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to
Delegate John Doyle's campaign website.
For our responses to the attack ads being run against John
Doyle, please see the "What's
new" section
below.
John is running for reelection as State Delegate of the 57th
Delegate District, that includes Harpers Ferry, Bolivar, Bakerton,
Shepherdstown, and Kearneysville. He has been a Jefferson
County Delegate for the past fourteen years.
No freshman delegate can match John's ability to serve
our district.
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We
Won!
John
Doyle was reelected Delegate of the 57th
District. More
local election results here.
Vote count, with
all polling places reported,
on November 8, 2006
John Doyle 3447 - Bob Murto 2110
62%
to 38%
To
everyone who helped us with the campaign,
all of our generous donors,
and everyone who voted for John,
Thank
you!
il
election day.
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see examples of local projects that John has supported, please
look at our projects pages. For
John's positions on important issues, see our "Topics"
pages on public schools, residential
growth, and tax reform legislation.
(These are adapted from articles John wrote for the Shepherdstown
Chronicle) We also have a brief bio
of John, and a page on how you can help
John's campaign. |
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Better Schools
John Doyle worked to persuade the Economic Development Grant
Committee to award Jefferson County $6 million for a second
high school. He worked to get $19 million from the School Building
Authority, to help build that high school and improve our current
one. John led the fight to require civics classes and to strengthen
mathematics requirements in all state high schools. He fought
to get master's degrees at Shepherd College.
Better Jobs
Delegate Doyle has worked to change state law to make it easier
for new technology companies to create jobs here. The $25 million
he helped obtain for our schools will result in better technical
education, which will help attract high wage companies to Jefferson
County. John is working to significantly lower the business
franchise tax, that makes it harder for new businesses to succeed.
Better Controls on Growth
John Doyle was a leader in the fight to pass the farmland protection
law, and he made sure it was funded. John's efforts helped change
the Local Powers Act so that Jefferson County could more easily
impose impact fees on residential development.
Better Health Care
John
sponsored innovative legislation that will let West Virginians
purchase prescription drugs at the same low prices the drug
companies offer to foreign countries. |
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October 3rd (Tuesday), 9-10 AM
Debate with Bob Murto
WEPM Radio, AM 1340
October 9th (Monday), 7 PM
NAACP
Candidates Forum
Asbury Methodist Church
Shepherdstown
October
11th (Wednesday), 7 PM
Shepherdstown Men's Club Candidates Forum
Sponsored jointly by the Shepherdstown Men's Club
and the League of Women Voters
October
25th (Monday), 8-9 PM
Debate with Bob Murto
Candidates Forum
Shepherd University,
Byrd Center for Legislative Studies
East Campus off King St. (Campus
Map)
October
30th (Monday), 9:05 - 10:00 AM
John Doyle on Eastern Panhandle Talk Radio
WRNR AM
740
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A Coal Baron is Trying to Buy Your Vote
We wish that this was a joke, but it is serious. Don Blankenship
is Chairman, CEO, and President of Massey
Energy, the fourth largest coal producer in the United States.
He is spending millions of dollars of his own money to try to
buy a different West Virginia legislature.
He
has targeted Delegate John Doyle (among others) for replacement.
He has purchased anti-Doyle TV ads, mailers, and we're not
sure what else. He is spending a lot of money to defeat John,
supposedly "for the children."
Blankenships
first mailer implies that John Doyle supports keeping West
Virginias tax on food. His second mailer implies that
John wants to reduce penalties for drunk driving.
This
is baloney. John has publicly stated that he wants to eliminate
the food tax, and find a fairer way to balance the budget.
He helped to strengthen the law against drunk driving by voting
to reduce the blood alcohol limit for drivers from .1 to .08.
The
coal baron will probably shovel a few more misleading last
minute ads attacking John Doyle into your mailbox and onto
your television and radio. We wont be able to respond
to them all, nor should we need to. You can decide for yourself
whether the coal baron is trying to defeat John Doyle to benefit
Jefferson County, or to benefit his own pocketbook.
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About the "Drunk Driving" Attack Ads
Coal baron Don Blankenship is sponsoring ads that accuse John
Doyle of trying to let drunk drivers get off easy. The ads
are wrong and offensive.
Is there any justification for the ads? Well, the House of
Delegates did indeed pass House Bill 4308, and the bill concerns
drunk driving, and John Doyle was part of the majority of
delegates who supported it. However, the bill does not reduce
penalties for drunk driving, or raise the legal blood alcohol
limit for drivers. It does not let drunk drivers off the hook.
The bill just ensures that someone charged with drunk driving,
who pleads "nolo contendere" (no contest), will
be given an administrative hearing before a neutral magistrate.
That's it. Bill 4308 just guarantees a hearing.
To read the bill itself, click here.
The bill's legislative history is here.
To read more about the plea of nolo contendere, click here.
Bill 4308 became necessary after the West Virginia Division
of Motor Vehicles decided on its own to start interpreting
a nolo contendere plea as a guilty plea. While the two pleas
are similar, they are not quite identical, and never have
been. The "nolo" plea has been a component of American
Common Law from our nation's founding, and was part of English
Common Law before that. The DMV simply does not have the authority
to rewrite such settled law, and deprive citizens of their
"due process." Bill 4308 made that clear to the
DMV.
Two years ago John Doyle voted on REAL drunk driving legislation.
The tougher .08 blood alcohol standard is now state law, in
part because of John's vote.
So, has John Doyle really tried to let drunk drivers get off
easy? The answer should be obvious.
Here's a harder, more important question:
Why
is a coal baron inserting himself into Jefferson County politics
by running offensive, misleading ads against our delegate?
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John Doyle raided the teachers' retirement fund!
Or so our opponent claims. This makes a nice soundbite, but
the real story is more complicated.
The West Virginia teachers' retirement fund has the largest
unfunded liability of any public employee retirement fund
in the country. It is a very serious problem for the state.
The shortfall is the result of mismanagement of the fund about
20 years ago, during a period when John Doyle was not in the
legislature. From 1985 to 1989 teachers and other public employees
were given enhanced retirement benefits instead of raises.
At that time, paying for raises would have required a tax
increase, but promising future benefits cost nothing. The
governor and legislature decided that "costs nothing"
sounded better than "tax increase." So, the unpleasantness
of paying for the new benefits was pushed into the future.
A
partial solution to the problem was attempted about ten years
ago. A "defined contribution" teachers' retirement
fund was created as an alternative to the original "defined
benefit" fund. The new fund is still operating, and is
fiscally sound.
Still, the substantial unfunded liability of the old fund
was never solved. Now, the future has arrived, and with it
the obligation to pay for those promised benefits.
The legislature was forced to make some hard choices. It simply
had to find a way to pay for the the old fund. Combining the
old and new funds was proposed as a possible partial solution.
Delegate Doyle initially opposed combining the funds, but
in time he concluded that all the alternatives were worse.
So, he reluctantly supported the legislation, which passed
the House. In addition, during the past two years he has supported
measures that should provide almost a billion dollars towards
teachers' retirement. This difficult problem is slowly being
solved.
As
John expected, some beneficiaries of the new pension fund
made legal objections to combining it with the old. The matter
is now before the West Virginia Supreme Court. While John's
opponents claim that the Supreme Court overruled the legislature's
decision, that has not occurred. The court has simply held
the fund combination in abeyance until it rules on the case.
The next time you hear John's political opponents refer to
his "raiding the teachers' retirement fund," please
listen carefully. Check whether or not they bother to mention
the facts above, and whether or not they propose a better
solution.
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