next election and that their representatives are keeping the promises made to their constituents. We also hope it will incentivize citizens who are not voters to register and to vote.
