In a recent edition of a local publication, the Monongalia County Democratic Executive Committee ran a full page ad that was painfully misleading. I hope that the politicians whose photo appeared in the ad do not support spreading this false information regarding their performance in Charleston.
It is true that they supported the 1 percent reduction in the tax on food.
Personally, I don't understand why they would be bragging about it. They blocked allowing an up or down vote on my amendment to eliminate the food tax and they blocked an amendment to phase out the food tax.
What concerns me about this ad is the statement: "We supported protecting property owner's rights." I would be interested in hearing their interpretation of how this could be true.
The truth is that, unlike me, every politician in the ad supported Gov. Joe Manchin's bill in his January special session to expand the government's power to take private property and give it to a different private entity. I was the only member of the House of Delegates to vote against this.
This month I asked Manchin to allow my resolution on his September special session call. My resolution states that the Legislature intends to pass legislation in the 2006 regular session so we can protect private property rights.
The governor has a copy of my resolution and the original is setting in the House clerk's office gathering dust after going through the proper procedures to appear on the House agenda.
Unfortunately, the governor and House leadership only allowed resolutions naming bridges on the agenda.
A commitment to protect private property rights wasn't important enough to deal with even though the special session spent $40,000 a day naming bridges.
Funny, the Republicans in the Senate forced a vote in the Senate on the exact same eminent domain resolution I sponsored in the House. How did the senators in the ad vote? No. What did they do to support protecting property owner's rights? Worse than nothing.
Since these politicians seem to believe that they already protected your property rights, it will be difficult to have their support in the regular session to actually do something to protect private property rights. I plan on doing something.
The first bill which has completed its way through the legislative bill drafting process for the 2006 regular session is my bill to protect private property from being taken for private gain.
I would prefer to not be forced into a situation of trying to lay out the facts this way. However, I was denied the opportunity to respond in any way in the local publication to the untruthful ad published there. I can certainly not afford to match their ad, which costs more than $1,000. You might try calling your other legislators and ask them what they did to protect property owner's rights. After the silence, please ask them to support my bill to protect your property.