The West Virginia Chamber is pleased to present its Scorecard for the first session of the 86th West Virginia Legislature.

Over a dozen bills that have an impact on economic development,
job creation and education outcomes were used to create this annual scorecard. A working group of West Virginia Chamber of Commerce members participated in a thorough
vetting of these issues, and helped provide guidance on the “weight” each vote should have on a legislator’s final score.

In addition to the actual votes taken by legislators, Chamber members elected to add two additional categories that are used to determine a legislator’s final score. The working group of Chamber members went through all 134 members of the West Virginia Legislature and assessed each of the following two categories:

Business Engagement measures how receptive a legislator is to the viewpoint of the Chamber and its members. Qualities such as proactively reaching out, receptiveness of Chamber advocacy, and professionalism of interactions were all examined by a Chamber working group for each legislator. A legislator could be awarded a “+”, “-” or “N/A”, and that score was treated as a triple-weighted vote. In the case of “N/A”, there is no impact on a legislator’s score.

Leadership Qualities measures how a legislator works to advance or hinder the mission of making West Virginia a better place to live, work and raise a family. Floor speeches, actions in committee, and bill sponsorships are examples of what goes into this metric. Like the Business Engagement metric, a legislator could be awarded a “+”, “-” or “N/A”, and that score was treated as a triple-weighted vote. In the case of “N/A”, there is no impact on a legislator’s score.

The bulk of a legislator’s score is determined by his/her voting record on the bills and amendments that were scored by the West Virginia Chamber. The inclusion of these additional metrics, however, was a desire of Chamber members to help more accurately identify which legislators are or are not pro-jobs and pro-economic development.

This Scorecard allows you to set filters and sort legislators based on district, county, party, “Jobs Friendly %” or House and Senate. If you have questions about the Scorecard, please reach out to Brian Dayton at [email protected].

To read a description of each bill that is “scored,” please click HERE

To see individual votes cast by legislators on each issue, please click HERE