{"id":4150,"date":"2019-08-27T12:52:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T16:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4150"},"modified":"2019-08-27T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T16:55:32","slug":"aaron-hackett-paul-espinosa-and-the-rockwool-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4150","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Hackett Paul Espinosa and the Rockwool Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Jefferson County, West Virginia, there are three House of Delegates districts &#8212; 65, 66 and 67.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tW7zYXqi0B0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the 2018 election, two of those districts &#8212; 65 and 67 &#8212; flipped from Republican to Democrat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One word &#8212; Rockwool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Danish multinational\u2019s decision to put a heavy industrial facility across from an elementary school in the middle of a booming residential community upended politics in Jefferson County and the Eastern Panhandle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the 2018 election, Sammi Brown (D-65) defeated incumbent Jill Upson (R) 3,534 (53 percent) to 3,175 (47 percent).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And John Doyle (D-67) defeated incumbent Riley Moore 4,214 (56 percent) to 3,320 (44 percent).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both Doyle and Brown stood with a growing anti-Rockwool resistance within the county.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2020, another Jefferson County House of Delegates race will revolve around Rockwool. This time, it\u2019s because Rockwool has hired House Majority Whip Paul Espinosa (R-66).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In July, <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4141\">Rockwool hired Espinosa as a community affairs manager.<\/a> Rockwool and Espinosa have refused to disclose Espinosa\u2019s salary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aaron Hackett is running against Rockwool and Espinosa in 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While registered voters in Jefferson County as a whole are evenly split between Republicans (13,065 (33 percent)),\u00a0 Democrats (12,702 (32 percent)) and Independents or third party (14,291 (35 percent)), in the 66th District, where Hackett will face off against Espinosa, there are slightly more Republicans &#8212; with Republicans having 37 percent of the registered voters (4,726), Democrats with 27 percent (3,464) and Independents and third party with 36 percent (4,630).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Hackett says that in the 2020 election, the Rockwool issue will confound traditional politics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is an issue that crosses party lines,\u201d Hackett told <em>This Week in Morgan County with Russell Mokhiber.<\/em> \u201cThere are plenty of people who are Republican, Independent and Libertarian, Democrat &#8212; who oppose Rockwool. It\u2019s not a partisan issue at all. It\u2019s just people who are concerned about their community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hackett says he agrees with Brown when she said that when Rockwool hired Espinosa, \u201ca corporation bought a legislator.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHe\u2019s essentially being paid to be the face of this corporation in the community,\u201d Hackett said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to use the political network that he\u2019s built over his almost eight years as a legislator to the benefit of Rockwool. And that is just immoral.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI wouldn\u2019t work for Rockwool. I wouldn\u2019t work for Big Pharma. I wouldn\u2019t work for big corporations like that. I just wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Espinosa was invited to be on This Week in Morgan County to discuss issues with Hackett, but Espinosa declined the offer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think it\u2019s a little premature to engage in political debates as the official filing period for the West Virginia House of Delegates doesn\u2019t begin until January, 2020 and of course there\u2019s the matter of securing our respective party nominations,\u201d Espinosa said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hackett said he was willing to come back to debate Espinosa if Espinosa agrees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Espinosa did appear last week on WRNR\u2019s Eastern Panhandle Talk with Rob Mario and David Welch. It was a fifteen minute interview and the Rockwool issue was not raised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That won\u2019t be the case going forward as Espinosa is now inextricably tied to Rockwool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For all intents and purposes, if Hackett secures the Democratic nomination (and there are no other announced candidates at this point), it will be Hackett versus Rockwool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">May the best man win.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Jefferson County, West Virginia, there are three House of Delegates districts &#8212; 65, 66 and 67. In the 2018 election, two of those districts &#8212; 65 and 67 &#8212; flipped from Republican to Democrat.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 One word &#8212; Rockwool. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4150\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4153,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4150\/revisions\/4153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}