270West Virginia Senate President Bill Cole's spokesman said Monday that Cole "will travel throughout West Virginia and beyond...." to talk about his legislative agenda that limits workers' rights.
And, boy, did he go beyond, according to David Gutman of the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
Cole flew to a world far away from West Virginia when he traveled this weekend to the luxurious Esmeralda resort, which describes itself as creating “an atmosphere of luxury and relaxation unmatched” in Palm Springs, California. Read the rest of this item here.
270Across America, corporate interests are taking aim at local government.
With Congress gridlocked and a majority of state legislatures controlled by right-wing interests, cities have become laboratories of democracy for progressive policies like a higher minimum wage, LGBTQ protections, or parental leave.
In response, corporate interests and groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have increasingly been turning to state "preemption" measures—some of them unprecedentedly aggressive--to override an array of progressive policy gains at the city or county level. Read the rest of this item here.
270West Virginia is the latest front in a national battle to undermine worker rights bankrolled by the billionaire Koch brothers.
The effort in West Virginia to enact a Right to Work law (Senate Bill 1) and repeal the state's prevailing wage (HB4005) is following the same playbook used in Michigan and Wisconsin, involving a similar cast of Koch-backed out-of-state characters to drive the agenda.
