Leaders of West Virginia's Democratic Party seem to have decided the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce is the enemy. To attack the state Chamber of Commerce is to attack a broadly supported volunteer association whose goals are to improve schools, create jobs and help our citizens find good health.
This means the party in charge of West Virginia's agenda for most of the last 83 years opposes business leaders' efforts at job creation, economic progress, better education and improved quality of life for our citizens. These are the goals of the Chamber, whose members are found throughout our state and who are West Virginia's most respected citizens.
Chamber members lead our colleges and universities, serve their communities in every possible volunteer capacity, support our schools and hospitals, employ our state's workers and love West Virginia. For those reasons, we have proposed solutions to our state's long-standing challenges.
Our legislative agenda is bipartisan. Every bill proposed and passed by the Chamber was supported by Republican and Democratic lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Tomblin.
To attack the Chamber is to attack the largest collection of our state's job-creators. As Democrats and Republicans alike will tell us, "There aren't many problems in West Virginia that couldn't be fixed by more jobs." That is what we stand for and believe.
Going on a mindless attack is what you do when your ideas have failed and you have nothing left to offer.
Unlike the outspoken Democratic Party leaders, the West Virginia Chamber is willing to work with all people, from every walk of life and with every possible point of view to arrive at meaningful policy solutions for our state. The Chamber will continue to offer ideas based on research and backed by expertise to solve pressing problems in our state.
Earlier this year, for the first time in history, the well-led West Virginia Legislature passed laws to take politics out of our courts, remove the mindless straight-ticket ballot, assist veterans in starting small businesses, add qualified teachers to West Virginia's hard-to-serve communities, expand broadband Internet service and create opportunity in West Virginia's most challenged communities.
To attack this agenda is to attack West Virginia's most dearly held values. It also attacks the goal of making West Virginia laws more like the laws in states that are growing and improving.
West Virginians do not want to return to an era when job creation, education improvement and good health were dead on arrival at the Legislature.
The West Virginia Chamber is made up of your small business neighbors. We are fiercely proud of our West Virginia heritage and intensely hopeful for a new century of progress that creates jobs, improves education and restores good health. We welcome ideas, publish our thoughts and open our doors to newcomers. In addition to offering hope, we offer solutions and invite debate.
Working together, we will find the best path forward for our state. The time has come to take action, change from the past and move forward. That is what the West Virginia Legislature achieved, with bipartisan support, earlier this year.
Thank you, new leaders of the Legislature. Count us among your proudest backers.
Steve Roberts is president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce.