Issues

Economy & Labor

Break corporate control over the power grid by implementing citizen ownership of the grid.

Create over 70,000 good-paying union jobs by investing in solar, wind, and geothermal energy.

Create a state bank to provide no-interest loans to West Virginia workers.

End “right-to-work” and "at-will" employment by guaranteeing the right of every West Virginia worker, both private and public sector, to form a union, organize, bargain, go on strike, and elect their supervisors.

Establish at least one Workers Center in every county where workers can:
- file grievances,
- gain legal help,
- register to vote,
- find support for organizing their workplaces,
- access strike funds,
- report a corporate crime,
- organize a tenants union,
- get connected to human services, and
- gain training and technical assistance for starting worker-owned cooperatives.

Establish public broadband utility owned by the citizens of West Virginia.

Exempt Social Security from the state income tax.

Guarantee the right of all workers to engage in collective action and self-representation regardless of union status.

Guarantee full benefits for all workers, regardless of part-time or full-time status.

Guarantee paid family and sick leave for all workers.

Guarantee the right of all eligible workers to work from home.

Implement tax incentives for West Virginia residents and businesses who utilize solar power.

Increase and enforce a statewide living wage, with no reduction in worker hours, and adjusted annually for inflation.

Legalize cannabis and invest in local worker-owned dispensaries.

Promote economic democracy through direct worker control over production.

Place a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure and ensure a just transition for all fossil fuel workers by:
- Guaranteeing all former fossil fuel workers jobs in the new sustainable energy sector;
- Guaranteeing full salaries and benefits to all fossil fuel workers until new jobs can be found, or offer fully-funded early retirement for all fossil fuel workers ages 55 and older.

Provide a basic income to all West Virginia adult residents through a pollution credit system or sovereign wealth fund.

Recognize unions based on cards signed.

Restore the Prevailing Wage.

Repeal H.B. 2933, which targets businesses exercising free speech.

Strengthen laws against wage theft.

Education

Allow educators to directly elect the West Virginia Board of Education.

Ban charter schools and the use of school vouchers for private schools.

Drastically increase educators’ and school personnel pay and benefits, including retirement benefits, and raise pay every year to keep with inflation.

End high-stakes standardized testing.

Ensure every classroom has a fully certified, high-quality teacher.

Ensure quality second language studies beginning no later than second grade and supported through high school.

Expand school-based health centers to assure every child has access to healthcare.

Expand partnerships between high schools and Community and Technical Colleges to allow students to graduate from high school with a technical certification or even an associate’s degree.

Forgive student loans for all public school employees.

Fully fund daycare and pre-K programs.

Fully fund public schools with an equitable funding formula.

Fully fund all higher education, including technical education.

Fully fund PEIA through progressive taxation measures, including a gas severance tax and corporate net income tax.

Include faculty and student democratic decision-making in curriculum, administration, and conflict resolution within each school.

Increase the state income tax exemption for retired school employees.

Give retired teachers and school service personnel cost-of-living raises tied to inflation.

Grant classroom teachers the ability to determine the content of their lesson plans.

Grant collective bargaining for all education employees, including all higher education employees.

Guarantee high quality, inclusive, evidence-based sex education.

Guarantee free and nutritious breakfast and lunch options for all students year-round, including during the summer months.

Place mental health professionals in every school.

Recognize college athletes as workers.

Reduce class sizes.

Support restorative justice programs and reduce the need of LEOs in schools

Drug Epidemic

Adopt Good Samaritan Law.

Establish recovery centers accessible from every community and ensure there are no wait times for treatment.

Make Naloxone available in all public buildings and treatment centers and distribute it to all first responders.

Promote harm reduction.

Prosecute the drug companies responsible for flooding our communities with opioids and other drugs.

Treat drug addiction as a healthcare issue, not a criminal one; decriminalize drug possession and focus instead on evidence-based treatment.

Cannabis

Expunge the records of all people with convictions related to possession.

Legalize cannabis and psilocybin, along other entheogenic substances that have been found to have therapeutic benefits and low medical risks for responsible adult users.

Make grants available specifically for those with prior convictions for cannabis and entheogen possession to operate cannabis and entheogen businesses as part of a reparations programs for their unjust incarceration.

Prohibit exclusion from public housing based on cannabis use.

Sustain local cannabis by investing in local, worker-owned dispensaries rather than out-of-state corporations.

Stop removal of children from parents/guardians for testing positive for THC.

Healthcare

Ban conversion therapy.

Establish a single-payer health insurance program covering all residents in the state and pay a living wage to all care providers.

Establish elected health boards at the local, county, and state level which allow for community and worker control over healthcare.

Launch public campaigns to combat disinformation related to healthcare in order to ensure the health and safety of all citizens.

Require coverage to include essential physical, dental, mental, vision, reproductive, and gender-affirming care, with all services fully-funded.

Utilize the state bank (See Above: Economy & Labor) to buy back and forgive the medical debt of all West Virginians.

Establish universal childcare.

Increase youth engagement in our communities and civic processes by establishing Youth Councils at the local, county, and state level. These councils will be elected by the youth of West Virginia and help advise and direct policy makers to ensure that our youth have a voice in their communities.

Invest in high-quality education. (See Above: Education)

Lower the voting age for local, county, and state races to 16 — no taxation without representation.

Youth

Roads & Infrastructure

Develop a statewide mass transit plan that incentivizes sustainable public transit and makes our communities more pedestrian and bike friendly.

Guarantee that all road and transit workers are well-paid and unionized.

Tax the companies whose large trucks cause almost all non-weather-related damage to our roads and invest in road repair and maintenance.

More Issues

Criminal Justice

Allow free access to reading materials to incarcerated people.

Amend the criminal code to be able to prosecute companies and corporate CEOs for the deaths caused by corporate greed and corruption.

Ban government officials from purchasing and selling stock.

Ban discrimination based on criminal records.

Create a Corporate Crime Division to combat:
- wage theft,
- air and water pollution,
- surface owners rights violations,
- union-busting,
- discrimination,
- opioid distribution,
- use tax violations,
- payroll tax violations,
- unpaid corporate and individual tax bills and more.

Decriminalize drug use and possession.

Decriminalize sex work.

Demilitarize and gradually disarm state and local police and focus instead on de-escalation tactics. Redistribute the duties of police to other actors, including medical professionals, social workers, and other community-based alternatives.

Eliminate the root causes of crime by ending homelessness, poverty, racial discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, sexism, and other forms of oppression and fully funding education equitably across the state.

End civil asset forfeiture.

End cash bail.

End qualified immunity.

End state funding to police departments and courts which fail to address racial biases.

Focus on decarceration by investing in restorative, transformative, and rehabilitative justice programs.

Fully fund programs which allow ex-offenders to increase their vocational job skills, interpersonal skills, and educational literacy.

Institute democratic control over public resources to empower community-centered institutions, including: civil dispute resolution programs, drug treatment centers, free health clinics, and democratic and recallable community defense programs.

Provide at least minimum wage to prison laborers.

Restore voting rights to both former and current incarcerated peoples

Strengthen the laws against corporate crime and begin targeting companies for health care fraud, tax fraud, and consumer fraud.

Housing

Construct and maintain sufficient public housing to ensure an end to homelessness.

Create an online portal for renters to look up landlord information, including past property violations and tenant reviews.

Establish a Mobile Home Cooperative Fund to provide loans to support cooperative ownership of mobile home parks.

Place a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

Prohibit compulsory work service for residents of public housing.

Prohibit the practice of petroleum drilling on properties without the consent of all property owners.

Provide job training for homeless people as well as other support services for those with health problems, including drug addiction and mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders.

Require that new construction maximize the use of energy efficiency and renewable energy options such as solar.

Replace the shelter system with apartments for homeless people that provide privacy and a safe, healthy environment.

Election Reform

Allow recall elections at every level of government.

Award Electoral College votes on a proportional basis, until such a time that the Electoral College is abolished and replaced with a national popular vote.

Ban corporate donations to candidates and finance public elections and campaigns, with limits on self-financing of campaigns.

Enact Ranked Choice Voting and Proportional Representation.

Establish an independent, nonpartisan election commission for fair debates.

Include a “None of the Above” option on all ballots.

Mandate free and equal broadcast time on all television and radio stations for all candidates.

Reasonably ease ballot access laws for minor political parties.

Require all state-level candidates to release their recent tax returns to the public.

Require all employers to allow workers paid time off to vote.

Support automatic and same-day registration.

Support universal and inalienable voting rights.

Support a constitutional amendment that would allow higher education employees and employees of the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind the right to serve in public office.

Investing In The Arts

Incorporate the arts into every facet of public life, starting with economic development:
- Create a “percent for art” policy, as many states and cities have done. This would create an expectation that new, large business development would be expected to set-aside a percentage of the value of the project for arts and culture.
- Re-open the West Virginian film office as an independent office within the Department of Commerce.
- Support the restoration of local music venues.
- Require all state agencies to use local artists and design agencies in marketing efforts.

Launch at least 100 public arts projects per year statewide.

Open at least one publicly-funded artists cooperative in every county.

Provide start-up capital and apprenticeships for West Virginian artists.