I love to see job creators, their lobbyists and representatives, and pro-family organizations showing up on their Saturday evening to support the Republican members of the West Virginia Senate! It’s not just the legislature that is driving this extraordinary growth of job creation in West Virginia, it’s the employers themselves. This might seem self-evident, but what many of you may not realize is all the activity it takes out side of business hours from the people in those businesses to seed that growth and amplify it.
The West Virginia Republican Senate Caucus held a fundraiser last night at Edgewood Country Club in Charleston attended by job creators and their representatives across the state as well as non-profits, individual donors, and of course, the republican caucus. The caucus committee is composed of republican members of the West Virginia Senate. Several of those members are major donors themselves. The committee’s purpose is to communicate policy initiatives throughout the state without tax dollars and to collaborate with republican Senate candidates to communicate their campaign messages to their districts. It’s much like the $25,000 dinner plate fundraisers that President Trump holds to be able to get his message out to the country. The fundraising is an absolute necessity, especially as purchasing advertisements gets more expensive in most every market.
I can’t expresses enough how essential this financial support has been to put pro-job candidates in office, craft policy, inspire debate around making West Virginia competitive for attracting and retaining families, and to attract numerous other employers to West Virginia. These supporters have my heartfelt gratitude for helping me and my fellow republican legislators make West Virginia better and better place to earn a living, raise a family, and fill a person’s heart with hope for their future. Even with this support, labor unions and personal injury lawyers force money into campaigns against conservative republicans and ultimately against making West Virginia better and better place to earn a living, raise a family, and fill a person’s heart with hope, except of course for their union bosses and the personal injury lawyers themselves.
Let me explain what I mean by using the word “force.” When a worker pays the required union dues to be a member, a portion of those dues out of every single paycheck goes to support efforts to destroy growth of business, and they need the candidates that are willing to do that. That is irrespective of the member’s personal politics. So whether their politics align or not, for the sake of keeping their access to the Union benefits they support the like of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Manchin, and State level anti-business candidates like Delegate Evan Worrell, and Senator Robert Karnes. The personal injury lawyers sue these same business, depend on their liberal circuit court judge friends (previous personal injury lawyers) to rape the businesses of profit and then use that money to support the anti-job candidates listed above to make it easier to sue and get bigger settlements.
So when you hear about fundraisers to support conservative republican candidates, pump your fist in victory, and hope that they are incredibly successful. The job creators and organizations who make those fundraisers possible are arming conservative republicans for the fight under the Capitol dome for you so you have a better and better hope of your family loving, living, and working right here in West by God Virginia.
Eric J. Tarr
Chairman, West Virginia State Senate Committee on Finance