House passes Senate bill to ban ranked choice voting
Mar. 7—MORGANTOWN — The Senate bill to ban ranked choice voting breezed through the House of Delegates this week, passed overwhelmingly on Friday and will soon head to the governor's desk.
SB 490 prohibits ranked choice voting — RCV — in local, state or federal elections. It defines ranked choice voting — generally abbreviated as RCV — as occurring in rounds where losers are eliminated until one candidate scores a clear majority.
RCV is used statewide in Alaska, Hawaii and Maine. RCV is prohibited in Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
The Senate passed SB 490 on Tuesday. The House received it on Tuesday and immediately took it up for first reading without any committee reference. It reached third reading on Friday.
On the House floor on Friday, it was said that the bill doesn't apply to internal party processes — a provision explicitly mentioned in the corresponding House bill, HB 2683, which was sidelined to the House inactive calendar when it reached second reading.
However, given that SB 490 explicitly states what elections it applies to, the consensus is that it effectively exempts internal party elections, Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, said RCV isn't used anywhere in the state. "This is a waste of time. We're not helping people here. I'll be a no."
Judiciary chair JB Akers, R-Kanawha, said the bill is a proactive measure, to keep RCV from taking effect here.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, pointed out that the blue chairs at all the delegates' desks — purchased during the chamber renovation completed before the 2024 session — were chosen from among a group of candidates by ranked choice voting.
It worked well for that, he said, and it can work well in an election with a crowded slate of candidates. It can also promote civility, where a candidate doesn't want to alienate another candidate's voters and jeopardize a chance of being at least a second choice.
"We're banning something that we don't have, " he said.
Supporting the bill, Delegate Larry Kump, R-Berkeley, said, "For sure and for certain, ranked choice voting is a Rube Goldberg political scheme." RCV primaries are often called jungle primaries. "Ranked choice voting will confuse voters in West Virginia and undermine confidence in election integrity."
The vote was 87-9, with all opposition votes from Democrats.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
3 minutes ago
- Fox News
Retired Justice Stephen Breyer's brother assigned to Newsom National Guard lawsuit
The brother of retired liberal Justice Stephen Breyer was assigned Tuesday to preside over the lawsuit that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom brought against the Trump administration in California this week. Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, is set to oversee the case, which alleges President Donald Trump deprived California of its sovereignty by federalizing thousands of National Guard soldiers in response to anti-immigration enforcement protests and riots in Los Angeles County. Breyer is the younger brother of Stephen Breyer, who was appointed by Clinton to the high court and served on the bench for nearly three decades beginning in 1994. Stephen Breyer's retirement led to former President Joe Biden replacing him with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Charles Breyer, who serves on the federal bench in the Northern District of California, will oversee a lawsuit that pits Newsom, one of the country's most prominent Democrats and a possible 2028 presidential contender, against Trump. Newsom alleged in the lawsuit that Trump made an "unprecedented power grab" by mobilizing the National Guard in his state, a highly unusual move for a president to do without the consent of the governor. Trump has said the move was necessary to protect ICE personnel and federal buildings as some protesters engaged in unlawful assembly and pelted law enforcement with concrete bottles and other hard objects. After the National Guard proclamation, more unrest broke out in parts of the county involving rioters setting fire to several self-driving cars and looting some stores. Newsom alleged Trump's decision to send in the military spurred more chaos. Federal court cases in the Northern District of California are assigned by the Clerk of the Court "blindly and at random" through an automated system, according to the court's website. Fox News Digital reached out to Charles Breyer's chambers for comment on his assignment. The news of Charles Breyer presiding over the case comes as some Republicans have floated the theory that Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., secretly took on Trump cases to sabotage them in favor of plaintiffs. Boasberg directly addressed the claims during a court hearing, saying his assignments, like most others in the court, were randomly assigned by a computer.
New York Times
13 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: California Asks Court to Block Use of Troops in ICE Raids
In downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, protesters faced off with law enforcement officers. Disinformation about the events has circulated online. Misleading photographs, videos and text have spread widely on social media as protests against immigrant raids have unfolded in Los Angeles, rehashing old conspiracy theories and expressing support for President Trump's actions. The flood of falsehoods online appeared intended to stoke outrage toward immigrants and political leaders, principally Democrats. They also added to the confusion over what exactly was happening on the streets, which was portrayed in digital and social media through starkly divergent ideological lenses. Many posts created the false impression that the entire city was engulfed in violence, when the clashes were limited to only a small part. There were numerous scenes of protesters throwing rocks or other objects at law enforcement officers and setting cars ablaze, including a number of self-driving Waymo taxis. At the same time, false images spread to revive old conspiracies that the protests were a planned provocation, not a spontaneous response to the immigration raids. The confrontation escalated on Monday as new protests occurred and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced — on X — that he was mobilizing 700 Marines from a base near Los Angeles to guard federal buildings. They are expected to join 2,000 members of the California National Guard whom Mr. Trump ordered deployed without the authorization of the state's governor, Gavin Newsom, who normally has command of the troops. The latest deployments prompted a new wave of misleading images to spread — some purporting to show Marines and the military service's weapons in action. One was a still from 'Blue Thunder,' a 1983 action-thriller about a conspiracy to deprive residents of Los Angeles of their civil rights. It features a climactic dogfight over the city's downtown. Darren L. Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, said conservatives online were 'building up the riots in a performative way' to help bolster Mr. Trump's claims that Los Angeles had been taken over by 'violent, insurrectionist mobs.' Dr. Linvill said the posts were also 'a bit self-fulfilling.' 'As they direct attention to it,' he said, 'more protesters will show up.' James Woods, the actor who has become known for spreading conspiracy theories, used his account on X to rail against the state's elected officials, especially Mr. Newsom, a Democrat. He also reposted a fabricated quote, attributed to former President Barack Obama, discussing a secret plot to impose socialism on the country, as well as a video of burning police cars that was from 2020. An innocuous photograph of a pallet of bricks, actually posted on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia, was cited as proof that the protests were organized by nonprofit organizations supported by George Soros, the financier who, to the feverishly conspiratorial right, has become a mastermind of global disorder. Image These bricks are actually from an image on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia. Credit... The New York Times 'It's Civil War!!' an account on X wrote on Saturday, claiming that the bricks had been placed near the offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 'Democrat militants.' X posted a Community Note pointing out that the photograph had nothing to do with the protests, but it still was seen more than 800,000 times. It was also widely reposted, including by several seemingly inauthentic accounts in Chinese. The online trope dates at least to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. It reappeared in 2022 after a conspiratorial post by Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who suggested that bricks for a paving project near Capitol Hill were intended for violent protests after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 'These days, it feels like every time there's a protest, the old clickbaity 'pallets of bricks' hoax shows up right on cue,' the Social Media Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on Bluesky. 'You know the one, photos or videos of bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It's catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters.' It also fits into the narrative that protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic. On his own platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump also suggested that the protesters were 'Paid Insurrectionists!' Numerous posts echoed unsubstantiated claims that the protests were the work of Mr. Soros as well as local nongovernment organizations or Democratic elected officials, including the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. Some posts disparaging the protests were shared by accounts with deceptive handles that closely resembled those of official government sources or news organizations. Mike Benz, a conspiracy-minded influencer on X who last year claimed that the Pentagon used the pop star Taylor Swift as part of a psychological operation to undercut Mr. Trump, advanced an outlandish theory that the mayor had links to the Central Intelligence Agency and had helped start riots in the city where she lives. He based that simply on Ms. Bass's role as a board member for the National Endowment for Democracy, the congressionally mandated organization formed during the Reagan administration to promote democratic governance around the world. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the theme was echoed by accounts across social media linked to Russia, which often amplifies content that discredits the United States. The Kremlin and its supporters have long accused Mr. Soros or the United States government of covertly sponsoring 'color revolutions' to overthrow governments — from the Arab Spring countries swept up by mass street protests in 2011 to Ukraine. 'It is nationwide conspiracy of liberals against not only Trump but against American people in general,' Aleksandr Dugin, a prominent nationalist in Russia, wrote on X on Sunday. Disinformation in situations like these spreads so quickly and widely that efforts to verify facts cannot keep up, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, an advocacy organization that studies the intersection of media, technology and the law. She described it as part of 'a much longer effort to delegitimize peaceful resistance movements.' 'Information warfare is always a symptom of conflict, stoked often by those in power to fuel their own illiberal goals,' she said. 'It confuses audiences, scares people who might otherwise have empathy for the cause and divides us when we need solidarity most.'
The Hill
36 minutes ago
- The Hill
Bill could make federal minimum wage $15: The states paying less than that
(NEXSTAR) — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as early as next year, replacing the current rate of $7.25 an hour. For the states that already have minimum wage rates at or above $15 an hour, the change likely won't be as significant. In 2025 alone, more than 20 states saw an increase in their minimum wage. With the exception of the District of Columbia, where the current minimum wage is $17.50, the state of Washington has the highest minimum hourly rate of $16.66. In three states — Delaware, Illinois, and Rhode Island — the statewide minimum hourly rate has reached $15 for the first time. Effective July 1, Oregon will also have crossed that threshold. California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York also continue to offer above $15 an hour. The interactive map shows where the minimum wage is and isn't rising this year, and the current hourly rate. (The exception is Florida, where a minimum wage hike is expected in September.) It's worth noting that some cities and counties within the states mentioned above have higher rates than the statewide wage, and some industries may have higher (or in the case of tipped workers, lower) hourly pay. There are five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina — that do not have a minimum wage. In Georgia and Wyoming, the minimum wage is $5.15. Employers in these states that are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. It's unclear, as of Tuesday. Hawley's bill, which also calls for an automatic rate increase to match inflation over time, does have bipartisan support. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) cosponsored it. The GOP-controlled House and Senate, though, have also been focused on Trump's priority legislation. President Donald Trump previously referred to the current rate of $7.25 an hour as a 'low number' in December, but the White House declined to comment on Hawley's proposed legislation to The Hill.
