2014 Elections Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVPB's New Debate Policy

The governing board of West Virginia Public Broadcasting has approved a policy to determine which candidates will be included in future debates.

The policy comes after the 2014 election season, when West Virginia Public Broadcasting co-sponsored a U.S. Senate debate that invited only the Democratic and Republican candidates. WVPB later sponsored a second debate that invited all five candidates on the ballot, but the leading candidate, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, did not attend.

The Educational Broadcasting Authority voted unanimously to approve the new policy, which says that candidates need reach 5 percent or more in an independent poll before being invited to a debate; and/or that candidate’s party must achieve 5% of votes for the same office in the preceding election.

The goal is to make sure WVPB has the time to go in-depth during the debates, and get more complete answers from the candidates most likely to win election.

WVPB remains committed to covering all registered candidates for races and making sure their ideas and voices are heard through other avenues.

Below is the entire policy, as passed:

WVPB Candidate Inclusion Rules and Selection of Races to Cover

Consistent with FCC regulations and Supreme Court rulings, we have adopted specific standards for candidate inclusion in a debate. Under our practices, candidates must:

1. Register as a candidate and have their name on the official ballot

2. Actively campaign through personal appearances, policy papers, and media releases

3. Actively raise money and submit campaign finance reports to the state

4. Achieve a polling standing of 5% or more in independent media polls, and/or

5. Candidate’s party must achieve 5% of votes for the same office in the preceding election

Our goal is to have debates that allow for in-depth answers among the candidates most likely to take office. These standards have been intentionally made less stringent than the Supreme Court has ruled acceptable.

We will cover competitive US Senate and House races, state constitutional offices, ballot issues, and a few key races likely to swing control of the State Senate or House of Delegates.

We do not generally cover races where the polls predict a lopsided result. These are decisions based on limited station resources and airtime.

Outside Groups Spend Big on Statehouse Campaigns

A Democratic group spent almost $446,000 to sway West Virginia’s statehouse elections.

     The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee contributed the cash to the group Protect West Virginia.

     Protect West Virginia attacked Republicans and supported Democrats in advertising, including mailings.

     This election, Republicans sealed their first state House of Delegates majority in more than eight decades. They clinched the Senate majority after a Democrat turned Republican.

     Other outside groups spent big on statehouse races.

Union-backed Honest West Virginians spent almost $1.4 million for Democrats.

Grow WV Inc. spent more than $1.4 million to help Republicans, including $500,000 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $220,000 from the Republican State Leadership Committee and $100,000 from Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.

Moving West Virginia Forward BICPAC, another pro-GOP group, spent $360,500. Murray Energy contributed $250,000.

Meet Delegate-Elect for the 65th District, Jill Upson

On Election Day last week, Republican Jill Upson defeated Democrat Tiffany Lawrence for the House of Delegates in the 65^th District.

Jill Upson was born in California. After marrying her husband who works in the military, they had to relocate every two years. Eleven years ago, she and her husband moved to Charles Town in Jefferson County. Upson decided then she didn’t want to live anywhere else.

“When we got to this area, I just fell in love with it, and I just decided I’m done, that’s it, I’m going to stay here,” Upson said, “And so he continued to receive orders, and move every two years, and I still stayed put. He’s been all over the place, but I stayed and raised my children in Jefferson County.”

Around 2009, after identifying as A-political for most of her life, Upson became interested in politics and specifically, Republican ideology. She started working with other candidates by volunteering and going door-to-door to interact with potential voters on their behalf. When the House of Delegates seat in the 65^th District became available in 2012, Upson almost didn’t run.

“I initially said, no, that I wasn’t interested, and just through an entire series of events that occurred in my life, I decided that this was probably a good time to go ahead and give it a try.”

Upson lost in the 2012 election to Tiffany Lawrence, but this year the outcome was different. Her win surprised her.

“What happened was the day of the election, I was online looking at the different projections, and they said that I probably wouldn’t win, they said that the incumbent had a lot more money, and obviously incumbency is a benefit, and they just said that, you know, with the larger turnout that they were seeing, that they were thinking that I wasn’t going to win. So I was very surprised when I ended up winning by the margin with which I won, I mean that was really a pleasant surprise.”

Upson upset Lawrence with 56 percent of the total vote. She says she’ll stand for more conservative values in Charleston.

“Well I stand for fiscal conservative policies. I ran on enhancing education, restructuring our tax policy, on regulatory policies, and my tagline was ‘freedom and opportunity,’ so obviously individual freedom and economic opportunity.”

Upson says she has a list of things she wants to work on once she’s in office.

“The first thing I want to look at is, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce came out with several policies that they put forth during the last legislative session that they felt would help spur economic growth, so I’d like to work with my colleagues in the legislature to really look at ways that we can start to implement some of those policies.”

Her ultimate goal is to always remember the voters who put her in office. She says she wants to be open and listen to the people, keeping their needs in mind and the lines of communication open between the Eastern Panhandle and Charleston.