In more than half of this year’s state House and Senate races, the May primary is shaping up to pick the eventual winner as there are no Democrats running. While this number could change slightly over the next week, a bill being pushed by Republican lawmakers would give party officials an even narrower window to find candidates for future elections.
Prior to the 2022 election, party committees could appoint a candidate to a ballot until 78 days before the general election. But that year, the Republican supermajority rewrote the law, changing the deadline to several weeks after the January filing deadline.
Now, the West Virginia House of Delegates has voted to essentially kill the practice entirely: HB 4350 would prevent parties from appointing a candidate to the ballot after the filing deadline, except in the case of death, resignation or no one filing to run for a position at all.
Julie Archer, a coordinator at West Virginians for Clean Elections, said the change would further curb who people get to elect in general elections.
“It’s already hard to attract qualified people to run for office, so making it this way further hurts that participation,” she said. “And if it gets decided in the primary, then that limits voters’ choices at the ballot.”
And increasingly, those choices are limited to registered Republicans. Just this week, the West Virginia GOP voted to close its primaries, after three decades of allowing independents and unaffiliated voters to cast a ballot.
As of Feb. 1, only Republicans had filed to run in 51 of the 100 House of Delegates races. In the 17 state Senate races up for election this year, 10 of them currently have no Democrats on the ballot, meaning the vast majority of Senate and House seats will be determined in the Republican primary.
Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, is the chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party. He called the bill “a self-serving piece of legislation that protects incumbents.”
“We’re not hearing about this from our constituents,” he said during an interview at the state Capitol. “It’s not something they’re complaining about. The only people who care about this are inside this building.”
Pushkin said within his party — for 80 years the prime driver of state politics but now on the sidelines — many people don’t commit to run unless there is literally nobody else willing to do so. He said right now, in the final window allowed under current law, his party’s committees are actively looking for candidates to run.
“The fact is, it’s harder to recruit people to run for office, especially with this gerrymandering,” he said.
Del. Josh Holstein, R-Boone, the lead sponsor of the bill, said the filing deadline is there for a reason.
“We have a process, but the way it is now, there are exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions,” he said. “Look, we have these deadlines in code — if we have a deadline, it needs to be followed.”
Holstein contends potential candidates would still have plenty of time to make a decision – citing a delegate’s term at two years and a senator’s at four.
“At some point, you have to take the risk and make the decision to run against somebody,” he said.
But not everyone in his own party agreed. Seven Republicans joined all 11 Democrats in voting against the measure. House Majority Whip Del. Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, said on the House floor that he was appointed to fill a vacant ballot twice.
“This is a difficult decision to make and I understand those who might wait and see if someone else will run,” he said. “I can’t vote for this, because if I did, I’d be a hypocrite.”
The bill now goes before the Senate. If passed, it would go into effect in 2025.
