The topic of data centers is contentious for communities actually or potentially impacted by them. It’s so contentious that our Republican dominated legislature has taken away the rights of these communities to regulate them and even to have them at all. John Doyle makes the case that these community rights legislated away for now have to be reconsidered and restored in future legislative sessions.
The WV Legislator meets for two winter months to decide on new legislation which (with the governor’s signing) will make its way into law. John Doyle gives a wrap of the 2026 session and tells the sad tale that Jefferson County came away with just about nothing of consequence. And worse, the chaotic close of the session meant that even the good bills which made it to the final votes, failed to even get those votes. The clock ran out.
John Doyle injects a bit of personal history in describing the actions of four United States district judges and our present Secretary of State. These individuals have separately acted to affirm the rights of immigrants and citizens to the full protection of the guarantees spelled out in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.