MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Monongalia County Republican Executive Committee wants to increase public engagement with their state leaders as part of the 2025 legislative session.
Committee Chair Dale Sparks announced that they will host weekly legislative update Zoom calls starting on Sunday, February 16, as part of an effort to reach out to voters as laws and regulations are created in Charleston. The calls will take place every Sunday up until the start of April at 8 p.m., where local leaders will take an hour of their weekend to discuss legislation currently being discussed at the state capitol. This will include a chance for voters, regardless of party, to ask questions regarding what should be expected in the coming weeks.
“Right now we have eight scheduled, and they’ll all be on Sunday evenings from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.,” said Sparks. “And the first one we have scheduled for Sunday, February 16, is featuring (State Senator) Mike Oliverio and Delegate Joe Statler,” he said.
The first Monongalia County Republican Executive Committee Weekly Legislative Update Call will include Oliverio and Statler as a way to introduce the new initiative. According to Sparks, each call will feature different legislators, policy experts, and statewide leaders each week, where they will discuss the latest legislative developments with a chance to directly ask lawmakers who vote in Charleston their perspective on a certain issue. Along with Oliverio and Statler, Sparks expects other state leaders to take part in the weekly calls throughout the legislative session.
“We’ll try to get different legislative people in, whether it’s (Delegate) Geno (Chiarelli) that’s down there and (Delegate) David McCormick, who’s in Charleston,” said Sparks. “So we’ll be relying on those Republicans to get updates from them,” he said.
According to Sparks, the weekly Zoom calls with members of the Republican Party who were elected to represent Monongalia County stem from a multi-year effort to increase GOP activity in one of the strongest Democrat party bases in West Virginia. This includes multiple Zoom calls that took place during COVID-19-related social distancing periods as well as voter registration rallies that took place in the months ahead of the 2024 primary election. With the new evolution of the calls that began four years ago about to be set into motion, Sparks calls it a culmination of years of GOP efforts to increase visibility with the public.
“I don’t recall us, in the last four years, having anything quite this aggressive,” said Sparks. “This is part of our try to break out (and reach voters) and get the public more involved,” said Sparks.
The Monongalia County Republican Executive Committee plans to host more public events with lawmakers in the coming months along with the legislative session update calls. This will include more voter registration rallies that are scheduled to take place during the spring as well as their annual Reagan Dinner, which Sparks hopes to have a nationally renowned guest attend when it takes place in August. With only a 1,200-voter difference in Democrat to Republican registrations in Monongalia County, Sparks hopes these initiatives will reflect in voter support in the near future.
“We want to do more things like that, where we can have the candidates, or we have a voter registration rally,” said Sparks. “Because voter registration is very important in this county,” he said.