On a sultry summer evening a few weeks before passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, around 30 people gathered in Ritter Park in Huntington with signs and a bullhorn.
Across the street was the house of Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va. The imposing brick home was darkened, the curtains were drawn. No car was visible in the driveway. But for the assembled, it was a last ditch effort to get some kind of attention from the Congresswoman.
Waving an American Flag and wearing an orange whistle around his neck, Jordan Rutherford said he showed up because he was tired of not being heard.
“I value transparency and accountability from our representatives, and I’ve called Carol Miller, Capito and Justice almost 100 times each. I never hear back from them,” Rutherford said.
And Rutherford isn’t the only person to feel left out in today’s political climate. Republican leaders have made national news for advising party members to avoid town halls. Locally, long-standing organizations, like the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, have invited these elected officials to town halls, but all have either declined or not even responded.
An overwhelming majority of West Virginia voters supported President Donald Trump and Republican representatives Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, and Reps. Riley Moore and Carol Miller in the last election.
But in response to a Mountain State Spotlight request for readers to tell us about their experiences reaching out to those representatives, we heard from more than 100 people who said they mostly weren’t happy with the responses they got.
Here are a few of their stories:
Canned responses to concerned constituents
Matthew Stott, an attorney in the Buckhannon area, said he decided to write an email to Rep. Moore, after hearing reports of immigrants being sent to a detention facility in El Salvador. Stott said he was concerned about what was happening.
A few weeks later, he received an email back.
“Earlier this year, I toured the southern border in Arizona, and let me be clear: the days of letting thousands pour into our country every day without consequence are over,” Moore wrote. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and we are restoring law and order.”
It was a form letter about immigration – Mountain State Spotlight confirmed Moore’s office sent the same exact letter to another constituent concerned about immigration enforcement.
When people wrote about the Big Beautiful Bill’s cuts to Medicaid, Sen. Capito had a letter ready to go that explained the history of Medicaid and the need to cut its spending. Several people shared it with us.
“Let me be clear, this bill is not intended to remove coverage from most Medicaid recipients. It protects and preserves Medicaid for those who truly need it, while ensuring the program can continue to serve future generations,” it read.
Sen. Justice sent form letters in response to constituent concerns on a variety of issues, like defunding Planned Parenthood.
Stott, who has written to his representatives when he lived in other states, said getting a form letter to be politely told to “kick rocks” isn’t unusual – in fact, it’s pretty par for the course in his experience. But he keeps writing anyway.
“Even if it just feels like you’re yelling into the wind, it makes you feel like you know at least you’ve said your piece,” Stott said. “And I still hold out some hope that if there’s enough of it, if they’re getting enough feedback from enough people who really care about what’s going on, maybe we’ll start to listen.”
Answering machines, but few answers
Carolyn Thomas, of Shepherdstown, said she calls Moore, Justice and Capito once a week. About three quarters of the time, she can get through to a staffer who will politely take her comment, write it down and vow to forward it to the appropriate party.
The rest of the time, it goes to voicemail.
Thomas, who said she is generally opposed to many political positions of her three representatives, said most of the time they take the message and hang up the phone. She never hears back.
Marianne Keyes, of Dunbar, said getting a hold of anybody would be a win. She said all she gets is an answering machine whenever she calls Capito or Rep. Miller’s offices.
“My sense of this is it’s probably unique to West Virginia or to Republicans,” Keyes said.
For Courtney Dowell, who has been involved politically for 30 years in Kanawha County, there’s been a shift in how representatives respond to their constituents. She recalled contacting the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s office and hearing a response from a staff member by phone, or at least receiving a letter that directly addressed her concerns.
“It used to be better, and they, my representatives so called, seem farther away to me now,” Dowell said.
But that’s not everyone’s experience. Ellen Lorish, of Greenbrier County, said she calls her representatives weekly. While she politically disagrees with Capito, and has been unhappy with her responses in general, she did say her office was more than willing to help when she had an issue with the Internal Revenue Service.
“Her staff did a fabulous job,” Lorish said.
A sympathetic ear — if you can reach it
Seeing elected officials in person can be more satisfying, if you can find them.
Caitlin Ware, a pastor and activist working on water issues in the coal fields, said she and some advocates planned for weeks for a visit to both senators and representatives offices.
Ware said even with all the planning and lining up each meeting ahead of time, it was still a crap shoot when it came time to the meeting itself. Moore’s office gave her group about 10 minutes, but she said it was the most productive meeting of all, with pointed and detailed questions on the part of staff. Capito and Miller’s staffs provided only a sympathetic ear.
And she said Justice sent a staffer from the Midwest to speak with them in the hallway outside of the congressional cafeteria.
But a few weeks after Ware’s visit to the Capitol, Moore introduced an amendment for a study into the water crisis in Wyoming County. While it’s not the fix Ware said people need, at least there was some acknowledgement.
“Riley Moore, I think, after that DC meeting, it seems like he was very interested, “ she said. “Had a lot of notes taken, like there was, like an actual, real result.”
That’s not always the case – Ronie Wheeler, the former legislative liaison with the West Virginia Veterans of Foreign Wars, said for three years he visited Congress twice a year to lobby on veteran issues.
And despite being a regular guest of each of the state’s federal representatives, he wasn’t immune to being brushed aside. In March 2024, he recalled taking about 10 other vets to a meeting with Miller to discuss a bill that prevents middlemen from dipping into veterans’ benefits. He said they had a photo taken and were rushed out of Miller’s office in roughly 10 minutes.
Wheeler recalled telling his fellow veterans he was “totally flabbergasted.”
“Have you ever experienced the old heave-ho? I think we just got it,” he told them.
Pam Garrison, a member of the West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, said she and some members tried for weeks to schedule a meeting with staff at Justice and Capito’s Charleston offices.
So when she heard Capito was coming to Fayetteville for a ribbon cutting, she and a group of people showed up to protest. A staffer came by and said the Senator would give the group a few minutes of her time.
“And was like, great, that’s what we’re here for. We’ve been trying to talk to her for months now about this bill and stuff,” Garrison said.
But now here she was, in the flesh. And for 10-to-15 minutes, the Senator chatted with the critics.
“How are we going to get insurance, pay these medical bills and everything, when you have voted against raising the minimum wage and getting a living wage every time?” Garrison recalled asking.
Mountain State Spotlight reached out to all four of the state’s congressional representatives regarding readers’ complaints about the lack of response they have gotten from them.
“I’ve always made it a priority to be accessible and responsive to West Virginians,” Capito said in a statement. “I meet regularly with individuals across our state – whether they agree with me or not – and my staff works to return calls, respond to letters and emails and help people navigate federal agencies.”
The other three politicians didn’t respond.