The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

August 15, 2011

Wyoming clerk walking to Charleston ... again

By Sarah Plummer Register-Herald Reporter

From time to time, David “Bugs” Stover, Wyoming County circuit clerk and president of the West Virginia Circuit Clerk Association, gets a bee in his cap and just has to walk to Charleston.

This time Stover wants to present the idea of a one-delegate district to the governor, a model that would solve some of the key issues involved in current redistricting plans, he said.

The current plans are overly concerned with keeping the number of delegates solid, he said.

“But the number is not solid. The Constitution allows the Legislature to change those things ... and the number has changed in the past. We can’t assume the number is solid and we have to fix redistricting to make 100 delegates,” he explained.

Current plans rip counties apart, and members of the community do not know their delegates and many do not feel represented, he stated. Currently, according to the population of the state, each delegate should represent about 18,530 individuals. With 78,000, Raleigh County should have six delegates, one per district within the county.

“But we have to decide that we would like the representatives to actually know the people and the people to know them. And when the population changes, like it just did, and you have to redraw the lines, you have to decide you are going to draw the lines, not to destroy one part or another, and not to make sure all these people get in and these don’t, but by contiguous areas. Most of those delegates are then going to come from right there. Some districts may have to share one delegate, but not many,” he continued.

Stover suggested the number of delegates should be increased comparatively to population.

The biggest adversary to the one-delegate distract will be that, with more legislators, the cost per legislative session will go up. An increase, he said, can be equalized by decreasing the legislative session from 60 to 30 days.

“We all know the first few weeks they don’t do anything anyway. That is why they are so busy the last few weeks.”

Stover passed through Raleigh County Sunday on his 130-mile jaunt to Charleston. He hoped to spend Sunday night in Pax and make it to Charleston for a Tuesday morning meeting, he said.

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