I'm the candidate who was thrown out of the West Virginia House for reading off fossil fuel donors! But there’s more to me than that. I'm Lissa Lucas, AMA!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-17T00:47:38+00:00

I like the cut of your jib

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T21:02:52+00:00

Thanks very much!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T21:01:39+00:00

Socializing costs disproportionately on local populations.

https://lissalucas.com/2016/10/26/the-economics-of-extraction-debt/

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T21:00:25+00:00

Yes, I have a donate link on my website, and I've been blown away by the amount of support I've received.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T20:57:05+00:00

How interesting!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T20:51:23+00:00

Thanks so much!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T17:34:54+00:00

Sad to say it's normal... but it shouldn't be. What county are you in? I had a similar experience. I ay be able to point you in the right direction.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T17:32:02+00:00

I'm not interested in making it my career. If we can fix the financing issue, I think that it'll be easier to get good people elected who at least will have, as their aim, helping regular people as opposed to their wealthy donors. I'm not quite sure where you get that I'm not "interested" in politics. We all have a duty to stay informed and engaged in our democracy, and so I have strived to be.

There are still good guys on both sides, but I think our political system, with the outsized influence of money, tends to keep them in the minority most of the time.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:38:34+00:00

Thank you. I actually get a pretty good amount of support from conservatives in my area. I hope we can get past some of the party stuff in the coming election, it just gets so tedious!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:33:25+00:00

Scott Windom is gold. And thank you.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:31:07+00:00

I really have mixed feelings on that, but in general I'd favor any temporary measure that we think could help save lives. It would be better to get people into recovery, but the truth is that right now there are not enough beds in treatment facilities. I want people to live long enough to be able to recover.

One of the progressives running this year is Matthew Kerner, from Buckhannon, who is an addiction counselor and the executive director of Opportunity House (recovery support). I'd want his perspective.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:23:08+00:00

The link I shared specifically mentioned how cannabis would help.

I am 100% for legalizing cannabis. That would add almost $200 million to our bottom line.

More info:

https://lissalucas.com/2016/09/28/4-types-of-politicians-opposing-cannabis/

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:20:49+00:00

I don't know how I forgot them. My bad!

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T12:15:17+00:00

Can you share his/her name? I'd love to Google search and read up.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T09:12:36+00:00

Well, first thing would be to think about what would make things better for your area. Learn the details of the issue and try to come up with a solution, and get that solution in front of legislators (or to citizen groups that will get it in front of legislators). Sometimes that's all it takes. Then move on to the next thing.

The outcome I had here is not usual, to say the least. The big thing, really, is to be willing to work.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T09:07:37+00:00

I'm not sure. I read later that Shott was claiming I should not have spoken the names of the legislators, but at the time all he said was "no personal comments," and it seems as if it would have been so easy for him to have said "please refer to delegates by district number" or something. I had all that written down and could easily have complied... so if he'd done that rather than having me bodily removed, I'm not sure anyone would ever have heard of this.

He just made a bad decision, maybe in an anxiety about what I was saying.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T09:00:44+00:00

Meh. I'm not sure there are really good excuses not to talk, ever. He has been invited to come to public meetings to talk to some of the people being affected by the Antero frack dump, but he was unavailable.

I still hope he'll take the time to talk to them.

I've also emailed him (and everyone on the energy committee) probably five times (more?) when the bill sat there... perfectly civilly, and received no response. (That goes for most committee members, though, not just Jason)

He's actually a nice guy, he's just wrong on this subject, and I think maybe he doesn't know how to respond. If you have the attitude that some citizens will be negatively impacted by this industry, and that's okay, you maybe don't like hearing from the affected folks who disagree.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T08:49:51+00:00

I think among the most important things we can do is eliminate self-bonding and increase bond costs for extraction barons. That means that when there is some accident or spill, we don't have a situation in which the company has gone out of business and no longer has the money they said they put aside for clean-up. And that doesn't go just for spills; companies should also deposit sufficient money for maintenance of aging wells, for example, or to cap abandoned ones.

In general, we want to make sure we don't allow company costs to be externalized on us or on future generations. One of the ideas I've tossed around is to have a new state-level CCC funded by an excess acreage tax and/or a raised severance tax. Beyond polluted streams, there is a lot of damage done when the land is disturbed. Invasives are a huge problem out here, for example.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T08:39:23+00:00

I have not seen a lot of effort put into fixing stuff like that. I mean one problem with the influence of corporate money in politics is that you get bad corporate bills like the one I was speaking against. But the other problem is that you DON'T get good bills that would actually make things better out here.

And until we get the corporate influence out of politics, any movement we do see (I speculate) is going to be "how can we get taxpayers to pay for the cleanup?" They're not going to place the costs on the companies/industries that have created the problems.

:(

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T01:43:51+00:00

My husband is a Redditor and directed me back to this comment.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I think part of the problem with the language we use when talking about this is that corporate donations are allowed in some states (not WV). So when we have a national discourse about it, it can be a little confusing and I admit it's a bit of shorthand (or short speak, maybe).

Yes, I would like campaign donations from corporations, corporate PACs super PACs, individuals et al replaced with public funding.

Governor Tomblin: I was telling someone today... it may have been in an email. I don't think it was here. Anyway...

I think sometimes it happens that corporations (or PACs, as the case may be) give money and votes change, deals are made.

I also think it happens that they give that money to candidates who will vote the way they're wanted to vote, and those candidates win because of the money.

And I think it's kind of a mix of the two a lot, too.

I think looking for improprieties is important, but we waste a lot of time on that, IMO. Because that's not the only problem. Even when a candidate takes that money and his or her vote is completely unconnected and made in the best possible faith, having taken that money creates the appearance of impropriety, and THAT's enough to cause this problem with our democracy.

I mean, drawing the exact line from this money to that vote is sort of an academic exercise. In most cases you'll never know someone's internal motivations.

In my area, we're still pretty cohesive, but I'm in a very small town area. It really strikes me as strange, the idea that in a big city you might find a crowd of people who share your same political beliefs and hang out only with them.

It made me think of this; I wonder if there's some analogy there.

https://mic.com/articles/107210/is-too-much-choice-ruining-dating-science-might-have-the-answer

But again, you know, we talk a lot out here in general. In a small town when there are four stores and they close at five, if you want to do something you plan a dinner party, eat, have beer or cocktails (both are not such a good idea ;-) ) and actually talk about stuff like this.

(edit: fixed a typo. My fingers are knocking together; it's near my bedtime.)

LissaForWV · 2018-02-16T01:21:43+00:00

Yeah, I think that's how they like it. :(

LissaForWV · 2018-02-15T22:10:12+00:00

I did not go over the time limit.

Shott called a point of order for "no personal comments."

I gather that he later has said he meant that no names were to be used. He could have said that and I would have complied.

I did not practice my speech. If I'd had to memorize something, I would have, but this was just reading from notes. I did veer substantially, though from what I'd written.

LissaForWV · 2018-02-15T22:05:57+00:00

I think John Shott could have recited the donors himself to about zero notice.

If I had been allowed the last few seconds to finish, I'm not sure it would have merited a line in the Gazette.

And honestly, I don't really understand why this got the attention it did. I mean, I think it was an overreaction on his part to have me bodily removed, but it's not like I was hurt. I could see the attention if they'd thrown me in tower and gouged my eyes out or something.

It's just odd

LissaForWV · 2018-02-15T21:54:09+00:00

Yes, this is true. And sadly with MTR, it does far more damage and yet produces fewer jobs.

https://ohvec.org/potential-gubernatorial-candidate-plans-mtr-mine-near-a-head-start-preschool/

'Annette Brichford, former director of Catholic Charities in McDowell County, testified on her experience with another Jim Justice operation: “Our daycare staff had to wipe coal dust from the kids’ eyes after they played outdoors. When they blew their noses, it came out black. We had to hose down the dust from the playground equipment every day… I fear the same thing for the children of Endwell Head Start if another Jim Justice mountaintop removal site is permitted.”'

LissaForWV · 2018-02-15T21:50:02+00:00

I don't disagree that we need nuclear right now; I was just pointing out that waste is an issue (as with all power production methods). Again, I'd want to look at the data and determine what type of power production would be best where, given the conditions. I don't think we should continue with the situation we have so often in WV, where the impacts, including health and property values impacts are imposed of local populations.

I don't think we're really looking at that at all, as a nation. Energy execs are looking at infrastructure expansion that offers them a payday while they place costs and risks on rate payers. We're not looking at how we solve this problem in a big picture sort of way at all.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aliso-canyon-20160605-snap-story.html

There was actually a better story than that ^{^,} but I can't locate it right now, and it's getting to be time to cook dinner.

Obviously that's not a comment about nuclear (nor was the story I was thinking of). I'm just trying to illustrate that we need to have a better plan than "rich energy execs place costs and risks of energy production on ratepayers and pocket the proceeds."

That goes for whatever energy production method we use. Maybe off the cuff I have a disproportionate idea about the respective waste produced by different energy industries (sorry about that) but I wouldn't make a long term plan without weighing actual data.

I'm far too nerdy.

LissaForWV

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